parent swaping on rides?

[magickingdomrules]

Someone told me about parent swaping on rides and i was wondering what it was and how it worked. If i understand it, you, your spouse and kids wait in line. One parent waits at the enterence while the other goes on the ride and then you switch so the other parent goes on. Does anyone understand this mess and could possibly shed some light.

Thanks

 

[LibertyBelle]

It is fairly simple... first you want to make sure you talk to the greeter at the attraction and advise them of the swap (each attraction has a different way they handle that) You will run into one of two ways. They will either hand you a pass (that looks like a fast pass but says rider switch) and tell whoever is sitting out first to wait with the child at the exit and whoever is riding first to go ahead and hop on line as soon as the first person/group is through the line and comes back out you would switch the child off and then whoever waited would return to the fastpass line and hand in the ticket, thus using the fast pass entrance for re-entry. (The rider switch ticket on most rides is for up to 3 people so no one has to ride alone if you have more people in your party...)
The other way some rides do it is to have everyone wait in the line together and when the first party actually boards the ride, the non-riders will wait for them to return right there and then switch off.

Most rides now offer it with the rider switch ticket, but I believe that Space Mountain and a few others still allow the whole party to wait the inital line together. Just check with the greeter before the first group goes through.

 

[riopooh]

Actually its called baby swap and depending on the ride - you get a ticket (up to 3) so one part of the party can go while the other waits with the baby and then they can swap off and the other parent can ride while the first waits with the baby. It worked to my son's advantage last year - he got to ride twice (once with my DH and then when we swapped he rode again with me!) Mission Space, Fast Track &Splash Mt had tickets - Kali river had a special area at the end of the line for the babies & parents to wait - sorry but those are the only ones I remember!

 

[catnik]

We did the baby swap when we were at WDW last week and it worked really well, especially if you have other children who would get to ride a second time with the "waiting" adult. All the biggies give out a special "swap" pass much like a fast pass (Space, Splash, BTMR, Mission Space, Fast track, RnR and ToT, Dinosaur). Both adults and baby have to "check in" with the first CM to get the "swap" pass (guess they had people abusing the system so almost every CM had to see me, my husband and baby together before they would give us the pass). As stated above, one adult then rides alone or with others in the party; the second adult waits at the end of the ride (none of the above attractions would let all of us go thru together) or at a special designated spot (Kali Rapids). Once the first adult is done, the second adult (and 2 additional riders) go thru the fast pass line to ride. My older kids LOVED it as they got to double the times they rode the "cool" rides without having to wait in long line, and it was nice that the adult "left behind" had someone to ride with each time. FYI: the Safari at AK and Buzz Lightyear did not have baby swap options.