My experience with Rider Switch over thanksgiving weekend

[chimoe]

I wanted to share my experience with Rider swap since I read some very conflicting reviews over the past few months.

We just got back from our trip over the thanksgiving weekend. I had read posts saying the new digital system made the rider switch program difficult to work with. I was a little worried, since some posts also mentioned every party needed a FP+ to use rider switch on Tier 1 attractions.

I can report this is not true.

It was actually pretty flawless process for us. We used it on 7DMT, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers (this ride gave us a paper pass) and many other busy attractions.

We walked up to the CM, and told them we needed rider swap, they quickly ask who is the "2nd riders" and they scan their magic band. The CMs then ask if the 1st set of riders book FP+ or Standby. If it was FP+ then they set to return time within 10-20mins. If it's Standby, the return time was usually whatever the existing standby time wait, which makes sense.

The Rider Swap definitely has a bonus perk, where we split up our Tier 1 fast passes between Alien Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog Dash and essentially doubled up on extra FP+.

Hopefully this helps others doing research on Rider swap.

 

[anne60]

Our experience this past Friday was not good. We did the rider swap for test track, non-fastpass, right at park opening. We approached the CM and 10 minutes later, after a lot of confusion, the rest of us got back in line (you can imagine how many people got in line ahead of us during that time), and my son-in-law stayed outside with the baby. By the time he was finished riding, an hour and 20 minutes had gone by. We have not attempted it again.

 

[chimoe]

Anne - what was the issues you ran into? Was it the CM not knowing what ride swap was?

We did test track and had no issues there either.

One thing we noticed was there is 1 person designated with the iPad who does ride swaps. So one location had 3 CMs only 1 was able to process the rider swap. But when we asked they quickly directed us to the person who does it.

 

[anne60]

The issue was that it took her forever to explain what we needed to do and to scan the MBs Of the 3 people who were riding second. During that time hundreds of people got in line ahead of the original party.

 

[JPKanks]

I wanted to share my experience with Rider swap since I read some very conflicting reviews over the past few months.

We just got back from our trip over the thanksgiving weekend. I had read posts saying the new digital system made the rider switch program difficult to work with. I was a little worried, since some posts also mentioned every party needed a FP+ to use rider switch on Tier 1 attractions.

I can report this is not true.

It was actually pretty flawless process for us. We used it on 7DMT, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers (this ride gave us a paper pass) and many other busy attractions.

We walked up to the CM, and told them we needed rider swap, they quickly ask who is the "2nd riders" and they scan their magic band. The CMs then ask if the 1st set of riders book FP+ or Standby. If it was FP+ then they set to return time within 10-20mins. If it's Standby, the return time was usually whatever the existing standby time wait, which makes sense.

The Rider Swap definitely has a bonus perk, where we split up our Tier 1 fast passes between Alien Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog Dash and essentially doubled up on extra FP+.

Hopefully this helps others doing research on Rider swap.

How were you able to double up on FP+? I'm heading there later this week with my wife and two kids (5 and 2). My parents will also be with us (so six people in total). I'm wondering what the best way is utilize the rider swap is. I appreciate any insight you can give!

 

[MamaBear12]

Thank you so much for

I wanted to share my experience with Rider swap since I read some very conflicting reviews over the past few months.

We just got back from our trip over the thanksgiving weekend. I had read posts saying the new digital system made the rider switch program difficult to work with. I was a little worried, since some posts also mentioned every party needed a FP+ to use rider switch on Tier 1 attractions.

I can report this is not true.

It was actually pretty flawless process for us. We used it on 7DMT, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers (this ride gave us a paper pass) and many other busy attractions.

We walked up to the CM, and told them we needed rider swap, they quickly ask who is the "2nd riders" and they scan their magic band. The CMs then ask if the 1st set of riders book FP+ or Standby. If it was FP+ then they set to return time within 10-20mins. If it's Standby, the return time was usually whatever the existing standby time wait, which makes sense.

The Rider Swap definitely has a bonus perk, where we split up our Tier 1 fast passes between Alien Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog Dash and essentially doubled up on extra FP+.

Hopefully this helps others doing research on Rider swap.

Thank you so much for posting this! We're going New Years week and will have 4-6 adults (depending on the day) and 4 littles (ages 3.5-10), so we were hoping to be able to double up on our FP+ using rider swap since we have two kiddos under 40", making a few rides off limits for them. So, just to clarify, when checking in we'll need one of the adults with a FP+ for the ride and up to 3 rider switch adults (and child who can't ride) to go up to the rider switch CM to get the rider switch loaded on their tickets? Then the FP+ adults ride. Once they're done, the 3 rider switch adults go through the FP+ line?

 

[mikejs78]

How long have the swap passes been good for? I've heard conflicting reports of an hour or the whole day? What was your experience?

I wanted to share my experience with Rider swap since I read some very conflicting reviews over the past few months.

We just got back from our trip over the thanksgiving weekend. I had read posts saying the new digital system made the rider switch program difficult to work with. I was a little worried, since some posts also mentioned every party needed a FP+ to use rider switch on Tier 1 attractions.

I can report this is not true.

