As we continue to watch Walt Disney World theme parks fill up for the remainder of March, we wanted to revisit Park Hopping and capacity concerns.
As you may know, Disney began allowing Park Hopping back on January 1, 2021. Since then, guests have been able to visit multiple theme parks per day after 2pm. But what happens when the theme parks are at capacity and there are no Disney Park Pass reservations?
As a reminder – you still need a Disney Park Pass to park hop. You don’t need a park pass for every theme park you plan on visiting though, just the first theme park you visit – your “home” park, if you will.
That said, if you start in EPCOT and want to hop over to Magic Kingdom, but the Disney Park Pass availability calendar shows that Magic Kingdom is full, can you still go? The answer is very likely: yes.
Even though Disney manages initial park capacity through the Disney Park Pass reservation system, once park hopping is allowed at 2pm, they (theoretically) continue to monitor live capacity to determine if Park Hopping is allowed.
How Do You Check If Park Hopping Is Allowed?
There are two ways that Park Hopping capacity will be communicated. As we said in our initial Park Hopping guide, you can call a Park Hopping hotline to check on the status of the current theme park capacity restrictions. The Walt Disney World Park Hopping capacity hotline phone number is (407) 560-5000.
That said, there is a second way to ensure that you can hop to another park. According to updated wording on the Walt Disney World website, Disney will be using real-time push notifications via the My Disney Experience app to notify guests of Park Hopping capacity limitations.
In the event that the Park Hopper option is unavailable at a theme park, Guests will be notified in real time via a push notification from the My Disney Experience app.
As of publish time, we’re not aware of any instances where Park Hopping was significantly limited or paused since it was reinstated back on January 1, 2021. Of course, this Spring Break period would be the time where limitations would be most likely given the fact that Park Hopping hadn’t been reinstated during the 2020 Christmas season.
A final way to check if Park Hopping is allowed is to speak with a transportation Cast Member. They are specifically tasked with not only checking a guests’ ticket to ensure it allows for Park Hopping, but also to check if a specific park is open to Park Hopping guests.
What Happens If Park Hopping Isn’t Allowed?
Like we said, we haven’t experienced a restriction on Park Hopping yet, but Disney does note that reservations do not guarantee access to a theme park that might have Park Hopping restrictions due to capacity concerns.
Reservations for dining experiences, Droid Depot, Savi’s Workshop and other pre-booked experiences do not guarantee access to a park, and Park Hopper availability may change daily.
Disney recommends that guests make dining reservations at their “home” park – that is, the theme park that they have a Disney Park Pass reservation at. Given that advice from Disney, it stands to reason that guests will always have access to their “home” park, even if it is at capacity for Park Hopping. Using our earlier example of wanting to hop from EPCOT to Magic Kingdom, if we were to leave EPCOT for lunch at the resort and want to reenter in the afternoon, we would be able to reenter EPCOT even if it is closed to Park Hopping because it is our “home” park.
For more on Park Hopping, check out our Disney World Park Hopping 2021 guide:
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
There’s a part of me wonders if park hopping is allowed again to maximize park attendance throughout a full day. There’s no chance that 100% of park reservations are going from rope drop to close. I wonder then if the 2:00 time is when a predicted number of rope drop guests leave or have left and to retain guests in some capacity between parks and potential lost revenue they let people fill the gaps in the number of guests that leave with park hoppers.