Rider Swap/Rider Switch/Child Swap: Digital System begins in late June

[bimiller0720]

I’m curious to see how they plan to handle an hour (if that’s the true limit) when standby is well over an hour, or when total experience time even using FP approaches an hour.

Unless somehow the clock starts when the first party is boarding or close to it, it seems like a time limit would overly complicates things for front line CMs. Limiting to one pass per account seems so much less prone to issues. Same rule for everybody. I can’t see why anybody cares if a family rides immediately or 2 hours later.

This is what I asked yesterday and no one responded. People keep saying an hour is more than fair, but I’m confused how that would work. It seems from what most are saying everyone will scan their bands when the first parent enters the line and that starts the hour to use rider switch. If the line is 90 minutes long the rider switch would have expired leaving the second parent to choose between not riding or waiting in the standby line again.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

This is what I asked yesterday and no one responded. People keep saying an hour is more than fair, but I’m confused how that would work. It seems from what most are saying everyone will scan their bands when the first parent enters the line and that starts the hour to use rider switch. If the line is 90 minutes long the rider switch would have expired leaving the second parent to choose between not riding or waiting in the standby line again.

And there’s no way they would let that happen, which leads me to believe if the hour window is correct they’re going to have to do it with a whole bunch of exceptions, and that just seems like an unnecessary complication.

 

[ninafeliz]

I have lots of opinions on all of this that would be too hard to write out, and would become too cumbersome to follow anyway, so I'll just try to keep it to a minimum. I have an 8 yr old and a 5 yr old who should be over 44" this coming trip (Hallelujah! Now the only rides he can't ride are RNRC and Primeval Whirl!!). We had thought our need for RS would be over, but along came out 15 month old twins, so it still continues... I really don't think people who think getting RS is unfair to families think it through enough, it took us 90 min to do Soarin' with FP and RS once!! I would SO MUCH rather have been able to run in as a family and use our FPs and be done with it than spend 90 min of our day and be split up during that time! Plus the poor kid who couldn't ride had 90 min and no ride. And we couldn't leave him sleeping in a stroller because you can't take strollers into The Land. And we couldn't just hold a booth in the food court to snack/contain him and just switch from there because everyone has to be at the ride entrance to get the RS pass. All surmountable and just minor annoyances, but I still remember it years later. MUCH better when we can just all go together. But I digress.

Our upcoming trip is June 10-22. I hope this gets delayed and nothing changes for this trip! Our MK days are all at the end of our trip, and we have several rides we'll need to use RS because of the twins. I don't think the new system, the way people are describing the likelihood of it working, will really change anything for us, but I would rather not find out at the tail end of our trip that it does! I think we USUALLY just do the ride 2x in a row, because once we leave we aren't likely to take the time to go all the way back to Space Mt, for example, to ride it later. However, I do think we have occasionally ridden once and for various reasons used the RS for the other adult and the older kid (now it will be 2 older kids) at a totally different time. Hopefully that's all we'll have to change, losing that ability, and nothing else.

I wonder about the hour time period, that sounds cumbersome to explain at the line entrance and if they change the time for some people that will take even longer. But I do agree that for the rides with longer total times from line entrance to actually exiting the ride- like Soarin' and FOP, it can take over 30 min to ride from the FP lane, and then if you need a bathroom break/drink break in between it can be easily pushing an hour. Just the reality of it under normal circumstances. As it plays out, maybe there won't be that ability to do things in between, or maybe the hour won't turn out to be accurate (my hope). What I think might happen is the only change is that they will enforce that both adults need to have the same FP+ to do RS (which I guess is debatable if that had been the actual rule or not). We have always both had the FP, I actually hadn't thought about it and realized there was another option until many trips into our time needing RS, and then I was so used to how I did it and it takes so darn long to do each ride twice I didn't have it in me to try the other way and have to take time for even more rides twice, but I don't think they have EVER made us both scan. So the first adult would use theirs and the second adult would just let it expire. If this plays out like this thread is imagining, I think both adults will then always have to scan, and that will be the major difference. But I guess we'll see. I just hope we don't have to see 2/3 of the way through our next trip!! I would rather learn about it between this trip and the next one, whenever that may end up being.

