Here Now! Rider Switch Update!

I apologize if I missed this, but how many people can use rider swap these days? Is it just a party of two now? Last time we went it was at least 3, because my husband would ride with the two that could go on it, and then I would go with those two again with our swap pass. We don't have any little ones now, so it doesn't matter to me, but if friends are looking for tips, I am just curious ;)
 
I apologize if I missed this, but how many people can use rider swap these days? Is it just a party of two now? Last time we went it was at least 3, because my husband would ride with the two that could go on it, and then I would go with those two again with our swap pass. We don't have any little ones now, so it doesn't matter to me, but if friends are looking for tips, I am just curious ;)
When we were there two weeks ago and they first started the change they still let us have up to two people go with the swapped party. So I could take both of my older kids on a ride they both wanted to ride after they had already ridden with my DH.
 
That is helpful information so that people know to be careful about not returning too early. Thanks for reporting back!

This is helpful, but also kind of weird! I thought they wouldn't even let you on until 5 mins before the window...so if they do accidentally, it will erase another FP/RS? Strange. And kind of bothersome if like my watch/phone is a couple minutes off the scanner.
 
Glad to hear that this is working for you! Question: have any of your RS passes cancelled out any of your FPs? Or has that glitch been fixed?

I can also happily report that this glitch appears to be fixed!

Additionally, I asked the CM today at Star Tours - yes, again, my son is obsessed with all things Star Wars ;) - if I could go immediately after my 1st party returned PRIOR to the CM issuing the RS to my ticket. He then set the wait time to 15 minutes, which was the best time I've received for that ride yet.

So perhaps asking the CM directly for an immediate switch time (should you want that) is the way to go. As they are the ones deciding the return time, I imagine there's flexibility in their case-by-case decisions. At least that was my experience today. :)
 


This is helpful, but also kind of weird! I thought they wouldn't even let you on until 5 mins before the window...so if they do accidentally, it will erase another FP/RS? Strange. And kind of bothersome if like my watch/phone is a couple minutes off the scanner.

It sounded like what happened is they showed up too early for their ST fastpass window but entered the return line anyway. Because they also happened to have an "any experience fastpass" the system let them through but used the "any experience fastpass" to do so. The pp said that the ST fastpass disappeared as well which is the part that doesn't really make any sense to me and sounds like a glitch. The other part makes sense because when the people entered the fastpass queue their Star Tours fastpass wasn't actually active yet, but they had another active fastpass available so the system automatically redeemed it. An "any experience fastpass" is what your specific ride fastpass converts to if the ride it is for breaks down during your return window before you get a chance to ride it. That fastpass then can be used once any time the rest of the day for that same ride or another one instead. I believe the exclusions are Space Mountain, GotG, and RSR. Those any time fastpasses will only work for those rides if that was the specific ride it was originally for.
 
Another Update:

At Screamin' (right now) asked for immediate return and was told I had to wait the stand by time of 25 minutes. First time I've been told by CM it's based off stand by time. This doesn't match with what other CMs at other rides are doing...at least on a consistent basis. So who knows?

I do think adding the stand by time onto RS is unfair. We waited an hour for the MP we pulled to be valid. We are waiting our turn. Seems only fair we should be allowed to go back-to-back and move on. This killing time in one area/ride is a bummer. While I understand this example is not a great amount of time to wait, it still stalls the group. Which (I'm sure other Mommies will agree!) if this continues, I'll just end up passing on a lot of rides so my kiddos can enjoy their rides and not burn out too quickly. Nothing kills the mouse mojo like a dead-time-meltdown! LOL

Looking forward to reading others experiences and planning better for next time...when Disney decides on a consistent formula for determining RS return time policy! Let's make sure to keep the info flowing to them. I'm sending an email to Guest Relations as soon as I get home with my RS experiences from this trip. :)
 
I don't understand why they don't assign the "return time" at the front of the line rather than the end. If they wait until that point where they re-scan Fastpasses, to assign the time, they can make the return time start exactly 10 minutes from that point and that would insure that the window would be open as soon as the party gets off of the ride for an immediate swap. I still think that the one hour return time is a huge bummer, but at least this would allow them to not assign the return so far in the future that the parent waiting with the child could be stuck waiting another 30+ minutes to ride again. The reality is that they do this at WDW (well....it's still anytime....but they give you a red card on a lanyard that you take through the line, then you give that to them at the front where they then hand you the Rider Swap) so I know it can be done.
 


