Rider swap

scottmc · 10 Oct 19, 02:42 PM

Hi, how long does the waiting party have to wait when the other party are riding on rider swap? I know certain rides are probably longer but just an average.

Thanks

Scott

dx4100 · 10 Oct 19, 02:52 PM

The time it takes for rider 1 to queue and ride the ride...

You are basically asking for an average of all Disney World wait times which is useless and not available. Look at current wait times in the app to get an idea of wait times but factor in different times of year are busier.

Nimbus · 11 Oct 19, 12:22 PM

Originally Posted by scottmc

Hi, how long does the waiting party have to wait when the other party are riding on rider swap? I know certain rides are probably longer but just an average.

Just to clarify, do you mean at Disney or Universal (or Seaworld)? Disney has a different system to Universal so the wait will be different.

At Universal...

You all queue together and near the end of the queue, half of the group waits with the child in a separate room whilst the other half rides. And then you swap over. Therefore the time to wait for each group will be approximately equal to the duration of the ride plus a minute or so. Most rides only take 5 or 10 minutes to actually ride (and some are less than that), so the group waiting in the separate room will only be waiting for 5 or 10 minutes.

Whereas at Disney...

You split up outside the ride and one half queues up and rides whilst the other group waits outside with the child. Then you swap over and the second group uses the fastpass entrance whilst the first group waits. In this case, they will wait for the queue time plus the duration of the ride. For the first part, the queue time will depend on whether the first half of your party uses the regular queue or the fastpass queue. For the second part, the second half of your party uses the Rider Switch pass to queue in the fastpass queue.

The regular queue can be anything from 5 minutes long to 4 hours long, the fastpass queue can be anything from 5 minutes long to 20 minutes long (in my experience) and the ride duration is usually between 5 to 10 minutes (as for Universal). So it's a bit variable. If they are using the fastpass queue then I'd guess at about 20 minutes?

In summary, for Universal about 10 minutes or so. For Disney, see dx4100's post above.

scottmc · 11 Oct 19, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Just to clarify, do you mean at Disney or Universal (or Seaworld)? Disney has a different system to Universal so the wait will be different.

At Universal...

You all queue together and near the end of the queue, half of the group waits with the child in a separate room whilst the other half rides. And then you swap over. Therefore the time to wait for each group will be approximately equal to the duration of the ride plus a minute or so. Most rides only take 5 or 10 minutes to actually ride (and some are less than that), so the group waiting in the separate room will only be waiting for 5 or 10 minutes.

Whereas at Disney...

You split up outside the ride and one half queues up and rides whilst the other group waits outside with the child. Then you swap over and the second group uses the fastpass entrance whilst the first group waits. In this case, they will wait for the queue time plus the duration of the ride. For the first part, the queue time will depend on whether the first half of your party uses the regular queue or the fastpass queue. For the second part, the second half of your party uses the Rider Switch pass to queue in the fastpass queue.

The regular queue can be anything from 5 minutes long to 4 hours long, the fastpass queue can be anything from 5 minutes long to 20 minutes long (in my experience) and the ride duration is usually between 5 to 10 minutes (as for Universal). So it's a bit variable. If they are using the fastpass queue then I'd guess at about 20 minutes?

In summary, for Universal about 10 minutes or so. For Disney, see dx4100's post above.

Thanks for the replies. It was mostly for Disney and we would all be using the fast pass que.

Thanks

dx4100 · 11 Oct 19, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by scottmc

Thanks for the replies. It was mostly for Disney and we would all be using the fast pass que.

Thanks

If you are all using the fastpass queue and wanting to do rider switch then offically you all need a fastpass.

Some rides let you get away with only the first group having the fastpass but this isn't guaranteed. Rider switch and fastpass don't officially go together - they are two separate systems designed to achieve the same aims - shorter queues. Been much debate on here where people have been playing the system for years and then started to cry when Disney enforced the rules on rides like the mine train.

Good luck whatever path you choose

Nimbus · 11 Oct 19, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by dx4100

If you are all using the fastpass queue and wanting to do rider switch then offically you all need a fastpass.

Actually, no, that's not the case. But that's a subject of a different thread and I don't really want to bring it up again here because it's not really what the OP was asking about.