All-Day Park Hopping Returning to Disney World in Early 2024
Walt Disney World has announced that the 2 p.m. Park Hopping rule will be retired and all-day Park Hopper benefits will be restored in 2024. This post covers the full details about the change, plus a recap of other guest-friendly changes taking effect around the same time and our commentary about why Walt Disney World is doing this now.
Beginning January 9, 2024, guests with a ticket with Park Hopper benefits or an Annual Pass will be able to once again visit another Walt Disney World theme park at ANY TIME OF DAY during park hours. As a reminder, since returning in 2021, Park Hopper access has only been available after 2 p.m. each day. Now, there will be no more waiting!
The only limit going forward will be capacity limitations. This means that, in theory, you could get turned away upon arrival if your destination is already hit its attendance limit–but that was true even with the 2 p.m. Park Hopping rule. To my recollection, this has only ever been an issue once in the post-reopening era–on Magic Kingdom for a few hours on October 1, on the 50th Anniversary.
Otherwise, Park Hopping has not once been restricted, including on incredibly busy days, like New Year’s Eve, Christmas, or Thanksgiving. It’s important to stress this reality because getting turned away is a common concern among readers, but it just has not been happening aside from the actual 50th Anniversary day, and even then, Park Hopping resumed after only a few hours of being paused.
We’d expect this to remain the case going forward with the return of all-day Park Hopping at Walt Disney World. Although the fear will likely continue, the actual ‘threat’ only exists during the aforementioned peak weeks and anniversary dates. Even then, Walt Disney World uses capacity closures and prioritizes on-site guests for admission. (You really don’t want to be there for a capacity closure, regardless.)
Turning back to the official details of this news, Walt Disney World has shared that on days when theme park reservations are required for Annual Passholders and certain non-dated tickets, Passholders and guests will be able to take advantage of the updates to Park Hopper access after visiting their first park. For example, if a Passholder has a reservation at EPCOT and enters the park at 9 a.m. for a quick ride or two, they can then head to another park right after.
There’s more good news for Annual Passholders: “Good-to-go days” will begin sometime in January 2024. With “good-to-go days,” the theme park reservation calendar will be updated periodically and will show Passholders select days when they may visit a Disney World theme park without needing a theme park reservation (blockout dates will continue to apply like they do today).
There have been a lot of recently restored perks and upcoming changes to the guest experience at Walt Disney World, so let’s quickly recap before turning to the commentary:
Now Available at Walt Disney World
- Complimentary self-parking is back for Disney Resort hotel stays
- Annual Passholders may visit the parks after 2 p.m. without needing a theme park reservation, except on Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom
- Digital downloads of select PhotoPass attraction photos taken in the park on the day of visit now included in the purchase of Genie+ service
- Parking trams returned to all four Walt Disney World theme parks
Coming January 9, 2024
- Bringing back all-day Park Hopper access during park hours
- Theme park reservations no longer required for date-based tickets (our standard ticket option)
- Disney Dining Plans available once again for Disney Resort hotel guests as part of a package
Those recap lists are via Walt Disney World, and I’m providing them both as a good reminder of what has or will changed and also to highlight what’s missing: advance-booking of Lightning Lanes. In this week’s update to our Guide Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lanes FAQ, we discussed the likelihood that pre-booking Lightning Lanes might not start until later in the year.
Although today’s news is not conclusive and certainly doesn’t confirm anything, it does strongly suggest to us that Walt Disney World still has not firmed up the specifics on advance-booking of Lightning Lanes. No real surprise to us, and we would recommend reading something into this.
Suffice to say, if you’re planning a trip to Walt Disney World in early 2024 in anticipation of pre-arrival ride reservations…you might want to adjust expectations or that or delay until after Spring Break. (I don’t have any insight into an actual date, but I’d be absolutely shocked if they ‘stress tested’ a new system when crowds are heavy. But they do like money and there’s more of it to be made during March, so who knows!)
