Disney World has been on a hot streak this year announcing guest-friendly policies. From bringing back free resort parking to the return of the Disney Dining Plan, it’s been clear that WDW is hearing fan feedback. Arguably, the most welcome bit of news was the elimination of Park Pass Reservations for date-based tickets in 2024. However, Disney World fans have been wondering if Disney also had plans to get rid of the new Park Hopping rules that were introduced in 2020.
Will Disney World be keeping the 2 PM Park Hopping rule in 2024?
Update October 11, 2023: Disney World announced a big change to the park hopping rules in 2024. This article has been updated to reflect it.
How Park Hopping Will Work in 2024
On October 11, 2023, Disney World announced that all day park hopping will return starting January 9, 2024.
This is a reversal. Disney previously had explicitly said that the park hopping rules would remain the same, despite the park reservation system going away for date based tickets.
Thankfully, park hopping will go back to how it used to work before 2020. If you have a park hopper ticket or an Annual Pass, you can visit as many parks as you want to, whenever you want to, in a single day. That provides much more flexibility and spontaneity to your vacation, and it removes some of the biggest pain points for guests.
The COVID-Era Park Hopping Rule
How does park hopping work before January 9, 2024?
As many of you will remember, after the COVID closure, Disney World reopened with some new rules to help manage reduced capacity. Among these were the introduction of Park Pass Reservations and only allowing Park Hopping (switching parks) after 2 PM. Both of these policies made sense at the time, but as Disney World has returned almost everything in the parks back to “normal,” they’ve just become pain points for your average Disney World guest.
That’s why WDW fans were so happy to hear that Park Pass Reservations will not be required for most tickets. When you also consider that Annual Passholders can now enter the parks without a reservation after 2 PM (with one exception), it seems that the Park Pass Reservation system is being phased out for most guests.
Guide2WDW’s Take
This is great news.
For a long time, I’ve been wishing for a full bounce back to the good old unrestricted park-hopping days. Disney World added a lot of complexity when they added Park Pass Reservations and Park Hopping Rules in 2020. When they started to phase out the reservations but keep the park hopping rules, it actually felt more complicated in a way. You needed a matrix or flow chart to see what rules apply to your ticket.
Disney World operated successfully for decades without these policies, and it’s a huge win for the guest to have this level of flexibility return.
The 2 PM Park Hopping rule was a huge pain if your plans went awry. Imagine this scenario: You have a Magic Kingdom park reservation and you’re planning on Park Hopping to EPCOT for your insanely hard-to-get dinner reservation at Space 220. However, your morning plans go haywire — somebody’s sick, or you oversleep, or you decided you just want to relax and enjoy your resort pool instead of doing MK that morning. Well, before you can go into EPCOT for your coveted ADR, you would first need to make your way to Magic Kingdom, tap your Magic Band at the turnstile, and then turn around and go to EPCOT.
Doesn’t exactly sound magical.
This scenario will be eliminated starting January 9, 2024.
Which I am all here for, because Guide2WDW is all about making Disney easy! Whether it’s staying up-to-date with these changing rules or finding the best places for that Mickey-shaped snack, our free Disney World Guides are here to simplify your Disney vacation experience.
Let me know in the comments: What do you think about Disney World bringing back all day park hopping in 2024?
More from Guide2WDW
Getting rid of the park hopping rule is welcomed, especially since our annual pass was purchased WITH park hopper (before covid). And we learned when activated this May 2023, that this pass feature was changed. Also, we’re not local pass holders & stay in a wdw resort while visiting… but our pass is still not considered a “dated ticket” while we’re there… for documented days in a resort?!?
So, still not as happy as we should be when viisiting, after many years of supporting Disney… my 2c.