DS is 5'5"is at 11 now, so we haven't done swap in a long time. But back then we had to show him to the CM. So this isn't new. This is old.
Does anyone know which rides require the child to go through the entire queue
None of them even allow too-short kids to go into the *whole* queue.
But this is where English is so imprecise! And this is where communication about swap gets difficult.
With Splash it's a perfect example, though. So everyone who has been there can visualize the Splash queue. There's a decent amount outside the mountain, and longer amount inside. On a quiet day, you practically enter where the CM is, which is just as you enter the mountain. I've NEVER seen a CM alllll the way at the entrance to the start of the queue. Ooh, English, is it the END of the line? Like when you join a clump of people and say "are you the end of the line?" which means the last person in the line. But we sometimes call that the START of the line, when talking about Disney lines. Right?
So it's where the line STARTS. If it's a busy day, or if you like to be precise and IN LINE the whole time, you pass Haunted Mansion and you get into the Splash line between the fence and the wooden fencing that is the line's demarkation. I've never seen a CM there.
So with swap, you need to be in that line (on a busy day) and go alllll the way to where the CM is, to show the CM the child.
But do you? Or could you put the first riders into the line, have the second riders with the too-small kid doing something else, and have that second riders and that child meet up with you as you reach that CM? I say yes, you can do that.
Does that make sense?
Same with Space. Sometimes the line goes all the way down the ramp out to the open space. There's no CM there. When you see the CM to get the swap pass, you've waited from where you joined the line until where you see that CM. For Space there's really nothing else you can do, so just get in that line. See the CM, get your pass, then the child and second riders move to where they'll meet the first riders.
But you're never going ALL the way through the line. You're just there until you reach the first CM.
Same with Indy. Light crowd day, you get right to the CM. Not much (if any) line waiting at all. On a bigger crowd day, though, there's a line before you reach that first CM. The kid has to wait until you reach that first CM.