Child Swap - The best tool ever.

[allysetraskos]

I just want to write a quick post about how AMAZING child swap worked for us during our last trip.

In our group :
Mom (ME)
Dad - (Husband)
Son7 - (7 years old)
Niece - (Niece 8 years old)
Son1 - (1 year old)

I decided that we were going to maxamize our FP+ & Child Swap…
(For those who think its “taking advantage of the system” o-well they have not stopped the loop hole yet.. & traveling with a baby is rough!)

I would book rides for my Niece and myself and then separate rides Dad & Son7
our days would look something like this:


Magic Kingom:


Mom & Niece FP+
11:00am - Splash Mountain
12:00pm – 7DMT
1:00pm – Space Mountain

Husband & Son7 FP+
11:15am – Thunder Mountain
12:15pm – 7DMT
1:15pm – Space Mountain


That resulted in us getting child swap FP+ for each of those rides so Niece and Son7 were able to ride multiple times…
For example the kids got to go on 7DMT & Space Mountain 3X and Adults 2X!


It also worked wonderfully at Epcot! The kids were able to ride on Soarin & Test Track!
Husband & Niece picked Soarin… Mom & Son7 picked Test Track
Did the swap making it so Niece got to go on Soaring 2x and Son got to go on Test Track 2x!


Not to mention Animal Kingdom since there was no tier system they were able to ride Everest 3x!
(Husband & I booked separate FP+)




My best suggestion to families traveling with small kids is have the adults book SEPARATE FP+ for rides with height restrictions!

 

[Crystal824]

I always do the same thing. It works well.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Yup, we do this as well since we have a 12, 10 and 2 year old. Works out awesome for the 12 and 10 year olds!

 

[JESSketeer]

Our next trip in 2018 will be the first with a baby and I just learned about using FP+ & Child Swap! Excited to try it out. Would it work the same with 4 adults and 1 baby? Say 2 adults book TT FP+ and the other 2 book Soarin, would 2 adults ride using FP+ and then the other 2 adults ride using Child Swap?

 

[kimfirstdisneytrip]

Rider Swap is amazing! Yes, you essentially get to double your rides. You can use it when a child isn't tall enough, and also use it if a child is too scared to ride or doesn't want to. They give you fastpass paper tickets when you enter the queue, whether you have a fastpass or not. When you come out, you or the other adults can get in the fastpass line. I seem to remember there being an abundance of tickets. Correct me if i'm wrong, but 4 of us did the Standby line at Soarin,' with one adult and one child left behind. We received 4 Rider Swap fast pass tickets and 4 of us rode again, with one of the adults switching out with the adult who didn't ride it the first time. So, 3 of us rode it twice. I believe they do that so you can ride with your "party," because that would be lame if that one adult had to sit out by themselves and then ride it by themselves. Unless you only have 2 adults, then each adult does have to sit out alone, and then ride it alone.

 

[lovemy2girls4eva]

great!! thanks for sharing!

 

[DopeyDame]

Absolutely! We love it and have used it in lots of different ways to make for an awesome trip for all of us. On our next trip both my kids will be over 44 inches. I'm going to miss the baby swap! (But won't miss the diaper changes or last-minute-toddler-potty-runs or tantrums or carrying all the crap that little kids need

 

[allysetraskos]

Our next trip in 2018 will be the first with a baby and I just learned about using FP+ & Child Swap! Excited to try it out. Would it work the same with 4 adults and 1 baby? Say 2 adults book TT FP+ and the other 2 book Soarin, would 2 adults ride using FP+ and then the other 2 adults ride using Child Swap?

Yes it would work the same because you are unable to ride together as a group.

 

[elaine amj]

After all these years, i'm finally going to be able to use rider swap for our upcoming trip as we will have my little niece in our party!

Side note: we do like to ride all together whenever possible so would actually prefer that everyone is tall enough - but this is a pretty nice consolation prize.

 

[dillydally13]

So you got double the fastpasses essentially? We have 3 kiddos - 9, 6, and 2 and were wondering how to do it this time with the littlest!

 

[allysetraskos]

So you got double the fastpasses essentially? We have 3 kiddos - 9, 6, and 2 and were wondering how to do it this time with the littlest!

