Changes to the Rider Switch system

[Gryff]

We'd not done Disney for 9 years with a toddler until this march and we ere dreading it with an under 2with FP etc yes it worked fine for us i.e. Mum &dad used their FP and said Gm&gp were waiting we got on it made a big difference how we used our FPs between us but DS1 who rememb rs the old baby swap with little brother and with niece agrees we used FP
And they got to ride.more times and oftener with the old system as we are off site always at Disney ( we use Ap discounted rooms at universal which we can sometimes bag for buttons at the last minute as we did in March club level room for 2nights march this year £177 in total)
It's luck of the cast members interpretation on the day sometimes

[jobelly]

Originally Posted by Edna Cloud

This thread is making me think I was obviously a bit hard on my kids. Admittedly, we didn't do very many rider swaps because we took the approach that we had been on big rides before having children and would go again when they were older, but we would experience the parks at whatever level they were at. However, as older DD got to be able to ride, we did rider swap with her younger brother for a maximum of one ride per park, but we always just waited at that ride for one adult and child to go through and then the other adult would ride immediately. It didn't occur to us to go off and do something different (apart from a nappy change or something like that) as we assumed we would get out of sync that way. Little brother was always OK about having to wait; we would just sit and talk or look at the theming of the ride in question.

Hope they don't hold it against me later in life!

EC

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This year for me isn’t so bad as my youngest will now hit all the 40inch rides but last year she didn’t so I had a 12, 9 and 3 year old. If it was just the adults we too would have been happy to have only done the odd ride but I can’t take a 12 and 9 year old there and expect them to do only 1 big ride a day but I can’t expect a 3 year old to sit outside numerous rides doing nothing else and we still want to do things as a family and not be separated off as 2 groups for our holiday. This is what I think a lot of people don’t get and they seem to think rider switch is all about gaining extra FastPass but it’s not it’s allowing a family to keep all kids happy and still have time to do stuff together. The one hour return probably means doing it the way you did it with the younger one sitting outside the ride because their isn’t a lot of time to do much else within the hour (unless you have their own FP nearby or you’re in fantasyland at mk, but most of those rides don’t need rider switch)

[Edna Cloud]

Originally Posted by jobelly

The one hour return probably means doing it the way you did it with the younger one sitting outside the ride because their isn’t a lot of time to do much else within the hour

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... just don't tell my kids there used to be another option!

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by alkel2730

You're completely right. It often takes much longer.

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It takes you longer than an hour to park your stroller and get the kids in/out? Wow.

Are you seriously saying that whilst the other half of your group is queuing for, say, half an hour for a ride plus the one hour slot you’ll get after this with rider switch (making a total of 90 minutes) you won’t have time to take your child somewhere - like on a small ride or in a nearby play area?

I guess you don’t get to do much at the parks then.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by alkel2730

Exactly. And then there's ones where they're really too far away from anything else like Everest for example - kids would end up waiting around 40mins (giving 15/20 mins per adult to queue and ride and swap kids - which is what I keep mentioning - the incidentals) outside as we'd have to do them back to back as we really can't do anything in between. Mine would be so fed up by then.

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But you get 1 hour plus the time for the adults to queue and ride. So when the first group has finished riding then you get another 1 hour. If the first group goes in the standby queue and waits 20 mins, then the other group looking after child will have 80 mins to do something.

Because the child isn’t riding, then its not like you have to get them out of the stroller or anything. You walk up to the ride, ask the CM for Rider Switch, group 1 goes in, group 2 then walks 10 minutes to some other attraction/shop/restaurant (you can walk a good third of a mile in 10 mins - the length of the parks aren’t much more than that), spends 40 minutes doing whatever, walks back 10 minutes to the original ride, spends 5 minutes swapping with the other group, and that still leaves them 15 minutes to enter the ride.

[Firstxmastrip]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

But you get 1 hour plus the time for the adults to queue and ride. So when the first group has finished riding then you get another 1 hour. If the first group goes in the standby queue and waits 20 mins, then the other group looking after child will have 80 mins to do something.

Because the child isn’t riding, then its not like you have to get them out of the stroller or anything. You walk up to the ride, ask the CM for Rider Switch, group 1 goes in, group 2 then walks 10 minutes to some other attraction/shop/restaurant (you can walk a good third of a mile in 10 mins - the length of the parks aren’t much more than that), spends 40 minutes doing whatever, walks back 10 minutes to the original ride, spends 5 minutes swapping with the other group, and that still leaves them 15 minutes to enter the ride.

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yeah i must admit while waiting for the first group the parent with the child normally looks round a shop, or gets some nice photo pass pics done nearby.sometimes during the second ride we normally get the kids who are waiting an ice cream or donut etc.
i think the changes won't make things harder for us really, just takes the choice of saving the pass for another visit which was an extra perk really.

[alkel2730]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

But you get 1 hour plus the time for the adults to queue and ride. So when the first group has finished riding then you get another 1 hour. If the first group goes in the standby queue and waits 20 mins, then the other group looking after child will have 80 mins to do something.

Because the child isn’t riding, then its not like you have to get them out of the stroller or anything. You walk up to the ride, ask the CM for Rider Switch, group 1 goes in, group 2 then walks 10 minutes to some other attraction/shop/restaurant (you can walk a good third of a mile in 10 mins - the length of the parks aren’t much more than that), spends 40 minutes doing whatever, walks back 10 minutes to the original ride, spends 5 minutes swapping with the other group, and that still leaves them 15 minutes to enter the ride.

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Yes that's all very well and good but I have two toddlers and there's one adult, so it's extremely difficult for that one adult to manage both kids in and out of their pram on their own when they have to navigate stroller parks, crowds, queues etc. Each family is different and for us it has never worked doing back to back. And yes you are completely right, as I've said since the very start we don't do a lot in the parks these days.

Regardless, this has become a bit of a pointless conversation as I can tell you until I'm blue in the face, having used RS on my last three trips, having navigated the parks with a double stroller and young children and having been to Orlando many many times pre kids, that B2B riding does not work for my family. I can't explain it in any other way. As you've said yourself you don't use RS,I forget if you ever have, and your kids aren't young and whether I like it or you like or neither of us do, it is what it is. So this is really pointless and this thread I feel has now become of no real use to any one anymore. It's decended into a few people who don't or have never used the system telling those of us who have how we are wrong. Its not about opinion it's about experience. My experience. Sadly many threads end up this way these days so in the interest of harmony I've asked the mods to close it.

To everyone else, I hope it's been of some benefit to you to give you a heads up on the system changing. I'm sure more info will emerge shortly and good luck with your planning.

[Stu]

Thread closed at OP’s request