Turning to commentary about the all-day Park Hopper news, it’s about time.
Since Walt Disney World announced that the Park Pass reservations are being retired for most guests in January 2024, we’ve been hopeful that the same would happen with Park Hopping rules. It wouldn’t have made sense for the change to occur prior to then, as that would’ve effectively rendered reservations meaningless from a capacity and crowd management perspective, as guests could’ve circumvented the system via Park Hopping.
Nevertheless, with each passing month that a rollback of Park Hopping rules was not announced, our fears have increased that it wouldn’t happen. That’s because there’s another big reason for retaining reservations–to “force” people to spend a full day at Animal Kingdom. Already, there’s a mass exodus at around 1 pm. If Park Hopping rules ended, that would move forward to 11 am and a non-negligible number of guests would combine EPCOT and Animal Kingdom into a single day.
It might seem far-fetched for Walt Disney World to retain Park Hopping rules for that specific scenario, but it wouldn’t be without precedent. Last year, Walt Disney World experimented with using park reservations to push people towards Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. They did this by limiting reservations for Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios even during the off-season, thereby leaving EPCOT and Animal Kingdom as the only open options.
It’s unclear to what extent this worked, but our guess is not very well. As we pointed out at the time, the average potential single day visitor to Walt Disney World is not going to view “The Big Golf Ball Park” or “The Zoo with Rides and Blue Aliens” as comparable alternatives to the iconic castle park or “The One with Star Trek Wars and Toy Story.” Given that Disney dropped this and park reservations for single day tickets pretty quickly, it’s safe to say it was counterproductive. Zero surprise there.
People not wanting to dedicate full days at EPCOT or Animal Kingdom is a problem of Disney’s own doing. If people don’t want to spend a full day at Animal Kingdom, the solution isn’t to force them to do so. Just as the solution last year wasn’t to artificially restrict reservation availability to “nudge” crowds towards EPCOT and Animal Kingdom.
The solution is to build more rides, restore entertainment, and create a new nighttime spectacular. EPCOT has done a much better job of that, but it’s a somewhat similar story there and the sea of construction walls. (So the “solution” there would’ve been building faster and filling in the Giant EPCOT Dirt Pit™️ years ago!)
With that mini-rant out of the way, the restoration of all-day Park Hopping is obviously good–even if overdue–news. There’s probably no need to explain the why of this, as many Walt Disney World fans have been clamoring for a return of full Park Hopper privileges for the last few years. It seems to be one of those topics about which some fans are very passionate and others could not care less, as they either never Park Hop or seldom do so early in the day.
We fall on the “aggressive Park Hopper” end of the spectrum. We love to switch parks when we hit a wall in one after riding the rope drop wave of crowds, for Advance Dining Reservations, or for a variety of other strategic purposes. So it’ll be nice for us to once again resume doing all of this.
Pre-closure, one of the big things we had been testing was a plan for doing Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the crack of dawn for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and then racing over to EPCOT for rope drop. Obviously, that’s been rendered obsolete by a number of changes, including but not limited to the end of the virtual queue for that ride and opening times for both parks.
While there’s nothing that extreme I can think of when all-day Park Hopping returns in January 2024, bouncing between Disney’s Hollywood Studios and EPCOT will once again be the biggest, non-obvious strategic use case. (The most obvious option is above–leaving Animal Kingdom around 11 am and picking up EPCOT after that.)
There are a few different reasons for this. The first is that, on a good day, you can accomplish a ton at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the first few hours of the day, especially if you’re one of the first thousand or so people through the turnstiles for Early Entry. I Did Every Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Before 11am Via Standby Lines offers a very unrepresentative but nevertheless illustrative example of this.
The opposite is also true. On a bad and breakdown-filled day, it can be very smart to cut your losses and leave DHS if multiple attractions are unavailable. Another recent post, Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Report ~ Tinseltown Breakdowns!, offers a look at how that can play out.
