Still trying to understand the new rider swap

This is still confusing me and now I’m not sure what to expect in our situation. I booked FP at the big scary rides for my husband and friend and booked a kid friendly ride for myself, son (who is too little) and sister. Would my sister and I be eligible to get the Riderswap for the big scary ride based on the standby time at least?

From what we experienced, no this would not work. I have one child who won't ride anything "scary" so my younger daughter gets to double up on her FP for ToT and other things. We are a party of 6, and I split FP like you are doing to accomodate every one. Last time I tried to get a rider swap for ToT with only having 2 FP (myself and my daughter). Since no one else had FP for it, we were not eligible for rider swaps because there was no other band/ticket to attach the rider swap to.

I have no experience with stand by line and rider swaps. We only tried it with our FP.

Potentially, you could make FP for scary ride for husband, friend and sister. Sister sits out as the rider swap band/ticket. Then you, sister, and one other could ride scary ride together. You and kiddo could FP something else while waiting for others to be done with scary ride (the first time). I *think* this is how it works. But I'm still trying to figure it out. It got to be that we just used the big scary ride rider swap time as bathroom/drink/snack break time rather than trying to accomplish something else.
 
From what we experienced, no this would not work. I have one child who won't ride anything "scary" so my younger daughter gets to double up on her FP for ToT and other things. We are a party of 6, and I split FP like you are doing to accomodate every one. Last time I tried to get a rider swap for ToT with only having 2 FP (myself and my daughter). Since no one else had FP for it, we were not eligible for rider swaps because there was no other band/ticket to attach the rider swap to.

I have no experience with stand by line and rider swaps. We only tried it with our FP.

Potentially, you could make FP for scary ride for husband, friend and sister. Sister sits out as the rider swap band/ticket. Then you, sister, and one other could ride scary ride together. You and kiddo could FP something else while waiting for others to be done with scary ride (the first time). I *think* this is how it works. But I'm still trying to figure it out. It got to be that we just used the big scary ride rider swap time as bathroom/drink/snack break time rather than trying to accomplish something else.

Thanks for the feedback. We leave next weekend so it will be nearly impossible to change the fast passes around to include my sister in the scary rides. It will stink but I don’t mind but this is her first time going in almost 20 years so I hate for her to miss things. Guess I’ll just be standing in line with her while the boys do something. Or we will find a way to make this rider swap work.
 
We will be traveling to Disney with out (almost) 8 month old son tomorrow. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around RS.

Right now, my husband and I have matching FP+ for every attraction booked. I was assuming for the rides our son will be too small for, we would have one of us ride while the other wanders around with him, then swap and have the next person ride. Because he's little enough he is never bored anyways, I hadn't planned to try and squeeze in an attraction for him/second parent simultaneously. Does this make sense or is there another way of using the system that would be better?

Is there ever the option of waiting in the FP+ line together, then having one parent wait in the loading area with the child (in baby carrier) while one parent rides and then swapping?
 
We will be traveling to Disney with out (almost) 8 month old son tomorrow. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around RS.

Right now, my husband and I have matching FP+ for every attraction booked. I was assuming for the rides our son will be too small for, we would have one of us ride while the other wanders around with him, then swap and have the next person ride. Because he's little enough he is never bored anyways, I hadn't planned to try and squeeze in an attraction for him/second parent simultaneously. Does this make sense or is there another way of using the system that would be better?

Is there ever the option of waiting in the FP+ line together, then having one parent wait in the loading area with the child (in baby carrier) while one parent rides and then swapping?

A child who is too short for a ride cannot enter the queue at all.
 
Thanks for this thread! So much confusing information out there. Some reporting the entire party doesn't need FP+, some reporting that it does. We're traveling with a larger group and I'm really not sure what to do at this point (including two under 40" kiddos), and it's hard to book FP+ at roughly the same time for all group members. I was hoping rider swap would help with that, but I guess I may have to redo my FP+ a bit to try to get them all together.
 
Thanks for the feedback. We leave next weekend so it will be nearly impossible to change the fast passes around to include my sister in the scary rides. It will stink but I don’t mind but this is her first time going in almost 20 years so I hate for her to miss things. Guess I’ll just be standing in line with her while the boys do something. Or we will find a way to make this rider swap work.
I would try to rider swap and see how it goes. The worst they can say is "no", and if you're lucky, it'll work out.
 


From what we experienced, no this would not work. I have one child who won't ride anything "scary" so my younger daughter gets to double up on her FP for ToT and other things. We are a party of 6, and I split FP like you are doing to accomodate every one. Last time I tried to get a rider swap for ToT with only having 2 FP (myself and my daughter). Since no one else had FP for it, we were not eligible for rider swaps because there was no other band/ticket to attach the rider swap to.

I have no experience with stand by line and rider swaps. We only tried it with our FP.

Potentially, you could make FP for scary ride for husband, friend and sister. Sister sits out as the rider swap band/ticket. Then you, sister, and one other could ride scary ride together. You and kiddo could FP something else while waiting for others to be done with scary ride (the first time). I *think* this is how it works. But I'm still trying to figure it out. It got to be that we just used the big scary ride rider swap time as bathroom/drink/snack break time rather than trying to accomplish something else.
So, do you think if I book FP+ for an over 40” ride for 4 members of our group of 6 adults (2 kids under 40”) and we ask for a rider swap, we could get it for one of the FP+ holding adults and the two non-FP+ adults as the companion riders?
 
We just returned from a 6 day Thanksgiving trip and had mixed experiences with RS. We needed someone to wait with our 2 yr old GD and we had not booked FPs for the person waiting which had been the normal process for our previous trips.

At AK, we had no issue at FOP. We also had no problem at Epcot Test Track or HS SDD. however, MK was a different story. We were there 2 days and at both BTMR and SDMT, they required the waiting riders to have a FP. Since we had not planned that I was worried that would mean no RS. However they said they would still issue the RS, but said they had to give the return time based on the standby line wait time unless the people waiting had a FP. So the return windows were quite a bit later. Since there is lots to do there, it wasn’t a big problem but it did mean having to come back later.

So I don’t know what the rule is. I’m curious if others had similar experiences.

I actually think that is the fair way to do it. If group #2 doesn’t have FPS, their return time should be based on the standby wait time - 10 minutes.
 
Everyone keeps searching for a definitive rule on this, but what I keep hearing is that it depends on the CM (and in turn, likely depends on crowd levels and whether the FP queue is already backed up from guests that already had FPs; when was likely the case at Thanksgiving when PP was there and was denied a swap).

When we went, we got FOP FPs for all the riders in our party just to be safe. I thought it was going to miserable waiting with my little one in August without a Navi FP to take him onto while my DH and kids rode first, but it ended up being a total non-issue: when it was my turn to wait, I got him a popsicle and he happily slurped it down on a shady bench near the ride exit, and when it was DH's turn to wait he took little one to explore the cool toys in the gift shop. I had never ridden FOP before, and I am so glad I got the FP for everyone so I didn't have to be worried about getting denied a swap.

That said, on every other ride, we only got FPs for the first riding group, and were always given a rider swap for the waiting parent with no questions asked about whether they had a FP. I think it is still a viable strategy for most rides at most times, but I would not risk it for rides that your group considers must-do, especially if you are going at a busy time of year.
 

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