 

[bumbershoot]

This is what I asked yesterday and no one responded.

It had already been addressed before your question, actually.

What happens if it takes longer than one hour for the first rider to ride?

If I got to the end of the ride and it took that long, I would go to the CM and ask for another window. I am sure they can accommodate that.

And I agree with DizneyMommy.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

It had already been addressed before your question, actually.








And I agree with DizneyMommy.

The issue is what they do when stand by time is an hour or more, with it being obvious the 2nd party will not make it back in an hour. You think Disney is going to still stick to hour long windows with their CMs being in charge of who gets extended and who doesn’t? I don’t. What a mess that would be.

 

[bimiller0720]

It had already been addressed before your question, actually.

So you’re saying on a ride where the standby line is consistently over an hour every person that wishes to use rider switch will have to ask them to fix due to special circumstances at the end of the ride? I’ve never been to Disney before so I’m trying to understand what I can before our trip in a few weeks. Most people seem concerned about fast pass lines being long, but I’m not seeing much about standby lines that are always long.

 

[WillowRain]

It’s interesting that the reports say it will have a 1 hr window and only allow you to obtain 1 at a time. It seems like not allowing you to obtain a second until the first was used would limit any potential abuse issues. I wonder if the 1 hour thing is more about managing the FP que through out the day. There have been times when I thought a FP que seemed incredibly long. I always assumed it was because many people all came at once rather then spread over the hour (for example a ton of people in the 5:30-6:30 showed up at the end of the hour and a lot of people in the 6:15-7:15 showed up in the beginning of their hour). Since we know disney likes to track data perhaps their data shows that while many rider swaps are issued early in the day they are redeemed later in the day leading to extended FP wait times (and therefore lengthing the stands by wait significantly as well). I’ve experienced long waits like this at 7DMT and TOT. They actually made an announcement once about the standby line wait time may be longer than originally stated due to a “high number of guests with reservations” (ie the long FP line)

Absolutely digitally they can control the line more. If they know they have 20 RS's coming back within the hour, and 72 FP (total guesstimate) riders within that same time, they know exactly how many from each line to let in. So will the standby line time go up from what it said when you entered, maybe? Risk people take with standby. But everything digital gives them MUCH more control over wait times in the FP line. Seriously, never more than 20 mins on any ride at Disneyland with the digital system. I timed all of them, Indy with that crazy walk, 20 mins. Space, up the mountain and down, 20 mins. Even when the FP line was like 50 people long, still 20 mins, because they just let more FP riders go through. And they also were issuing Any passes for downed rides, and still 20 mins. This, is, a, GOOD, thing!!!!!

This is what I asked yesterday and no one responded. People keep saying an hour is more than fair, but I’m confused how that would work. It seems from what most are saying everyone will scan their bands when the first parent enters the line and that starts the hour to use rider switch. If the line is 90 minutes long the rider switch would have expired leaving the second parent to choose between not riding or waiting in the standby line again.

There is NO WAY a FP line will ever be more than 30 mins. Trust me. The reason that FP lines became so long were because of paper passes!!!!!! There is no way to gauge how many people will show up at any given time. As far as FOP and Soarin go, those always take a long time to load due to the screening rooms and load process. Perhaps, on those rides, the window will be extended. We skipped soarin this time around so I don't know, but I do know it's always taken longer to load, and esp at Epcot with having to walk down there and all. And if it does happen that you get stuck in a FP line for more than an hour, I am sure they will re-issue the pass. It's not like the do not communicate and have cameras everywhere. If you enter FOP at 10 am and do not come out until 11, immediately go to CM at the exit and explain the situation. Just make sure everyone is on your MDE and it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[ninafeliz]

I know this is all just speculation, but I can't imagine they are going to make it so you have to stand at the ride entrance and ask them to change your return time for RS if the hour they put on your account won't work for you for whatever reason, or even to plead your case for missing your hour due to the long wait in line, bathroom break between rides, etc... That's already a crazy, congested area with sometimes the regular line and FP line side by side, FP people trying to tap, people hanging around crazy close waiting for their FP window to open, people asking at both lines for RS passes, and people with various questions (I'm thinking or TOT here). That would just clog up that area more, and back up the people waiting to tap in for FP even more than already happens when it's busy or an unusual distribution of people happens.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