Thankful for all the updates!! Keep on posting :)

Poptart, that just seems to contradict (what I thought) the main point of rider swap was.. so your one party didn't have to have two separate "wait times". The inconsistenty must also be frustrating. That said.. I'm glad to read about it here, so I know what we're up for during our trip (less than 2 weeks to go!). Thanks again for the updates! Much appreciated :wave2:
 
... Let's make sure to keep the info flowing to them. I'm sending an email to Guest Relations as soon as I get home with my RS experiences from this trip. :)

Absolutely! Disney needs to know how these new policies and changes are working out in real life on a daily basis from ride to ride. If management thinks everything is going smoothly because they don't hear otherwise, they won't make the adjustments that clearly need to be made. So keep sending in those comments!
 
Another Update:

I do think adding the stand by time onto RS is unfair. We waited an hour for the MP we pulled to be valid. We are waiting our turn. Seems only fair we should be allowed to go back-to-back and move on. This killing time in one area/ride is a bummer. While I understand this example is not a great amount of time to wait, it still stalls the group. Which (I'm sure other Mommies will agree!) if this continues, I'll just end up passing on a lot of rides so my kiddos can enjoy their rides and not burn out too quickly. Nothing kills the mouse mojo like a dead-time-meltdown! LOL

Looking forward to reading others experiences and planning better for next time...when Disney decides on a consistent formula for determining RS return time policy! Let's make sure to keep the info flowing to them. I'm sending an email to Guest Relations as soon as I get home with my RS experiences from this trip. :)

And you are paying extra money for that maxpass! Your return should be based on the fastpass line if you have a fastpass and standby if parent 1 enters standby.

Seems like some CMs have figured the new ride swap out and some haven't.

I can see this going 3 ways in the next couple of weeks:

1)Every rider swap will now have to wait standby time regardless of whether parent 1 can use the fastpass line (worst option)

2)All CM's start estimating ride ending time based on whether party 1 enters fastpass or standby line...because who wouldn't get sick of crying kids and whining parents waiting essentially 3 time periods to each ride one single ride. (Most likely option)

3)They adjust the system to something different based on feedback
(Best case scenario)
 
And you are paying extra money for that maxpass! Your return should be based on the fastpass line if you have a fastpass and standby if parent 1 enters standby.

Seems like some CMs have figured the new ride swap out and some haven't.

I can see this going 3 ways in the next couple of weeks:

1)Every rider swap will now have to wait standby time regardless of whether parent 1 can use the fastpass line (worst option)

2)All CM's start estimating ride ending time based on whether party 1 enters fastpass or standby line...because who wouldn't get sick of crying kids and whining parents waiting essentially 3 time periods to each ride one single ride. (Most likely option)

3)They adjust the system to something different based on feedback
(Best case scenario)

What I can't understand is why they are having CMs arbitrarily estimate return times. Does this not sound insane to anyone else? No standardization AND you can't immediately ride? It's so crazy to me, makes absolutely no sense at all!
 
What I can't understand is why they are having CMs arbitrarily estimate return times. Does this not sound insane to anyone else? No standardization AND you can't immediately ride? It's so crazy to me, makes absolutely no sense at all!

Yeah, I don't get it. And I honestly feel bad for the CMs because there must be pressure there to accurately guess the wait time. That is probably why some are just slapping the standby time on there even if parent 1 is going fastpass.

This really could be easily solved by just making party 2's rider swap activate immediately and making the end time 2 or 3 hours instead of just 1. Then there would be no weird CM estimating, parent 2 could always use immediate swap no matter how long the standby line was, or even wait a bit if childcare is needed.

