FP+ and Child Swap?? How does this work??

[kristenrice]

My sister's family has a 6yo and a 2yo. They want to ride Soarin' and Test Track at Epcot, EE and Dinosaur at AK, "The Mountains" at the mine ride at MK, and ToT at The Studios. Since the 2yo cannot ride any of these, how does the child swap option work with FP+? Will the 6yo still get to ride twice, once with each parent? Or will one of the parents be forced to ride alone?

Second question...related to this...since there are tiered FP+ at Epcot, let's say they opt to use their top choice on Soarin' and ride TT on standby. How would the child swap work in that scenario?

 

[morethananyonex]

My sister's family has a 6yo and a 2yo. They want to ride Soarin' and Test Track at Epcot, EE and Dinosaur at AK, "The Mountains" at the mine ride at MK, and ToT at The Studios. Since the 2yo cannot ride any of these, how does the child swap option work with FP+? Will the 6yo still get to ride twice, once with each parent? Or will one of the parents be forced to ride alone? Second question...related to this...since there are tiered FP+ at Epcot, let's say they opt to use their top choice on Soarin' and ride TT on standby. How would the child swap work in that scenario?

When the whole family arrives at the entrance together, whether it's stand by or FP, they can request a rider swap pass from the CM working. One parent and the 6 year old enter, and the other parent takes the 2 year old somewhere else. That pass allows up to 3 guests entry into the FP line at anytime after, so the 6 year old gets an extra ride with the non riding parent.

With FP+, only the initial riders need a FP to access the FP line, the others will just use the rider swap pass. That means at MK for example 3 FP can be used (one per ride) to get on all 3 mountains if the 6 year old doesn't need to have the extra ride. Swap passes can be used for the other 2 family members to go through the FP line without using FP. That leaves 6 FP to be used between 2 different attractions that the entire family can ride together. The 6 year old can also have an extra ride as long as she/he uses a FP the first time as well, or the stand by line is used.

At Epcot the 6 year old can get an extra ride on both TT and Soarin if they are willing to wait stand by for one. The 6 year old can get an extra ride on one if you want to get around the tiers. Book 2 of the tier 1 FP for whichever one of TT/Soarin the 6 year old wants a 2nd ride on. Get a swap pass for the non riding adult and the 6 year old. Book the 3rd FP for the other ride, get a swap pass when the one adult enters, afterwards the 6 year old and remaining adult can use the pass.

Basically, the 6 year old gets to repeat rides unless the family chooses to use rider swap to get around FP+ restrictions. Then it will be one ride only.

 

[alicia080979]

I have been reading as much as I can to figure out how this is going to work too. We have 3 adults, 1 teen, 1 infant. So far...I am planning on splitting the FP+ reservations up to maximize rides. I don't think it is circumventing the system because it takes twice as long for a family to ride using RS.

Here is an example of my plan at Epcot:
2 FP+ for Soarin for me & DS
2 FP + for TT for DH & my mom

We will use rider swap at both rides and thus all of us should be able to ride with DS.

I think you should be able to split up your FP+ at some parks so everyone can ride together.

We will do standby for a few things at RD and use RS as much as possible and I will just split up our FP for some things at MK like SM and Splash so DH & DS can ride and I can make FP+ for my mom and I to take the baby on Dumbo and Peter Pan. DH & DS will miss those but I don't think they will care. It has definitely been challenging this trip trying to figure out how to plan with such wide age ranges!

 

[wallskm]

We'll see how it works next week but we basically did the same thing last year for our kids with paper FP. We had 4 adults and 3 kids who couldn't ride. Half would get FP for BTMRR (as an example) and half would get a FP for Splash. We'd all go to BTMRR, get a rider swap, then the ones with the FP would go first through the FP line and then the others would go next. Then we'd walk over to Splash and repeat. We had no issues. I expect the same will work with FP+ but if it doesn't work with FP+ and they make us go to the standby line that's OK DS and I will use our FP+ and DH will ride the ride another time (We have 2 Epcot days).

 

[kristenrice]

OK, let me get this straight...

For Epcot, they get a FP+ for DD6 and mom. Mom and DD6 ride using FP+ and then Dad and DD6 ride using rider swap? That means that Dad can still get a FP+ for Soarin', but how would DD6 get to use it too? Wouldn't she have already used her tier one FP+ choice?

I guess I am confused because it looks like folks are suggesting that only one adult needs to get the FP+ for each ride. Doesn't the riding child need a FP+ as well?

I'm still a little confused...but I am less confused then I was.

 

[morethananyonex]

OK, let me get this straight...

For Epcot, they get a FP+ for DD6 and mom. Mom and DD6 ride using FP+ and then Dad and DD6 ride using rider swap? That means that Dad can still get a FP+ for Soarin', but how would DD6 get to use it too? Wouldn't she have already used her tier one FP+ choice?

I guess I am confused because it looks like folks are suggesting that only one adult needs to get the FP+ for each ride. Doesn't the riding child need a FP+ as well?

I'm still a little confused...but I am less confused then I was.

They have a total of 3 tier one FP+ per day at Epcot. One per person. There's 2 ways to go about it:

Method 1 (DD6 gets to ride Soarin'/TT twice) - Mom and DD6 enter stand by line at TT, get swap pass. Dad and DD6 ride later with rider swap pass. Mom and DD6 use their FP+ for Soarin', get swap pass. Dad and DD6 ride later with rider swap pass. Dad's extra FP+ can be used to take the little one to the character spot (a tier one option) during all of this OR he could ride Soarin/TT and get another rider swap pass for a third ride on either.

Method 2 (No stand by lines) - Mom and DD6 use FP+ at TT, get swap pass. Dad and DD6 ride later with swap pass. Dad uses his FP+ at Soarin, gets swap pass. Mom and DD6 ride later with swap pass. (Or reversed)

 

[Sheaboys]

I don't get it either. When we did rider swap, either at Universal or Disney, we all waited in Standby (or at Universal front of the line passes), when we got to the front, we told them we were doing rider swap, I sat in the room with ds4 and ds5 while older 3 boys rode, then when they got off, I rode with 2 of the boys, while the oldest boy, stayed with the 2 younger ones. I assumed, with FastPass+ we would all go in with our bracelets, scan, then when we get to the front, say we want rider swap, and dh will sit out with youngest and then when we get off, I sit out with youngest so he can ride with others. I would just assume we all need FastPass+ to do so, or we all wait in standby, either way.

 

[msdroz]

I think I'm more confused now!

Does this mean that our party of three (Mom, Dad, 7 year old) can swap so that each of us gets to ride with our kid? I know that Toy Story is only a 2 seater so do we each get a shot at riding with him? This seems like a selfish way to hold up the line?

 

[morethananyonex]

I think I'm more confused now! Does this mean that our party of three (Mom, Dad, 7 year old) can swap so that each of us gets to ride with our kid? I know that Toy Story is only a 2 seater so do we each get a shot at riding with him? This seems like a selfish way to hold up the line?

No.

It only applies to groups who have a child too short to ride. Those groups get a swap pass and the child who's tall enough can ride again with the parent who was watching the too short child the first time around.

 

[JEmaryland]

Okay so currently for our trip in May our tier one choice for Epcot is Soarin'. It's my husband, myself, and our two year old who is too small to ride so we were going to leave him with some family members who are also going. If we choose to ride separately and get a swap pass, does that mean we could get another FP for TT and do the same thing?