Absolutely digitally they can control the line more. If they know they have 20 RS's coming back within the hour, and 72 FP (total guesstimate) riders within that same time, they know exactly how many from each line to let in. So will the standby line time go up from what it said when you entered, maybe? Risk people take with standby. But everything digital gives them MUCH more control over wait times in the FP line. Seriously, never more than 20 mins on any ride at Disneyland with the digital system. I timed all of them, Indy with that crazy walk, 20 mins. Space, up the mountain and down, 20 mins. Even when the FP line was like 50 people long, still 20 mins, because they just let more FP riders go through. And they also were issuing Any passes for downed rides, and still 20 mins. This, is, a, GOOD, thing!!!!!



There is NO WAY a FP line will ever be more than 30 mins. Trust me. The reason that FP lines became so long were because of paper passes!!!!!! There is no way to gauge how many people will show up at any given time. As far as FOP and Soarin go, those always take a long time to load due to the screening rooms and load process. Perhaps, on those rides, the window will be extended. We skipped soarin this time around so I don't know, but I do know it's always taken longer to load, and esp at Epcot with having to walk down there and all. And if it does happen that you get stuck in a FP line for more than an hour, I am sure they will re-issue the pass. It's not like the do not communicate and have cameras everywhere. If you enter FOP at 10 am and do not come out until 11, immediately go to CM at the exit and explain the situation. Just make sure everyone is on your MDE and it shouldn't be a problem.

That poster is talking about standby waits. I think in all the outrage people have had about families using this in conjunction with FP, it’s been lost in the discussion that many times people are waiting in standby in the first place.

The sheer amount of legitimate FP+ holders are what makes the FP lines long. That’s it. I think anybody who is waiting for a change in a few weeks because of this is going to be disappointed.

 

[KrazeeK120]

I know this is all just speculation, but I can't imagine they are going to make it so you have to stand at the ride entrance and ask them to change your return time for RS if the hour they put on your account won't work for you for whatever reason, or even to plead your case for missing your hour due to the long wait in line, bathroom break between rides, etc...

You have more faith than I do.

 

[DizneyMommy]

I know this is all just speculation, but I can't imagine they are going to make it so you have to stand at the ride entrance and ask them to change your return time for RS if the hour they put on your account won't work for you for whatever reason, or even to plead your case for missing your hour due to the long wait in line, bathroom break between rides, etc... That's already a crazy, congested area with sometimes the regular line and FP line side by side, FP people trying to tap, people hanging around crazy close waiting for their FP window to open, people asking at both lines for RS passes, and people with various questions (I'm thinking or TOT here). That would just clog up that area more, and back up the people waiting to tap in for FP even more than already happens when it's busy or an unusual distribution of people happens.

They’ve been doing it at DL for months and it worked so well I didn’t even KNOW I only had a one hour window.

 

[StacyStrong]

I can picture a tap/scan when entering the line and a tap/swipe when leaving which would start the hour window to enter FP.

Am I making it too simple? Probably. But I'm sure Disney will figure out some way to make it work other than every individual person coming up and asking for a change.

At least I hope Disney is smart enough to implement something like this.

 

[DizneyMommy]

Maybe DL went first as a test, and it worked so well that they are rolling it out at WDW. Because it really does goes so smoothly at DL you’d never notice. They do both digital and one hour window.

 

[WillowRain]

That poster is talking about standby waits. I think in all the outrage people have had about families using this in conjunction with FP, it’s been lost in the discussion that many times people are waiting in standby in the first place.

The sheer amount of legitimate FP+ holders are what makes the FP lines long. That’s it. I think anybody who is waiting for a change in a few weeks because of this is going to be disappointed.

I forgot, we did do standby on day 1 during EMH. We asked at the front of the line and she told us to go up to the exit to get it, simply because she didn't have a machine on her. So let's assume that we are getting rider swaps for standby at the exit instead of entrance, because obviously a 90 min standby time you won't be able to make the swap in an hour. That makes sense to me, and I am sure it will be explained better before launch. I wish I had stood in more standby lines and asked, but this seems logical.

