Rider swap changes

[lcp9]

Yeah. Roger Rabbit and Ladybug Boogie don't offer it either, but they require a child to sit on their own. So a 4 month old can't ride those either, but no swap. It's not perfect, but it's better than a lot of parks.

Yeah I was surprised by RR - I must have had my son at the time who was probably 15 months? It was super jerky and I had to have my arm there to make sure his head didn't bang into the bar. Never again!

 

[theluckyrabbit]

It sounds like Disney is working out the kinks with this new system and the poor CMs are having to deal with all the changes on a day to day basis. If things follow the usual M.O., we should have some sort of announcement or page on the website soon with all the "official" changes after management figures them out.
For those of you who are in the parks now using digital Rider Switch/Swap, please report back on your experiences. Your updates are very helpful for everyone else.
For those of you who have had negative experiences with the new system or with rude CMs, please report this to City Hall, Chamber of Commerce, or leave a comment on the DLR website. Guest Experiences really does care and wants to know what's going on.

And, please, let's all try to show each other the DIS respect and kindness that we're known for around here. Thank you.

 

[HuskyGal]

That is not true. The passes did NOT say you had to use them immediately. You could use them any time. We were NOT abusing the system. CM told me on MULTIPLE occasions that we could go ride other rides and come back later. In any case I went to the Chamber of Commerce at DCA and a CM double checked with a lead and they said it was just a glitch. They said the two were separate and we could get a new FP while holding the swap and even get another swap for a different ride.

Thank you so much for reporting back. This is great news!

 

[DellyHoliday]

Thank you so much for this link!! We were told by a CM at Toy Story Midway Mania that they did not offer a Rider Switch and that my 4 month old (at the time) could just sit on my lap...huh? And how exactly would I "ride" the ride...car spinning in the dark, wearing 3D glasses, pulling furiously at the cannon string, holding a 4 month old...??? For real? The CM had no answer. Just looked at me, shrugged, and said that they didn't offer a Rider Switch because the ride had "no official height limit". Would've loved to have had this info at the time! Really appreciate it and will be printing my own copy.

I actually rode TSMM when my daughter was 5 months old at the time (almost 6 mo) and got the highest score among my husband and my then 3.5 yr old lol. I put her in the carrier and made sure to hold her head when the vehicle was spinning XD

 

[cpster]

We got one for Goofy's Sky School the other day. Tickets were scanned and I saw the swap pass in the app. I think it was a one hour window, but didn't start right away as we tried to use it as soon as the first party was done. Asked the CM if all rides were digital now and was told yes.

 

[DellyHoliday]

We got one for Goofy's Sky School the other day. Tickets were scanned and I saw the swap pass in the app. I think it was a one hour window, but didn't start right away as we tried to use it as soon as the first party was done. Asked the CM if all rides were digital now and was told yes.

hmmm.. so the swap passes indeed have return time then. I don't know how to feel about that

 

[DellyHoliday]

That is not true. The passes did NOT say you had to use them immediately. You could use them any time.

I'm confused now. So do passes now have return time or no? My trip's in less than 2 weeks. it's my dad's first time in DL and first vacation in 15 yrs so I've been spending extra time planning it

 

[lcp9]

I contacted guest services and got a call back today. She left a message, and said that the only change (ha) to the rider switch program was that the passes do have a return time equal to standby time (?). So she said if RSR has a 60 minute wait at 10am, and you go at 10am, the rider switch pass will have an hour window. That doesn't answer then what if FP line is 30 mins, do you then only have 30 minutes after the fact to use the rider switch?

Whatever it is, it sounds like no one really knows what's going on and the whole concept sounds very complicated and is annoying to say the least.

ETA and posters above were saying that it is taking up to an hour to load? so...who knows.

Update #1: I just called the number back to get more info and the (different) CM was unaware that there was any return time associated with rider switch and she said she just used it 2 days ago and there wasn't.

