Oh, happy day! We’ve talking about January 9th for literal months and the time has finally come!
Today is the day Disney World goes through so many exciting changes. Park passes are no longer required for many visitors. The Disney Dining Plan is back and ready to be used by hotel guests who purchased it. But right now, we’re talking about the fact that park hopping is back to normal for the first time in YEARS.
That’s right — as of January 9th, 2024, anyone with an eligible ticket can hop to another park at any time they want! This includes anyone with a park ticket with Park Hopper or an Annual Pass.
When the Disney World theme parks reopened after the 2020 closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, park hopping was not allowed. Then on January 1st, 2021, park hopping returned but there was a catch — you could not hop to another park until 2PM. There was also a chance you could be turned away due to limited capacity in the parks.
But just over three years since park hopping returned, those with park hopper tickets can visit ANY park at ANY time. This makes it easier to complete the four parks in one-day challenge if that’s something you and your group want to do.
We started in Magic Kingdom and here’s what the crowds looked like at the entrance. Keep in mind that the park pass rules also changed on the SAME day.
When we got to the park, we noticed that it was pretty empty. We weren’t seeing massive crowds that we were kind of expecting to see, but we’ll see how much that changes throughout the day as people begin to park hop.
As the day has progressed, we’ve seen crowds pick up a bit. We’re seeing that areas around popular attractions — like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Peter Pan’s Flight — have been busier than other parts of the park.
Even though the crowds were fairly tame this morning, we did notice a new problem with Genie+ for Annual Passholders. We are preparing to park hop in the morning, so we decided to book a lightning lane for Slinky Dog Dash at Disney’s Hollywood Studios — but we couldn’t get one any earlier than 2 PM.
From what we can see, this also applies to Individual Lightning Lane selections. So, it seems like we can only book a lightning lane for the park you’re in unless you want to book something after 2PM. If you’re a Passholder and looking to hop earlier in the day, beware of this and plan accordingly.
As a reminder, Genie+ is Disney’s pass-the-line virtual assistant. You can book return times for most of your favorite rides and attractions so you can skip the (usually long) standby line.
We were interested to see how Genie+ was impacted by all of these rule changes that hit the parks. We’re hopeful it is just a temporary issue — don’t worry, we’ll be keeping an eye on it and will update you when we have more information.
As for crowds, we are pleasantly surprised that it was a quiet morning, and we’ll be keeping you updated on how the crowds progress throughout the day.
Keep following AllEars for more and in the meantime, check out our video on how to have the perfect day park hopping between Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios!
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Is there an annual park hopper genie+ pass available that includes access to any of the parks at all times ? Basically, a freedom pass with no waiting on long lines, good for any day of the week, even at the last minute ? I now live within a 3-hour drive of Disney, and would like to have the opportunity to come and go as I please, sort of like I owned the place ! Is there something like this available at any cost?