 

[ninafeliz]

They’ve been doing it at DL for months and it worked so well I didn’t even KNOW I only had a one hour window.

well, good to hear, hopefully this is all much ado about nothing (like frequently happens around here and with the internet in general)

 

[StacyStrong]

"The most significant change that families will care about most is this: Rider Switch now has a time limit. While the old Rider Switch tickets could be used any time later in the day, the new system effectively imposes a one hour time window in which to return. The cast members explained to me that this window usually starts about 15 minutes after the first group gets in line.

The timing gets a little more complicated when the first group is planning to use the standby line. Standby lines can often be well over an hour for some thrill rides meaning that an hour window for the second group to ride doesn’t make sense. Cast members are supposed to account for this in setting the return time for the second group to start later, but it has apparently been a bit haphazard so far."

Posted a year ago about Disneyland

https://tripswithtykes.com/disneyland-rider-switch-maxpass/

 

[DGsAtBLT]

I forgot, we did do standby on day 1 during EMH. We asked at the front of the line and she told us to go up to the exit to get it, simply because she didn't have a machine on her. So let's assume that we are getting rider swaps for standby at the exit instead of entrance, because obviously a 90 min standby time you won't be able to make the swap in an hour. That makes sense to me, and I am sure it will be explained better before launch. I wish I had stood in more standby lines and asked, but this seems logical.

It would make sense in the current system. Because right now they give lanyards that can be exchanged for passes at whatever point Disney chooses.

I think it’s been specifically said that everybody in the party needs to scan their bands in order to receive the swap though, so you’re going to have to wait for your entire party to arrive at the exit before this happens? Like I said, it all feels like overly complicating something when they could easily just make it so everybody can only hold 1 at a time, with most people likely using them pretty close to back to back.

 

[ninafeliz]

So I'm seeing one big difference is the inability to hold more than one. But I would also think the return time limit would also do this, so it's overkill. If you have to return in an hour you couldn't really feasibly hold 2, right? With paper and the ability to ride later, you could, if you wanted to, ride Space, Splash, BTMRR, and SDMT with one adult and the tall enough kid(s) and do all of the returns later that night or even another night when you maybe had a sitter for the too short kids, or they were asleep, or something. But then only one adult got to ride, and if you had more than one tall enough kid an adult would still have to sit out the second time, so still often reasons people wouldn't do this. I'm suspecting not too many people did this, or something like this. But maybe I'm wrong, and enough people did this and other scenarios that they want to keep the option available but make it more controlled and less open for doing things other than just riding twice in a row with each adult swapping out the too short child.

 

[ww52]

Yet another change I was not aware of. Seriously, we've been to WDW 7 or 8 times and I've never had to read up as much as i have for this trip (last one was 7 years ago - essentially the dark ages I guess).

We may want to use rider swap and I naively thought it worked the original way (get to the line, the swapper waits for the swappee to finish, then rides). I guess I don't understand what was wrong with that but I'm not really thinking it through.

Then I guess they instituted a sort of "FP for swappers" and I can see where that created unforseen unfairness. Again, I'd have to catch up and don't' expect any explanations.

I have a feeling our "solution" this time around is going to simply have a designated non-rider watch the kids while the riders ride.

But I've got time to read up on this and see how it will work for our July trip.

How can anyone go to WDW not knowing about things like advance dinner reservations 6 months out, MDE, Magic Bands, FP+ two months out, the whole FP rules, early and late magic hours. and now rules for rider swap - and still feel they got their money's worth on a very expensive vacation?

I realize - as the Unofficial Guide said decades ago - spontaneity is dead at WDW. But the complexity is increasing at an accelerated pace.

Next stop - WDW offers a planning service where a CM will handle everything for you - for the low fee of $$$$.

 

[DisneyFan119]

I'm looking forward to reading the reports when people get down there and this takes effect.

Glad I don't have to be in the "guinea pig" group. Hopefully the kinks and questions will be worked out before my trip in August. Thanks in advance to all of you who happen to be going when this is rolling out and have to deal with the unknown and possibly some confusion. Just remember to have a little patience and give extra grace to the CMs around this time.