Those are good “companion” pieces to one another that illustrate the range of outcomes during Early Entry and rope drop at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. That’s helpful in both setting expectations and showing you how to pivot and make lemonade out of lemons when things don’t go your way to start the day.
The reason pivoting can be smart in both circumstances is because Disney’s Hollywood Studios typically sees its wait times peak by mid-morning. So whether you accomplish a little or a lot, you’re more likely to hit a wall at DHS than the other parks. And unless it’s a really slow day, you might really hit that wall hard–with wait times skyrocketing to the point that they’re discouraging.
The silver lining in this has been, and will likely continue to be, that mid-morning crowds at Disney’s Hollywood Studios are discouraging for everyone, not just you. As a result, we’ve seen a fairly early exodus from DHS that has (somewhat surprisingly) continued even after Fantasmic has returned. It’s not nearly as bad as Animal Kingdom, but the end result is still that wait times are noticeably lower in the late afternoon and evening at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Prior to the restoration of all-day Park Hopping, your options to take advantage of this dynamic were to arrive early and take a midday pool/nap/what break and return in the late afternoon, to stack Genie+ ride reservations for the middle of the day, or to focus on stage shows during those busy hours. All workable approaches, but the restoration of all-day Park Hopping adds another option to your toolkit: bouncing over to the International Gateway entrance of EPCOT and spending the late morning and afternoon exploring World Showcase.
Another advantage that this offers that’s paradoxically obvious and underrated is with difficult Advance Dining Reservations. This is obvious because so many people already make their Walt Disney World vacation plans around tough ADRs. Restoring full-day Park Hopping opens up more possibilities for doing ‘difficult’ lunches in other parks–or just building your itineraries around restaurant preferences. There are a ton of fans who do precisely this, and that includes us.
This is potentially underrated because Advance Dining Reservations have been significantly easier over the last several months so this has become less of a pressing priority…but that likely won’t last. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, the return of the Disney Dining Plan in 2024 is likely going to make many ADRs suddenly become much more competitive.
Our strong suspicion is that this dynamic will be most pronounced at character dining experiences–such as Akershus Royal Banquet Hall and Minnie’s Seasonal Dine–for a number of different reasons beyond the scope of this post. (See our Top 10 Tips for Difficult ADRs at Walt Disney World.)
Obviously, there are many other scenarios where bouncing around earlier in the day can be useful. Everyone who is a Park Hopping Power User probably has their own specific use cases–and this includes us–but they’re mostly pretty niche. The big ones are ‘accomplishing’ Animal Kingdom early and doing another park the rest of the day or bouncing between Disney’s Hollywood Studios and EPCOT for a variety of reasons.
It also helps that transportation between DHS and EPCOT is far and away the easiest of any two parks at Walt Disney World. This is thanks to the Skyliner gondolas, boat service, and walkway–making these two parks the perfect pair! That’s especially true for repeat visitors; we could easily see doing the two parks over the course of 2-3 days, and not once spending 11 am to 3 pm at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited for the return of all-day Park Hopping once again at Walt Disney World? Does this move the needle for you, or would you not change parks before 2 p.m. (or at all) regardless? If you’re a Park Hopping Power User, what’s your ideal or niche use case for aggressively changing parks at Walt Disney World? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We visited DW last in 2021. We did not mind the Genie+ substitution for free fast pass but were very frustrated by the number of break downs for popular rides when we had a LL for that ride. Happened at Test Track and ROR which we were never able to ride as the closure occurred later in the day and we were just too tired to wait for the ride to reopen (not to mention the number of LL riders that exploded exponentially for every minute the ride was closed). Disney needs to do better with scheduling maintenance during non park hours or hiring better technicians that are able to insure the most complicated rides can stay open when guests are there.
This resonates with me, as I also feel like a restoration of quality is the missing piece for me with visiting Disney. Even more than anything new (except maybe in improving the Dirt Pit area or otherwise filling in with diverting B/C/D inspiring EPCOT attractions), I just want things to run well and be kept up! I’m not really a thrill ride person and atmosphere and little delights go a long way towards making me satisfied with the experience.
