Here Now! Rider Switch Update!

[PirateRedhead]

I am so grateful for this thread. If I had arrived in October to find this out, I would have been pretty bummed out. We have a near-7-year-old who loves the major attractions and a not-quite-2-year-old who can't ride them, so RS was huge for us on our last trip. I'm sorry for those who had to find out about this change in the middle of their visits.

I'll miss the flexibility. But it sounds like CMs are getting better at issuing reasonable return times, so that's encouraging. Thanks to all who have posted your experiences! It's so helpful to hear the details.

 

[tammytam]

Thank you everyone for keeping us up to speed! Any more updates from from folks using RS this week?

We fly out this Saturday! Can't wait!

 

[Jaina]

Thanks for all the updates! Keeping an eye on this to see how it all settles into policy.

 

[Bossy22]

I also truly appreciate the update as we have 7, 6 and 2 year olds and the older girls love the height requirement rides! I just hope I can return the favour with information someday! Thanks again and any other updates will be appreciated!!!

 

[Royals]

Trying to type this quickly on my phone at park so sorry for errors. Here now with husband and two year old so we use fastpass plus riderswap. I got a fp for rsr and husband got gog. At rsr I asked for rider swap and they scanned husbands ticket. I asked if he could make it immediate but he either didn't hear or ignored me. When I asked what time it was for the CM was super confused and just told him to come when I was done. That was about fifteen minutes later. App said fastpass was for an hour later but we tried it when I was done anyway. They turned my husband away even when he said that's what they told us to do. They said we had to come back in an hour. At gog my husband handed them my ticket and asked when it would start and she told us in twenty minutes. This matched the app and worked great for us. I got on as soon as he was done. Using this the rest of the week so I'll check in again later this week with our experiences.

 

[tammytam]

Hi everyone! We're back from four days in the park and we used MaxPass for three of those days and rider swap as well. RS worked quite well for us. I purchased MaxPass for one adult and my older child, and used RS for the second adult, and of course my youngest didn't need MaxPass. It was a bonus that we only needed to purchase MaxPass for 2/4 of our group. For the fastpass rides that my youngest could go on, we just pulled paper fastpasses (Toy Story, Haunted Mansion, Buzz).

As for return times with RS, we almost always were able to switch immediately. I was using the app on my phone, which will show you the RS "fastpass" when the CM loads it onto the "swappers" tickets. There is a return time attached to it, but it was usually for 10-20 minutes later (and good for one hour).

The entire group does need to be present, so the CM loading the RS passes onto the tickets can see that you have a little one who can't ride. This didn't necessarily mean waiting in line (hard to do with a stroller), but just hanging nearby (to the side of the fastpass return line) and the CMs at the first scan station.

There was one instance on Splash where after my daughter and I rode, there was still a 20-30 minute wait until the swap passes started. We had already waited an hour for our fastpass window to open.. so we simply asked the CM if we had to wait around for another 30 minutes (explaining that we just wanted to swap adults), and he said no and let the our second group go through right then.

It seems that CMs are definitely "guesstimating" the rider swap return window, so it's not a perfect science, but as I've said, it almost always worked out that we could swap immediately, which worked well for us.

This was my son's first visit and our first time using RS. It was nice that there's usually a ride close by that he can go on while group 1 is on the "big ride" (Winnie the Pooh, Jungle Cruise, Buzz, Maters and Luigis, Bugs Land right next to GotG and Monsters Inc, etc).

 

[Royals]

Rider swap remained inconsistent for us. I'd say more often it was immediate (started 15-20 minutes after the first rider got it), but at least once a day we got one that was an hour or more out. We always asked when it would start. The ones that would start in 15-20 min the CM always seemed to know what they were doing and told us the exact time it would start. The ones that were farther out the CM always seemed confused and just told us the next person should ride right after. We would check the app and see the pass wouldn't be valid until an hour or so later. We tried to use it immediately anyway and were told we had to wait the full time to use it. The immediate return times worked great for us, but the farther out ones we always ended up wasting since it never worked out to stay in that area. Hopefully they get this all figured out soon as rider swap really is a great thing for families with small kids!

 

[Disney Excitement]

Is rider switch able to be used for any aged child that doesn't wish to ride or is there a maximum age? We have a 7 year old that doesn't like fast or scary rides. He may be the right height to ride but there is no way he will!

