When Disney World announced that park hopping would return in 2021, there were a LOT of questions about how it would work.
Spaceship Earth
We’ve done our best to get answers for many of those questions, but there’s one very important question that we still don’t have a solid confirmation for yet — and that’s what happens if you have a dining reservation in a full park that you plan on hopping to?
Park hopping will return to Disney World on January 1st, 2021, but it will be a lot different. For starters, guests with tickets still need a park pass reservation for the first park they plan to visit that day.
Park Hopping Procedure
However, after 2PM, guests with a valid park hopper ticket can go to a different park, given it hasn’t reached capacity yet. If it has reached capacity, a guest cannot enter that second park.
Got Questions About Disney World’s New Park Hopping Process? We’ve Got Answers!
So here’s a bit of a conundrum: let’s say you have a dining reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table at Magic Kingdom at 5PM. You started your day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with a plan to park hop to Magic Kingdom after 2PM for your reservation. But when you head out to Magic Kingdom, you find that the park is at capacity. Can you still get in with your dining reservation?
Cinderella Castle
Well…it’s kind of hard to tell. We’ve been on a wild goose chase to find a definitive answer, and here’s what we’ve expereinced:
1. We asked a Cast Member via chat and received a definitive “no” answer. We were told that guests with dining reservations are NOT guaranteed entry into the park they’re hopping to. The Cast Member said, “So if the theme park happens to meet capacity before you are able to get into that theme park, you would not be able to attend that reservation.”
Disney World Chat
2. We confirmed this with a second Cast Member who recommended not making a dining reservation until you’ve already hopped successfully.
Disney World Chat
3. However, later, a different Cast Member stated the opposite via chat: that a dining reservation would DEFINITELY guarantee park entry when park hopping. When asked the question, the Cast Member said, “yes, it does.”
Disney World Chat
4. But wait, because the next Cast Member we chatted with stated that the answer is still a definite no — you cannot gain entry into a park that you’ve hopped to if it’s full, even if you have a dining reservation.
Disney World Chat
5. OK with three out of four Cast Members saying NO, we decided to chat with one more Cast Member just in case. This CM suggested we only make dining reservations at parks that we have park pass reservations for. And we did receive confirmation that if a guest misses a dining reservation because of a full park, no charges will be incurred.
Disney World Chat
So after talking to five Cast Members, it seems we still don’t have a definitive confirmation one way or the other. But based on these responses, our advice would be to take the suggestion to make dining reservations in parks where you already have a park pass reservation. Just in case.
We’ll continue to search for answers, though, and let you know what we find!
What the Return of Park Hopping Means for Your 2021 Trip to Disney World
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Not sure how this reopening of the park hopping is getting to help and allow guests to enjoy their Disney world experience.
I am travelling to Disney world wife my wife in may 2021 and we have park hopper tickets. If we have the whole morning in epcot and go to any other park for the afternoon and all parks are then full, our Disney experience will be over for the day. We are paying £6,000 for our holiday. I don’t have any idea how this will work. Please can you help.
Thanks for all the work checking this out.
Steven, it sounds like it could work just as you’ve described: Park Hopping will be entirely dependent on crowd levels, and you can’t predict for certain how those will fluctuate from day to day.
Park hopping hasn’t worked for my family in years! Its not worth the extra price tag when we don’t use it.
But to try to use it during such restrictions…I wouldn’t even dream of it, much less hopping for a reservation I might not get to keep.
Everyone’s trip is gonna be different for the foreseeable future. We just gotta roll with punches and make the best of it.
Hi, thank you for responding.
As the park hopper tickets are more expensive than normal tickets, I would say that it wouldn’t be wise to buy park hopper tickets until it can guaranteed that capacity is at a level that guests can make use of them. Would you agree?
I feel like the answer was pretty clear. Three of four said you couldn’t get in if at capacity, even with a reservation. The fifth basically said the same thing, just really nicely. A reservation doesn’t get you in an at capacity park.
Steven, if park hours stay the same, you won’t be spending all morning in Epcot. It doesn’t open until 11AM. So use Epcot as you afternoon/evening park.
What about renewing our passes? Are there discounts
Debbie, Disney hasn’t released information about Annual Passes or discounts on APs. We’re watching for AP updates.
I would say in the current situation we find ourselves in, that spending most the time each day in one park would be best, and stay clear of any unnecessary extra expense buying park hopping tickets. Things may change, but until things get easier, it’s not worth it. As for not getting dinning reservations until you are guaranteed entry to a park, whoever said that has never tried to get a reservation at any of the even moderately popular park restaurants. Get real, please.
So you used 5 inquiries to ask the same question? Never mind the other people waiting to ask questions they have not had answered once yet.
What if your dining reservations are right at 2pm?