Modified Park Hopper Option Returning January 1st to Walt Disney World
This article covers the newly released details about the Park Hopper option returning to Walt Disney World in 2021.
Walt Disney World will be kicking off the new year with a big change to the current guest experience with the return of the Park Hopper option beginning January 1, 2021. Park hopping has been a popular addition to standard Disney tickets for many years and a benefit of several Annual Pass options, but since the reopening of Walt Disney World on July 11, 2020, guests have only been able to visit one park per day using the Park Pass reservation system. Now that Disney World has been open again for several months and new health and safety measures have successfully been implemented, we are happy to see that a slightly modified Park Hopper option will once again be available for guests with an eligible ticket or pass!
According to Disney’s official announcement, guests who wish to take advantage of this Park Hopper option will need to have a “ticket or annual pass with Park Hopper benefits”, which we assume will mean that Disney will begin selling Park Hopper ticket upgrades again (since the reopening guests have only been able to purchase tickets that allow entry to one park per day). This also means that guests who purchase Annual Passes that don’t already have a Park Hopper option – like the EPCOT After 4 pass – still won’t be able to park hop, but anyone who has an Annual Park that does include a Park Hopper benefit will be able to visit more than one park per day.
There are a few modifications to the Park Hopper option that will be going into effect on January 1st, and these will continue for the foreseeable future (no end date to these modifications has been announced at this time). As the infographic shared by Disney Parks Blog shows above, guests will still need to make a Park Pass reservation and visit that first park before they are able to visit a second park. At this time, Disney has stated that “a park reservation is not required after the first park“, but this might change in the future, so keep an eye on this if you’re planning on visiting more than one park per day in the new year.
Specific Park Hopper hours will also be implemented for the time being which are subject to change in the future, but for right now guests will be able to visit another park beginning at 2PM and continuing until park closing time. This is likely due to the fact many guests visit the parks in the morning and early afternoon hours and then leave in the mid-afternoon and evening, allowing more space for new guests to enter later in the day. Since these Park Hopper hours may change at some point (and likely will), Disney has stated that guests will be able to check DisneyWorld.com/ParkHours and the My Disney Experience app in order to know the exact time that they will be able to visit another park on a specific day.
As always, capacity limits will affect whether or not you’ll be able to park hop to a certain park on occasion. Based on the Park Reservation system used within the last many months, this will probably be more of an issue with Hollywood Studios which seems to get the closest to hitting capacity (mostly on the weekends) on a somewhat regular basis. This will also possibly become more of a concern once park capacity limits are increased in the future (it appears Walt Disney World is currently operating at about 25% capacity from what we’ve seen and heard), but we are expecting that park hopping will be available much of the time for most of the parks so long as it’s not a holiday or some sort of anniversary celebration at one of the parks. Things are ever changing at Walt Disney World so one never really knows what is going to happen, but that’s what we are hoping at least!
That covers Disney’s big announcement about the Park Hopper option returning to Walt Disney World in 2021!
Take a look at these articles for more info and news related to the Disney Parks:
As always, we encourage you to visit Disney’s website for all official information and to make sure that none of this information has changed since this article was written. Disney frequently makes changes and updates to their parks and offerings. Because of this, the information in this post was current at the time of publishing and is subject to change at any moment. We update our website and articles as often as we can, but it is always a good idea to double check Disney’s official website before planning your trip or visiting the Walt Disney World Resort.
Last Updated on November 20, 2020