 

[bethwc101]

Trying to type this quickly on my phone at park so sorry for errors. Here now with husband and two year old so we use fastpass plus riderswap. I got a fp for rsr and husband got gog. At rsr I asked for rider swap and they scanned husbands ticket. I asked if he could make it immediate but he either didn't hear or ignored me. When I asked what time it was for the CM was super confused and just told him to come when I was done. That was about fifteen minutes later. App said fastpass was for an hour later but we tried it when I was done anyway. They turned my husband away even when he said that's what they told us to do. They said we had to come back in an hour. At gog my husband handed them my ticket and asked when it would start and she told us in twenty minutes. This matched the app and worked great for us. I got on as soon as he was done. Using this the rest of the week so I'll check in again later this week with our experiences.

Maybe I just don't understand but if husband is holding a fastpass for got and I have one for Racers and then we rider swap the two we are essentially holding 2 fastpasses at the same time. If I have to wait 30 min to ride again I don't think that's a big deal.
Not saying you are complaining but other people seem to have been. Please enlighten me if I'm missing something

 

[Royals]

Maybe I just don't understand but if husband is holding a fastpass for got and I have one for Racers and then we rider swap the two we are essentially holding 2 fastpasses at the same time. If I have to wait 30 min to ride again I don't think that's a big deal.
Not saying you are complaining but other people seem to have been. Please enlighten me if I'm missing something

Say my husband has FP for 1-2. He rides at 1, they give us a rider swap for 2:30-3:30. He's done at 1:20. I can't ride for over an hour. By that time we have moved on to another part of the park or even park hopped and my daughter has woken up from her nap. So then it's just usually not worth the trouble to go back. It's not a huge deal and may not matter to some, but for me it was an inconvenience and would have worked better with my plans to be able to ride immediately after.

 

[bethwc101]

Say my husband has FP for 1-2. He rides at 1, they give us a rider swap for 2:30-3:30. He's done at 1:20. I can't ride for over an hour. By that time we have moved on to another part of the park or even park hopped and my daughter has woken up from her nap. So then it's just usually not worth the trouble to go back. It's not a huge deal and may not matter to some, but for me it was an inconvenience and would have worked better with my plans to be able to ride immediately after.

But if your husband has a FP for 1-2 for ride A and you have 1:30 -2:30 for ride B and you RS both of them, you are holding 2 fastpasses.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

But if your husband has a FP for 1-2 for ride A and you have 1:30 -2:30 for ride B and you RS both of them, you are holding 2 fastpasses.

For me, rider switch has never been about how many fast passes you can hold at one time. It's about convenience, meaning, being able to swap and ride while the other parent takes care of the non-riding kid. If you have to wait an hour to use the swap, but you also ONLY have one hour to use that swap once it becomes active, then you either have to wait around near that ride for an hour or return to that ride an hour later. For me with my toddler, hanging around and waiting for an hour near a particular ride is not always going to happen (depending on the ride and what land it's in), and depending on where that ride is, getting back to that land might not be feasible within the timeframe once you are in another land, especially if now it's lunchtime and you have to feed your kid or whatever. The new rider swap system makes it HARDER for parents to ride, not easier, UNLESS you are lucky enough to get an immediate swap, which is apparently not standard between rides nor between CMs. It's frustrating to me when the old swap process was so easy and worked so well for us.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Duplicate post

 

[agamble]

Is rider switch able to be used for any aged child that doesn't wish to ride or is there a maximum age? We have a 7 year old that doesn't like fast or scary rides. He may be the right height to ride but there is no way he will!

At that age they will probably give you the swap pass, but you may not need one unless you have older children who want to ride. If it is just you, your spouse, and your 7 y/o it would probably be easiest to just use FP on the big rides as it allows for more flexibility (even with the old system) since you can be in different parts of the park, or even different parks.

Maybe I just don't understand but if husband is holding a fastpass for got and I have one for Racers and then we rider swap the two we are essentially holding 2 fastpasses at the same time. If I have to wait 30 min to ride again I don't think that's a big deal.
Not saying you are complaining but other people seem to have been. Please enlighten me if I'm missing something

But if your husband has a FP for 1-2 for ride A and you have 1:30 -2:30 for ride B and you RS both of them, you are holding 2 fastpasses.