 

[onlyoneash]

I contacted guest services and got a call back today. She left a message, and said that the only change (ha) to the rider switch program was that the passes do have a return time equal to standby time (?). So she said if RSR has a 60 minute wait at 10am, and you go at 10am, the rider switch pass will have an hour window. That doesn't answer then what if FP line is 30 mins, do you then only have 30 minutes after the fact to use the rider switch?

Whatever it is, it sounds like no one really knows what's going on and the whole concept sounds very complicated and is annoying to say the least.

ETA and posters above were saying that it is taking up to an hour to load? so...who knows.

Yeah, like I said earlier upthread, I swear they are not training their staff well and throwing this whole thing together unorganized because they want to mainly encourage maxpass. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if child swap went away all together in the next year in favor of maxpass.

Buuuuut, I'm secretly hoping it never gets figured out and they switch back to paper child swap passes when I go next month.

 

[agamble]

I'm confused now. So do passes now have return time or no? My trip's in less than 2 weeks. it's my dad's first time in DL and first vacation in 15 yrs so I've been spending extra time planning it

Do you have kids who can't/won't ride the big rides? The Rider Swap is for swapping on rides with kids who cannot ride. They are just scanning your tickets and putting the Swap Passes right on the tickets like the FP are. That was the only change.

I contacted guest services and got a call back today. She left a message, and said that the only change (ha) to the rider switch program was that the passes do have a return time equal to standby time (?). So she said if RSR has a 60 minute wait at 10am, and you go at 10am, the rider switch pass will have an hour window. That doesn't answer then what if FP line is 30 mins, do you then only have 30 minutes after the fact to use the rider switch?

Whatever it is, it sounds like no one really knows what's going on and the whole concept sounds very complicated and is annoying to say the least.

ETA and posters above were saying that it is taking up to an hour to load? so...who knows.

Update #1: I just called the number back to get more info and the (different) CM was unaware that there was any return time associated with rider switch and she said she just used it 2 days ago and there wasn't.

I think that CM was confused. We used rider switch 4 times during our trip and there was no window. The "hour" mentioned is that it could take up to an hour for the swap to show up on your ticket. Ours showed on my app much faster than an hour though.

Our first experience with this was Sunday riding Splash Mountain. We went to get a riderswap as DH and DD were going through the FP queue for Splash. We asked for a swap pass and they asked for our tickets and scanned them. They only said they were digital. We left the park after their ride on Splash for naptime and I did not use the swap pass until hours later when we returned to the park. Now on Monday we also got Swap passes for Guardian's, RSR, and GRR. The only problem I had was that the tickets initially showed on my app and then disappeared. However, they were still active on my ticket. And as I mentioned in a post above I went to the Chamber of Commerce and asked about my disappearing swaps and I was told it was just a glitch.

 

[PurpleKomodo]

We were in the parks a couple of weeks ago and rider swapped several times as we were travelling with littles. We were never given an official rider swap pass that we could take and use later. We were given lanyards, laminated cards, or, at Soarin', a somewhat random piece of paper that they said they were using for rider swap for the time being. Needless to say, we never felt like we had a choice but to swap immediately. Has anyone else had that experience? I wonder if they were in the process of switching to the digital thing. We were given digital passes when we got return times for the handicap entrance, but it did not interfere with any FPs.

 

[lcp9]

Do you have kids who can't/won't ride the big rides? The Rider Swap is for swapping on rides with kids who cannot ride. They are just scanning your tickets and putting the Swap Passes right on the tickets like the FP are. That was the only change.



I think that CM was confused. We used rider switch 4 times during our trip and there was no window. The "hour" mentioned is that it could take up to an hour for the swap to show up on your ticket. Ours showed on my app much faster than an hour though.

Our first experience with this was Sunday riding Splash Mountain. We went to get a riderswap as DH and DD were going through the FP queue for Splash. We asked for a swap pass and they asked for our tickets and scanned them. They only said they were digital. We left the park after their ride on Splash for naptime and I did not use the swap pass until hours later when we returned to the park. Now on Monday we also got Swap passes for Guardian's, RSR, and GRR. The only problem I had was that the tickets initially showed on my app and then disappeared. However, they were still active on my ticket. And as I mentioned in a post above I went to the Chamber of Commerce and asked about my disappearing swaps and I was told it was just a glitch.

