Park Hopper
Park Hopper is a ticket option sold by the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and the Disneyland Resort in California that allows the holder to visit more than one theme park on the same day. A standard Disney ticket admits the holder to a single park per day; adding Park Hopper removes that limit, subject to park hours and capacity. The practice of moving between parks during a day is known as park hopping. At Walt Disney World the option covers the resort's four theme parks — Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom. At Disneyland it covers Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park, whose entrances face each other across a short esplanade. Park Hopper is also included in Disney annual passes and Magic Key passes.
History
Park hopping became possible at Walt Disney World as soon as the resort had a second park to hop to. When EPCOT Center opened in 1982, Disney sold a multi-day World Passport ticket that allowed its holder to move freely between the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT over three, four or five days. The Passport line was withdrawn by the early 1990s, and tickets explicitly named for hopping arrived in 1994, with a four-day Park Hopper ticket and a five-day World Hopper that also included the resort's water parks and other minor attractions.
From 2005, Disney's Magic Your Way ticketing turned hopping into a formal add-on: a flat fee applied to the whole length of a multi-day ticket rather than a charge per day. That structure survives today, and a Park Hopper Plus variant additionally covers the water parks and other recreation venues.
At Disneyland, hopping only became a practical feature when Disney California Adventure opened beside the original park in February 2001. Given the two parks' proximity, a single-day visit covering both became a common pattern for the California resort.
The pandemic restrictions
Before 2020, a Park Hopper ticket could be used at any time: guests entered and re-entered parks as they wished throughout the day. That changed with the COVID-19 pandemic. When Walt Disney World reopened in July 2020 under a new theme park reservation system, hopping was not available at all. It returned on January 1, 2021 in restricted form: guests had to reserve and first enter one park, and could not move to another until 2:00 p.m., with entry to the second park still subject to capacity. Disneyland, which reopened later, adopted similar rules with a hopping start time in the early afternoon, later eased to 11:00 a.m.
The restrictions were dismantled in stages. Walt Disney World restored all-day hopping on January 9, 2024, the same date most date-based tickets stopped requiring park reservations; guests who still need a reservation must enter their reserved park before hopping. At Disneyland, where reservations remain in force for all tickets, the 11:00 a.m. start time was removed on June 9, 2026, leaving the requirement to book a starting park but allowing movement between the parks at any time thereafter. Hopping remains subject to closure if a park reaches capacity, which happens only rarely.
How it works today
A guest buys a ticket with the Park Hopper option, or holds an annual pass that includes it. On each day of the visit the guest may start in any park covered by the ticket and move between parks as often as desired during operating hours, tapping in with a MagicBand, card or phone at each entrance. No separate reservation is needed for the parks visited after the first, where reservations apply at all.
Park Hopper interacts with Disney's other planning systems. A Walt Disney World guest who has bought Lightning Lane Multi Pass for one park can make later selections in another park on the same pass after redeeming the first reservation, which makes hopping central to many visitors' strategies; guests who plan to spend whole days in single parks often judge the added cost unnecessary. The price varies by resort and ticket type — at Walt Disney World it is a single amount covering the entire ticket, while at Disneyland it varies with the number of days — and its value depends heavily on the length of the trip, the season and the touring style of the party.