To each their own. That would work in your scenario. Pull 1 FP each for two different popular attractions and use rider swap to allow both to ride. This would really depend on your touring style. Many families with young kids like to get one area done and move on. So the waiting around for the swap pass to be valid could be an annoyance, especially if they've already done everything else in that area. Our strategy will likely include a lot more splitting up when we visit the parks with our three little ones now.

 

[Royals]

But if your husband has a FP for 1-2 for ride A and you have 1:30 -2:30 for ride B and you RS both of them, you are holding 2 fastpasses.

As said above, this really wouldn't have mattered in our case. We still would have been in a different area of the park and not wanted to go back within the specific hour window they gave us. My biggest problem with these changes was that it was so inconsistent. We weren't even sure how it was going to work when we got there because Disneyland hadn't made any announcements. If it would always be an hour out or always be immediate I could plan for that. But that wasn't what we experienced, and we dealt with a lot of CMs who didn't even seem to know how it worked. That's what frustrated us.

 

[Disney Excitement]

At that age they will probably give you the swap pass, but you may not need one unless you have older children who want to ride. If it is just you, your spouse, and your 7 y/o it would probably be easiest to just use FP on the big rides as it allows for more flexibility (even with the old system) since you can be in different parts of the park, or even different parks.
Thanks for your message. Yes we have an 11 year old son too - who absolutely loves these types of rides. So I thought I'd get DH and DS11 to do the ride first and report back - if I think I'll enjoy it then I can ride too with DS11 on board for the second ride too. I'm a bit of a scardy cat so not sure if I will end up riding them but would like the option! Am I right in thinking that we can pull fast passes and then get a rider switch too?





To each their own. That would work in your scenario. Pull 1 FP each for two different popular attractions and use rider swap to allow both to ride. This would really depend on your touring style. Many families with young kids like to get one area done and move on. So the waiting around for the swap pass to be valid could be an annoyance, especially if they've already done everything else in that area. Our strategy will likely include a lot more splitting up when we visit the parks with our three little ones now.

 

[smartlabelprint]

But if your husband has a FP for 1-2 for ride A and you have 1:30 -2:30 for ride B and you RS both of them, you are holding 2 fastpasses.

One each. Not 2.

 

[MacMama0930]

Maybe I just don't understand but if husband is holding a fastpass for got and I have one for Racers and then we rider swap the two we are essentially holding 2 fastpasses at the same time. If I have to wait 30 min to ride again I don't think that's a big deal.
Not saying you are complaining but other people seem to have been. Please enlighten me if I'm missing something

I'm right there with you. Maybe I just don't fully understand the system, but when I hear people talk about convenience...it's like, waiting in lines isn't "convenient" for anyone. Trying to make FP times coordinate and all that isn't "convenient". Other times I've been to the parks with my kids, I've always had to just figure out a way to make it work. Hey hubby, you can take V on Indiana Jones now, but then I get to take him on ToT and you stay back with L. Again, I never even knew about RS, so I just made due with FP and swapping turns that way. I never expected Disney to make that part of my trip more convenient simply because I chose to bring a child that wasn't tall enough or didn't like certain rides. But I guess if you're used to a certain way of doing things, I can see how this change is disappointing.

 

[Yooperroo]

We will be heading to DL for the first time since having our daughter who is 2. There's lots of chat on this thread about doing a rider swap for attractions with fast passes, but in confused as to how this is going to work for the rides without them. We also have an 8 year old who will want to go on everything, but our 2 year old might be terrified of the dark rides. How does the rider swap work for rides like Snow White and Alice in Wonderland?

 

[Disneyplannergirl]

We will be heading to DL for the first time since having our daughter who is 2. There's lots of chat on this thread about doing a rider swap for attractions with fast passes, but in confused as to how this is going to work for the rides without them. We also have an 8 year old who will want to go on everything, but our 2 year old might be terrified of the dark rides. How does the rider swap work for rides like Snow White and Alice in Wonderland?

Those don't offer Rider Switch. I think it's only rides with height requirements Here is a link to the list: https://disneyland.disney.go.com/attractions/#/rider-switch/

Most of the rider switch rides also offer FP. On those, given the inconsistent changes to the system, you may be better off just trying to hit the FP time at the beginning of your hour window so the swapper can do an immediate switch.