What is park hopping?

What is park hopping?

The Walt Disney World Resort is made up of four parks: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. If you purchase a Park Hopper option with your ticket, you will be able to visit more than one of these parks per day. Park hopping is a great option for exploring the parks, and gives you increased flexibility for your trip.

You can start your day at any one of the four parks, and then head to any of the other parks when you would like to later in the day. One of my favorite ways to park hop is to start the day in one park, head back to my resort for a mid day rest, and then head to a different park for more rides and dinner in the evening. You can even visit all four parks in one day!

Do I need a park reservation to hop?

You do not need park-specific reservations if you have date-based tickets. Certain ticket types, such as student group tickets or annual passholders, require theme park reservations. For these types of tickets, you would simply scan into the park you reserved first, then hop to any of the other three parks when you are ready.

How does park hopping work with Lightning Lane reservations?

If you are booking Lightning Lane reservations, you will simply start your reservations in your first park of the day. Once you tap into your first Lightning Lane of the day, you can begin to make reservations for rides in subsequent parks. What might this look like? Let’s say you want to start your day at Magic Kingdom and make your way to EPCOT later in the day for dinner reservations. You could book your first Lightning Lane reservations for Magic Kingdom — let’s say you get morning return times for Jungle Cruise, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, and the Haunted Mansion. Once you tap into any of those selections, you can then begin to book Lightning Lanes for rides in EPCOT. You are able to make your future selections from your current park, and simply head over to the next park in time for your return windows.