Yes essentially its really benefits at the parks that have tiers or if you like to ride specific roller coaster rides over and over.
Your kids are almost the same age as mine. I would suggest splitting the kids to each adult and booking FP+ at different times, that way you can get extras for things like 7DMT which waits can be around 2 hours your kids will get to ride it 3 times each... You don't need to seperate your FP+ for everything just on the rides that you know you will want to ride that have huge waits.

 

[dillydally13]

Yes essentially its really benefits at the parks that have tiers or if you like to ride specific roller coaster rides over and over.
Your kids are almost the same age as mine. I would suggest splitting the kids to each adult and booking FP+ at different times, that way you can get extras for things like 7DMT which waits can be around 2 hours your kids will get to ride it 3 times each... You don't need to seperate your FP+ for everything just on the rides that you know you will want to ride that have huge waits.

Oh ok! I wasn't sure if they scanned each person's magic band to see if they had a fastpass for that ride or just gave the swap pass! Thanks!

 

[allysetraskos]

Oh ok! I wasn't sure if they scanned each person's magic band to see if they had a fastpass for that ride or just gave the swap pass! Thanks!

Nope, that was my biggest concern too I was so scared dividing all the FP+ incase it didn't work. My husband, son and baby didn't even need to be with us at the gate to get the FP+ swap for just about everywhere they would stand off to the side I would tell the CM I needed a swap ticket and point to them, the husband would do a little wave and we would get the pass.

 

[dillydally13]

Nope, that was my biggest concern too I was so scared dividing all the FP+ incase it didn't work. My husband, son and baby didn't even need to be with us at the gate to get the FP+ swap for just about everywhere they would stand off to the side I would tell the CM I needed a swap ticket and point to them, the husband would do a little wave and we would get the pass.

Nice! Thanks!

 

[Klayfish]

So help me wrap my mind around this idea, as this is something we haven't done before.

We have myself, DW, DS12, DS9 and DD9. DW will get on most rides, but doesn't like coasters, so she won't do 7DMT (did it once, and didn't like it much), SM, RnR. For those rides, could all of us get FP+, and then somehow me and the kids can ride it twice? For the rides DW does go on...which is most of them...the kids could ride twice if DW and I split up and each took them separately?

 

[allysetraskos]

So help me wrap my mind around this idea, as this is something we haven't done before.

We have myself, DW, DS12, DS9 and DD9. DW will get on most rides, but doesn't like coasters, so she won't do 7DMT (did it once, and didn't like it much), SM, RnR. For those rides, could all of us get FP+, and then somehow me and the kids can ride it twice? For the rides DW does go on...which is most of them...the kids could ride twice if DW and I split up and each took them separately?

Child swap only works for kids who are under the height requirement, some will let older kids "chicken out" and use the swap but most only let it work for kids under it who can't ride sorry!

 

[tj4ua]

The one compliant I have is the inconsistency of "we need to see the child" vs when they dont care. We always try to just go with they will need to see the child, but for rides like Soarin, its really a pain since we cant use the strollers and swapping out for 2 toddlers.

 

[elaine amj]

So help me wrap my mind around this idea, as this is something we haven't done before.

We have myself, DW, DS12, DS9 and DD9. DW will get on most rides, but doesn't like coasters, so she won't do 7DMT (did it once, and didn't like it much), SM, RnR. For those rides, could all of us get FP+, and then somehow me and the kids can ride it twice? For the rides DW does go on...which is most of them...the kids could ride twice if DW and I split up and each took them separately?

Highly unlikely at your kids' ages. My kids were all past the height limit before we first came to WDW so we've never used child swap (even though my ride chicken DS sits out all the coasters).

 

[Crystal824]

The one compliant I have is the inconsistency of "we need to see the child" vs when they dont care. We always try to just go with they will need to see the child, but for rides like Soarin, its really a pain since we cant use the strollers and swapping out for 2 toddlers.

Yes!!!! I understand why they want to see the kid. It really is inconvenient to park the stroller, drag your toddler downstairs, show them your kid at Soarin', and then I usually take her back to ride Nemo while DH and our older DD ride. I hate the why 7DMT is set up too. The CM is too far away from the start of the line. It is difficult to show them the kid without getting in line or standing at the end and waiting until DH and DD get to the CM so I can waive.

 

[SweetMissy]

Yes we love it! Took us a couple times to realize we should do it that way....splitting up the FPs and using the child swap for the rest....duh, lol. But, yeah works out great.