I think EVERYONE is confused. So CM#2 called Star Tours, who told her that they give a return time and if person #1 is waiting in the standby line they adjust return time for wait + attraction time, and add that to an hour. It was all very vague and did not sound like there was any rhyme or reason to what was happening. However, she did also say that they aren't really turning people away because it's so new (aka our employees have no idea what they are doing.)

FWIW the CM #2 sounded kind of mad that no one gave them this information seeing as how they are, you know, guest information.

 

[DellyHoliday]

Do you have kids who can't/won't ride the big rides? The Rider Swap is for swapping on rides with kids who cannot ride. They are just scanning your tickets and putting the Swap Passes right on the tickets like the FP are. That was the only change.

Yes I do. Me, my husband, our 1 yr old, our 4 yr old (tall enough for most rides but refuse to ride half of them) and my dad are going. We found out about Rider Swap system before our last trip and it made a huge difference compare to our other two trips that we took without knowing about Rider Swap.

Oh I have a question, my 4yr old son LOVES Star Tours. If my husband and son got fast passes for Star Tours, would it be possible for me, my dad AND my son to get rider swap? or not, because my son is in the first group riding? I know when they used paper Rider Swap, you could bring up to 3 people even if some people in the group already rode it with the first group.

 

[DellyHoliday]

We were in the parks a couple of weeks ago and rider swapped several times as we were travelling with littles. We were never given an official rider swap pass that we could take and use later. We were given lanyards, laminated cards, or, at Soarin', a somewhat random piece of paper that they said they were using for rider swap for the time being. Needless to say, we never felt like we had a choice but to swap immediately. Has anyone else had that experience? I wonder if they were in the process of switching to the digital thing. We were given digital passes when we got return times for the handicap entrance, but it did not interfere with any FPs.

I think they were in the transition phase. However, during our last trip (Feb) a few rides like Space Mountain and Soarin' used lanyards and laminated cards. I also felt like it was because those rides are popular and they wanted people to swap immediately.

 

[DisneylandPlanner]

Just leaving this here
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/rider-switch/

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Just leaving this here
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/rider-switch/

Although this is the official published information regarding rider swap, this is not exactly how it has historically worked in reality. Additionally, things are different now that rider swap has become digital. It seems that even CMs are not sure how it is "supposed" to work now.

 

[DellyHoliday]

Although this is the official published information regarding rider swap, this is not exactly how it has historically worked in reality. Additionally, things are different now that rider swap has become digital. It seems that even CMs are not sure how it is "supposed" to work now.

It seems like this information has been updated since it went digital since it says "will have their admission media/tickets scanned"...? So, maybe they are trying to really follow these instructions now on?

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

It seems like this information has been updated since it went digital since it says "will have their admission media/tickets scanned"...? So, maybe they are trying to really follow these instructions now on?

I guess, but it says nothing about whether it must be used immediately, or if you can hold multiple rider switch passes at once. Or if they expire within an hour or whatever. Basically, no helpful information, sigh.

I am also curious how this is working at the various rides because they all used to have different systems. Some gave out rider switch at the entrance, some gave it right before you boarded, some handed you a lanyard at the entrance to switch for a switch pass right before boarding. Space Mountain you just met the first rider at the exit and rode immediately (entered through the handicapped entrance). Never once have I encountered a "designated waiting area" outside an attraction as specified in that description.

If I had to guess, I would think they have a digital team going through the entire website removing mentions of the old way fast pass and rider switch worked and replacing all the wording with "admission media/tickets scanned."

 

[apple9117]

Woa thanks for the info!

 

[coasternut22]

Just leaving this here
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/rider-switch/

Walt Disney World has almost the exact same procedures on their website and they allow up to a month for party #2 to return. Not sure what this post is trying to prove.