It was actually pretty flawless process for us. We used it on 7DMT, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers (this ride gave us a paper pass) and many other busy attractions.

We walked up to the CM, and told them we needed rider swap, they quickly ask who is the "2nd riders" and they scan their magic band. The CMs then ask if the 1st set of riders book FP+ or Standby. If it was FP+ then they set to return time within 10-20mins. If it's Standby, the return time was usually whatever the existing standby time wait, which makes sense.

The Rider Swap definitely has a bonus perk, where we split up our Tier 1 fast passes between Alien Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog Dash and essentially doubled up on extra FP+.

Hopefully this helps others doing research on Rider swap.

 

[chimoe]

From what I remember they had a start time but I don’t think there was an end time to use it.

Example. CM would set start time for 20mins and u can use it till end of day. Don’t Quote me 100% on this because after 1st group finished we immediately did the swap.

 

[MamaBear12]

I wanted to share my experience with Rider swap since I read some very conflicting reviews over the past few months.

We just got back from our trip over the thanksgiving weekend. I had read posts saying the new digital system made the rider switch program difficult to work with. I was a little worried, since some posts also mentioned every party needed a FP+ to use rider switch on Tier 1 attractions.

I can report this is not true.

It was actually pretty flawless process for us. We used it on 7DMT, Flight of Passage, Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers (this ride gave us a paper pass) and many other busy attractions.

We walked up to the CM, and told them we needed rider swap, they quickly ask who is the "2nd riders" and they scan their magic band. The CMs then ask if the 1st set of riders book FP+ or Standby. If it was FP+ then they set to return time within 10-20mins. If it's Standby, the return time was usually whatever the existing standby time wait, which makes sense.

The Rider Swap definitely has a bonus perk, where we split up our Tier 1 fast passes between Alien Swirling Saucers and Slinky Dog Dash and essentially doubled up on extra FP+.

Hopefully this helps others doing research on Rider swap.

Could you please describe the rider swap process at FoP? We weren’t able to get any FP+ for the ride and are planning to rope drop it. We’ll be a group of 8 with 2 under 40” and another who isn’t into “scary rides”. I’ve heard that within a few minutes the wait for FoP at rope drop can go from <30 min to 2+ hours, so I’m worried that a ton of people will pass us in the standby line while we set up rider swap. Any advice for how to make sure this doesn’t happen? Thanks so much!

 

[MomOTwins]

From what I remember they had a start time but I don’t think there was an end time to use it.

Example. CM would set start time for 20mins and u can use it till end of day. Don’t Quote me 100% on this because after 1st group finished we immediately did the swap.

That was not true at all when we used it in August. We rode Star Tours and then went to go see Indiana Jones, and by the time we got back about 90 minutes later we could not scan in to Star Tours. They explained that the new digital swap pass is only good for an hour, but let us go in as a courtesy (although that is definitely a YMMV and I expect they made an accommodation because the system was new, and the standby line was pretty short anyway so it was not a big deal; I would not expect a similar accommodation on something like FOP). After that we paid attention to what the swap passes looked like in MDE and they did clearly specify a start and end time of one-hour duration. You should plan to ride back-to-back or not at all using rider swap.

 

[ClapYourHands]

Thank you so much for

Thank you so much for posting this! We're going New Years week and will have 4-6 adults (depending on the day) and 4 littles (ages 3.5-10), so we were hoping to be able to double up on our FP+ using rider swap since we have two kiddos under 40", making a few rides off limits for them. So, just to clarify, when checking in we'll need one of the adults with a FP+ for the ride and up to 3 rider switch adults (and child who can't ride) to go up to the rider switch CM to get the rider switch loaded on their tickets? Then the FP+ adults ride. Once they're done, the 3 rider switch adults go through the FP+ line?

Basically. I haven't done RS with the new system, but that's what we did when it was paper RS return tickets (2016). Except in our case it was one adult staying with the baby, and the two older kids would ride a second time with the other parent.

For doubling up purposes, you could do it so 2-3 adults have one ride booked on FP (the others riding RS) and then the other adults booked on another ride (with the first group of adults riding RS). The problem then is how to arrange FP for the little ones. For us, it wasn't a big deal because we had a baby who didn't care about rides. Since you've got littles, you'll need to take their wants into consideration. What you might do is designate one adult to be the "kid rider" who will get a FP for the same ride as the little kids and accompany them. So you get FP for Adult 1 and the 2 littles for Peter Pan. You get FP for 7DMT for Adults 2,3,4 and 2 older kids. Adults 1,5,6 get RS for 7DMT and watch little kids and ride later (Adult 1 and two littles would ride at the same time as the first group goes on 7DMT). You get FP for BTMM for Adults 5,6, and then 3 people (you choose from Adults 1,2,3,4 and 2 older kids) get RS for BTMM. It's not perfect, because not everyone will be able to ride with RS on the second ride, but it does allow for some "extra" in the system.

Just be aware that there are only certain rides that allow for RS, so familiarize yourself with them. You can't, for example, book some of your party on Buzz or Haunted Mansion expecting to do RS because those are rides anyone, even an infant, can ride, so everyone needs his or her own FP.