*Sigh*

Keep sending your feedback to Dis guest relations...maybe if enough explain our situations/experiences, there will be some positive changes!
 
I'm not liking the sounds of the new Rider Swap. We have a 3YO who wants to do stuff and isn't too keen on waiting for big sis to ride things, and a 6YO who wants to ride whatever we can. With the new swap it sounds like one of us will get to ride with the 6YO while the other entertains the 3YO, and then most likely the other won't get to ride because making an excited 3YO wait for 2 groups to go through in a row is a challenge...

I liked the flexibility and the chance that if I hung out with our 3YO I MIGHT be able to go back and ride with the 6YO later (depending how the day was going). We "waste" so many rider swaps and fast passes due to changes in plans, someone falling asleep, needing food, etc., but it was always nice to know the option was there. We'll see how this all shakes out, but I'm hoping they can figure out a way to keep it useful to the families who were using it as intended so all the adults can enjoy the rides with any height-eligible kids (and that little sibs/the parents with them aren't stuck waiting around too much)
 
We just got back from our DL trip 8/2-8/6 and used RS a bunch. We went to visit family in SoCal for a week after so I feel like our information might already be outdated, but here goes! I closely followed the earlier thread with the change so I knew what was up kind-of. We are WDW vets so I am used to their RS system. It was me DH, DS 11, DS 7, and DD 3. Because of the spacing of my kids, we have been using RS pretty continuously for our trips and know the old paper system well. We bought Maxpass each day, but only for 3 of us because DD is scared to death of Haunted Mansion and not into TSMM, so there were really no FP rides for her. We altered whether the adult in Maxpass was DH or me and it really didn't matter. We pulled up the FP on our phones and it was very easy to scan the bar codes in. No one paid any attention to what name was associated with the FP.

1. Our first RS was 8/3 on Space Mountain. They scanned in our FP and then asked for the tickets for the swapping adult and 2 additional riders (both of my sons). They then made the return time start at the length of the standby line with an hour window after (i.e. it was 9:00 am when we used our FP and it was a 35 minute wait at that time, so the RS FP was for 9:35-10:35 am). This was inconvenient because my DH and DSs got through much quicker than that and DD and I were already in another section of the park and had to backtrack to use the RS. This is the ONLY time that ever happened so I really think it was CM error. No one ever added the stand-by wait time again. All the CMs said they were still getting used to the new system.

2. Over our 5 day trip, we used RS at Indy, Splash Mountain, RSR, GG, and Soarin among others. Each time, they would ask us for the paper ticket of the non-riding adult and 2 additional riders. The return time would start about 10-15 minutes after we scanned the FP and have an hour return window. Each time we could immediately swap because by the time the first set of riders (either me or DH and DSs) were done, the RS FP (for lack of a better term) were in our accounts and active and the return window had already started. We never had to wait for the RS outside of that one weird one at Space Mountain.

3. One problem we faced was that unlike at WDW where you could just present your baby/toddler to the CM at the gate and get a paper RS and go on your way, at DL with this new system you must wait with your entire party including the non-riding child to scan in at the first FP checkpoint in order to get a CM to put a RS on your ticket. This doesn't seem like it would be a big deal, but it was for us sometimes, especially when there was a big back-up at the first FP checkpoint. Case in point, RSR broke down prior to our FP becoming active. When it was our time, the ride was back up and there were easily 100 people in line to scan at the first checkpoint. I was hoping to get the RS added on and send DH and DD on their way, but they had to scan us in to verify the FP so we all had to wait in the checkpoint line. DD was scared to death of the fast cars going by and thought she was in line to go on the ride. She screamed and thrashed in her stroller so much during the close to 20 minute wait to get to the first checkpoint that we just decided to skip even trying to get the RS. (The ride broke down again while we were in the FP line and we ended up leaving and rode with RS the next day.)