We love Hopper and always purchase it, but we know this will come at a price — waiting for the increase, just like recently announced price increases for parking, memory maker, etc. Also, to your point about “Park Hopping rules ended, that would move forward to 11 am and a non-negligible number of guests would combine EPCOT and Animal Kingdom into a single day” — agree, and hopefully the new Indiana Jones ride/theme can bring some much needed new news to AK. Pandora is amazing to see, but honestly, I’m not sure it has the same draw as Indiana Jones (or Toy Story or Star Wars at HS). And the whole front of EPCOT is just a hot mess — not appealing at all.
I put this great news on the same level as the Brickers having a baby.
Very happy about both.
Of course, since I’ll never see your baby in person, hear it coo or hold it, I’m going to have to move switching parks at 11 am up a notch over your pride and joy.
I think you understand.
I mean how excited were you when my daughter’s one woman show was selected for the fringe festival in Scotland? See?
On a more serious note, regarding Parks being full, I remember being told that if a park is full BUT you have dining reservations they will let you in.
Of course you have to really have dining reservations and they will check that out.
All day park hopping is a relief. We like to use the last day of our trip for whatever we missed or want to do again, so it will be really nice not to have to kill any time waiting for 2:00 PM. I hope they DON’T bring back pre-booking ride reservations before our next trip, though. I want an Individual Lightning Lane for TRON after dark, and I think that will be a LOT easier to get if I’m not also competing with everybody whose booking window starts before mine!
Well, this Power Park Hopper is thrilled to hear the news… tempered by the absurd delay for this and the revocation of the reservation system. But dare I say that the ability to Plus, hit a water park, an ADR in one park, spend much of the day in a second park, then hit the fireworks in a 3rd park has returned?
As has been mentioned, the ability to use the monorail as transport from the Crescent Lake area, walking through Epcot, catching the monorail to the TTC and then either going to MK or the loop resorts, and vice versa, has returned. Throw in the Skyliner route, and you now have 3 parks linked (walking included).
Now to bring back either sending purchases to the front of the park or better still back to your hotel would be the best thing for them to add back in next. I can’t tell you how many things I didn’t buy because I didn’t want to carry it around all day or trek to the front to drop in a locker… they’re leaving money on the table there!
Never understood why People would pay extra to Park Hop.
First of all, It is Expensive. To do it every day x 4 days+ it is a luxury most can no afford.
I prefer to take my time and soak up each park fully. Go back to the hotel for nap/pool. Come back in evening.
For us, single park days x 3-4 days is much cheaper than doing a 3-4 day Park Hopper. And for MK, no one needs Park Hopper bc there’s enough to see/do there.
To me it’s because certain parks don’t offer a full day’s worth of entertainment for me or I just want to do a couple of things at a park. If park hopper didn’t exist I might not ever visit Animal Kingdom. I don’t think it’s worth a full day with its current lineup and pricing.
It’s good to have if something goes wrong and you miss your must-do ride or show. Then you can just try again another day. Is that worth the extra expense? Probably not for everybody. There are always trade-offs.
As Beach Clubbers, I’m thrilled we can cut through Epcot to access the Monorail again! Not the most convenient way to get to MK, but our preferred transpo to the loop hotels, which we frequent often.
Any idea for what might change for 7am lightning lane booking / VQ bookings once reservations go away in January?
Any thoughts regarding the impact that the restoration of all-day park hopping will have on joining the 1:00 virtual queues?
