Park Hopping rules have CHANGED, and we’re taking FULL advantage of the updated system!
Magic Kingdom
Starting on January 9th, 2024, the 2PM Park Hopping restriction is GONE. If you have an Annual Pass or Park Hopper ticket, you can now hop at ANY TIME! We tested out this update by going to every single Disney World theme park this morning, and we accomplished this feat in just over an hour!
Park Hopping is the ability to visit more than one of the Walt Disney World theme parks — Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom — in one day.
Magic Kingdom
Note that, in order to Park Hop, you MUST have a valid theme park ticket that includes Park Hopper benefits or a Disney World Annual Pass. A standard one-park-per-day ticket will not grant this option.
Scanning in!
After the pandemic-related closures of 2020, Disney World changed Park Hopping rules. Guests were only allowed to Park Hop after 2PM each day. Last year, Disney announced that this restriction would be going away on January 9th, 2024, and now it’s officially GONE! Let’s PARK HOP, BABY!
We started out our journey at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, since that park opens the earliest.
First park of the day!
Shortly after arriving (and getting our pic for proof), we headed over to Hollywood Studios right when the park opened at 9AM!
Park 2 by 9AM!
By 9:15, we had made it to EPCOT. Quick turnaround, right? The Disney Skyliner makes that trip super easy and fast!
Park 3!
Now time for the last leg of our journey — we took the Monorail over to Magic Kingdom and were in the park by 9:34AM.
All 4 parks by 9:30AM!
In total, the whole thing took us just over an hour, at 63 minutes and 4 seconds!
Did we just break a record?
Of course, we had to treat ourselves to an “I’m Celebrating” button for this momentous occasion!
It’s a day to celebrate!
So if you want to park hop to every single park in Disney World, it’s absolutely doable in a single day. If you try to do it all in an hour, you probably won’t see much (we pretty much just hopped into the entrance and came back out again), but it’s fun that we have that option now.
Hollywood Studios
If you’re planning to park hop in Disney World, make sure to take transportation into account. We were able to get between Hollywood Studios and EPCOT quickly because we used the Skyliner, and from EPCOT to Magic Kingdom because of the Monorail!
Monorail
A Cast Member at Disney’s Hollywood Studios told us that buses to the other theme parks will begin at 10AM each day, but note that park-to-park bus service has been occasional at best in the past. Usually you have to find another way to get between the parks if there isn’t a Skyliner or Monorail route.
Disney bus
If we’re trying to get from Magic Kingdom to one of the other three parks (besides EPCOT, which we’d use the Monorail for), we’ll walk over to Disney’s Contemporary Resort and catch a bus from there. To get to EPCOT from any other park, you can take a bus to one of the EPCOT-area hotels and walk to the International Gateway!
International Gateway
Also, keep in mind that, even though Annual Passholders can park hop at any time, they must enter the theme park that they have a Park Pass Reservation for FIRST before being able to hop. Note that this rule affects how Annual Passholders can reserve Lightning Lanes with Genie+ — get all the details about that HERE.
Annual Pass card
Annual Passholders can still enter any park after 2PM without a Park Pass Reservation, except for Magic Kingdom on Saturdays and Sundays.
LOTS of changes hit Disney World recently, so it might be confusing to plan your upcoming vacation. If you want some help, reach out to our friends over at Small World Vacations! They know all the best deals and can make planning your vacation stress-free.
We’ll be watching for more updates in Disney World, so stay tuned to DFB for all the latest news!
Click here to check out our full guide to Park Hopping!
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If buses don’t start until 10 am, how did you get from Animal Kingdome to Hollywood studios?
Around 10 years ago my wife and I got on a plane in NC, flew to Orlando, rented a car, got to ANimal Kingdom when it opened, Rode the rides we wanted drove over to Epcot and hit the rides and countries we wanted, headed over to Hollywood studios, enjoy the rides there, Finished uo at the Magic Kingdom, enjoyed the rides and parade then the fireworks. Caught the midnight flight back to NC. Saw all 4 parks with the rides, shops, resturants and lands we liked and flew home all in 1 day. ( and were dead and hurt the next day, but had fun) The trick, do it when it is not busy and we did it when it was more affordable