To hop or not to hop… that is the question! - Orlando / Florida Guide
Florida Guide > Disney Parks
At the beginning of 2005 Disney introduced a new way of buying tickets. This replaced the old system of Park Hopper and Park Hopper Plus tickets, which have now been replaced by Base Tickets plus a variety of add-ons.
You choose the number of days you wish to visit a Disney theme park which can be from an individual daily ticket up to one covering ten days with a number of variables in between, and then start with a Base Ticket for the number of days you want to visit the parks.
Then you can start to think about add on options, which provide a combination of the following:
· Park hopping, where you are able to visit more than one park on the same day
· Add on option, which allows you to visit other Disney venues outside the theme parks such as Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.
· No expiry, - as intimated these ticket never expire.
Those tickets without an expiry are more expensive but can be used indefinitely, so for example if you have unused days at the end of your holiday they will still be valid next time you visit…and there lies the question… are you planning on returning to Florida and, if so, when is that likely to be?
Remember the tickets are personal to you and cannot be transferred to anyone else as both Disney and Anheuser-Busch (who own Sea World and Busch Gardens) operate a fingerprint identity entrance scheme. Therefore, on the assumption that your holiday is for the usual two weeks, and you are not a regular Florida visitor, it is our opinion that if you can plan your itinerary well and allocate a specific amount of time to enjoy the theme parks, then those tickets with a 14 day expiry represent the best value for money.
Now do you hop or not? Hopping allows you to visit several theme parks on the same day but they are, of course, more expensive that the Base Ticket equivalent, but do have benefits. Imagine you arrived at the Magic Kingdom to find it was packed and the wait times for Space Mountain and Splash Mountain were two hours. With a Base Ticket you would have no choice but to tough it out with the crowds, but with a hopper you could easily take Disney Transportation over to Epcot or Hollywood Studios and try your luck there. And, if you still have some energy left you always go back to Magic Kingdom later in the day when the crowds may have subsided.
Hoppers represent excellent value and it might be worth taking a look at the seven day Base Ticket with hopping which comes in only a few dollars more than the three day equivalent…. but the choice is yours! !
Author: Geoff Leach (Villa link: click here)
Other articles by this author: click here
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Page added on: 2 October 2007
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