The need for park reservations for AP holders but not for date based ticket holders makes if very hard for planning for us. My wife and I have APs (have had for years)and are going with our son’s family in March. They will have “park hopper” date based 7 day tickets and we will have APs. Where they can go anywhere on any day, we can’t. “We” need to plan which park we will plan to visit first and then park hop. With a larger party like we will have it makes it very hard to be flexible in our choices of what to visit each day. Weather, how may rides we got on the prior day and several other factors impact our daily desires. If Disney wants to keep the sale of APs even at the increased rates, they should remove the Park Reservation requirement for APs like date based tickets beginning Jan 9th. Unless they do we (AP holders) are second class compared to date based tickets.
I keep seeing this come up as a negative, and I’m curious about it. I, (an AP holder) often show up in Orlando without park reservations, and decide which park I’m going to the day-of. Then, I make my park pass reservation while taking transportation to that park. I haven’t seen any parks be unavailable to book for a long time. Maybe I’m wrong about this for peak-season, though…I’d be interested in seeing some legacy data about AP reservation availability.
Yay! Great news. You nailed it with the Hollywood Studios dynamic – the last three times we went, we left HS by 10:45am because it was a mess (and we rocked our Genie+ game). It’s nice to know that a quick Epcot visit is open to us in addition to the pool break.
Apropos nothing – Aggressive park hopping is a great match with stroller naps! In the old days, I’d go from HS to Magic Kingdom via the International Gateway and the Monorail, and the kids would sleep from Star Tours until the start of the Festival of Fantasy parade on Main Street. Disney heaven!!
I love the fact that park hopping is not restricted. I have not been back to Disney since all of the changes around covid. I felt it quickly turned into paying more for less. The last time we went was 2019. Not being able to stall forever, we are planning a Jan 2024 trip. Everything gets more expensive year to year and with Disney and their high standard of quality I can see why the increases are larger. But so many increases across the board AND removing benefits for staying on site put a bad taste in my mouth. It warms me to happen to have booked the middle of January and then to hear about some restrictions lifted Jan 9th. I was just fussing about the 2:00 PH time 4 days ago. Then today I read this. Made my day. Biggest benefit is we are going to try to ride tron twice. It also helps for ADR. This did make me feel empowered though. I will have to consider carefully what I complain about today and see what happens in 4 days. 🙂
I am from UK there Jan 15 to 25th so this is certainly welcome given hopping a default on the UK tickets(they are cheaper then the 10 day base somehow).
I can see the Animal Kingdom/Hollywood studios to Epcot lunch hop being a thing Or rope drop the big ones and using a genie plus stack in magic kindom from Epcot early. I think there might still be a 12 o’clock exodus having said that to try to get to another park for 1pm in time to go for virtual queue 2 thumb race bugaloo. Athough maybe that’s just people like me going ah I can do both virtually and go to the one I didn’t get at 7am if I’m lucky is pretty low as most tourists aren’t planning genie plus/ the fancy pay more ride costs and virtual queues into spreadsheets like I’ve been mad enough to do in the past.
It is very exciting to have park hopper back. The disney Dining plan still needs some work,but going in the right direction. I am looking at late 2024 or April of 2025. Will watch the responses and make decision. I have 4-5 people going- Now will be 5 adults- Hotels are still letting under 18 stay free. I hope
As a local with years of AP’s, THIS is what I’ve been waiting for (–the cronuts were on the “wait for” list, too). YOU made my day (as, after really thinking I wouldn’t, I did just renew my AP)!
So excited for this to come back! Not sure how we will take advantage for it in May as we do like breaks in the afternoon, but love to have the flexibility back!
I am concerned about the lightning lane changes not being announced yet. Was really hoping for those before our May 2024 trip.
Also I assume with no reservations we will be able to book lightning lanes wherever we want?
My sharp sense of timing strikes again. I purchased a 3-day WDW base just days ago, mainly out of annoyance with the impaired value of the PH add-on. D’oh
Hooray! Now get rid of reservations for APs altogether in 2024 and we’re good to go, but I’ll take this as a major win. Very happy.
So excited for this!! I hated the 2pm park hopper rule!
Not entirely related, but any idea when they might announce early 2024 after hours dates?