Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Park hoppers no longer worth the cost?

As long as I can remember, my family has always bought a park hopper pass when going to Disneyland. It cost a few bucks more but it gave you the option to decide on the fly what you want to do at which park.

For those of you have never been, Disneyland Resort has two parks (Disneyland and California Adventure) which are only a 1 minute walk from gate to gate. So with a park hopper you could easily go to both parks in one day.

But with the recent changes, would you want to?

Disneyland Map


California Adventure use to be a smaller park with less to see then Disneyland, and it was open for less hours. So it was common sense to 'hop' over to go on certain rides or see a certain show. But this isn't really the case anymore. California Adventure has been working for years on a makeover and an expansion and it will all be officially open as of this weekend. They have totally re done the entrance, now called Buena Vista Street. They have an evening show called World of Color and they have just finished Cars Land, an entire new section to the park. Combine that with some of the already big ticket attractions like Soarin, Tower of Terror and California Screamin and you now have alot to see and do! So much so that I believe you could easily dedicate an entire day (or two...) to this park.


California Adventure Map - with recent changes.

I should mention too that Disneyland has raised their ticket prices. Mostly it'll affect pass holders, but it has also slightly increased for regular ticket buyers like us. So if you want to save a few dollars (like $100 or more depending on the length of your stay and size of your group) skipping the park hopper could be a good route to go.

If you are like us and want a week long vacation id suggest buying a 3 day Disneyland pass and 2 day California Adventure. That will give you lots of time to enjoy both parks without rushing, especially if you go off season.

The flexibility of going wherever you want whenever you want with a Park Hopper is certainly nice to have, but I am just not sure its worth the extra money anymore. I think next time we will skip the park hopper.

Hope I've helped.

1 comment:

  1. I tend to agree with your assessment with rise in ticket prices. We would also buy park hoppers routinely (the years we didn't spring for annual passes which we will probably no longer do) but we often found ourselves spending most of our time in one park or the other with not a lot of hopping. A five day 1 park admission saves you about $30 a person over the park hopper ticket. Multiply that by the number people in your party and the amount isn't insignificant.

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