4. On Splash Mountain when it was a walk on at about 10:00 am they wouldn't even give us a RS when we had FP for it. That threw us off for a second, but then DSs and I just went standby which was indeed a walk on, and DH and DSs then used the FP we had so it all worked out the same.

5. My biggest issue is that in many of the areas of the park, there is not a little kid ride next to the big ride so doing an immediate swap is difficult with a younger child who wants to actually do things while you are waiting. We spent a lot of time waiting in gift shops for the swap. It works out well with Splash/Pooh but not as great at Indy or Space. And often times we'd go find a character to meet in a different section of the park. I did like the old RS with its ability to come back on our schedule more.

6. With Maxpass (which we loved!) and the quick/immediate return times, we soon learned that it was just as easy to book another set of FPs for the same ride as use RS. After realizing that, we really only used RS for the most popular rides - Guardians, RSR, Indy and just got additional FP for the others. Sometimes we just decided it wasn't worth the hassle and if it wasn't a favorite ride, one of us would just skip it and let the other go with the boys. That was too bad, but as people have noted, it takes twice as long to go through everything anyway.

7. We had a Maxpass glitch one day that required me to go to Guest Services for an extended period of time. While there, I chatted up the cast member helping me and told her about the mess trying to get RS at RSR. She confirmed that the RS change was due to people abusing the system by gathering up the paper RS and using them at night on a bunch of rides and passing them out to other people in their party. I asked if those people had a non-riding child in their party and she said they did, but they weren't supposed to be using them like that. I don't necessarily see the problem if they got them legitimately, but it confirms what people had suspected was the reason for the change.

Hope this helps! Let me know if anyone has any questions!
 
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Thanks for the updates!

Has anyone ever tried going thru standby or fast pass line with the child that cannot ride and waiting till the first party returns from riding and literally passing the child to them and then getting on the ride right away? Just wondering if this is possible when there's a time crunch....
 
Thanks for the updates!

Has anyone ever tried going thru standby or fast pass line with the child that cannot ride and waiting till the first party returns from riding and literally passing the child to them and then getting on the ride right away? Just wondering if this is possible when there's a time crunch....

My kids are all tall enough to ride now but they used to not allow kids not tall enough to even enter the line.
 
Thanks for the updates!

Has anyone ever tried going thru standby or fast pass line with the child that cannot ride and waiting till the first party returns from riding and literally passing the child to them and then getting on the ride right away? Just wondering if this is possible when there's a time crunch....
I've only done it on gadget go coaster but I didn't ask anyone prior, we just did it. Another trip they had me wait in the exit until my party came. That was harder because we had to wait there for a long time and the baby (walking) really want to get a better look at the coaster and we were in the way for unloading. Other rides like RSR, they wouldn't let my kid that wasn't tall enough in the line.

We are going in Nov and I am really disappointed in this change. Hopefully they will give you at least a few more hours to complete your RS fast passes to better accommodate naps, feedings, and taking the littles to another land for the wait.
 
I wish they could figure out a better method to deter abuses. This new system makes it harder for families, period.

First of all, doesn't going to electronic rider switch make it impossible to give passes away? That is the first problem solved.

Second, they should make it immediate (no guesswork or addition nexessary) then give you maybe a 2 or 3 hour window to redeem. That would prevent the whole collecting RS passes all day and using them all at night problem. Although to be honest I'm really not understanding how/why this was a problem? How many people are doing this in the whole realm of things?

Finally, they should check non-riding children every time, every ride. If they really want to prevent abuses that is the place to start. It does sound like they are doing this now but they sure didn't before!
 
I apologize for offending you. I only meant that I truly thought it was a place for kids until I started reading disboards recently. And Now that I have my own kids, I'm really into Disneyland too. It's nice to read here for advice and opinions because I know very few adults IRL who are Disneyland experts. That thought was running through my mind ten years ago. Now I want to go all the time!
Pre marriage my DH was on a work trip in fl. Took a wdw day. Said he felt like a creeper because he was on his own in a kid place.
 

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