"Child Swap" question

[AJKMOM]

A friend will have 5 people in her party, DH, DS9, DS7, new baby, and herself. For the baby swap, can they go through the line, have DH and DS ride, then hand off baby so she and other DS can ride? I think so, but wanted to help her understand what to do.

 

[dsnymomof4]

Yes. Actually some rides you don't even have to wait in line with the ones who are riding. The CM at the entrance will give you a pass that is good for up to 3 guests. So, when DH and kids come back, she can go on with one or 2 kids as well. It's very convenient.

 

[famofsix]

just to clarify a bit...when the person who swapped returns to the ride with the other kids, you go to the fast pass line with the baby swap "pass".
We did this in April and it helped us out a lot..our other kids were thrilled to ride the ride two times. I am glad Disney did it this way because when I was the one waiting with the baby I appreciated going on the ride with my older kids to experience it with them too. For Everest, my DD8 said she would go on the ride with me only because "I might be too scared to go by myself". DS6 said once was enough for him though!

 

[tjmw2727]

Here is my child swap 101, very unofficial but based on my many years of using the various evolutions of babyswap/childswap most recently in April 2006.

My first advice on baby swap is to tell the CM at the attraction before you enter the line that you want to use swap and find out how they handle it. Do not wait until you are boarding!

The baby/child unable to ride must be with you to do a swap so everyone must approach the line together. Some CM's have you all wait the line together, then the first parent and older child(ren) ride and other parent and younger child wait at the exit and then switch via the exit allowing the older child(ren) to ride with both parents. Off hand I think only Star Tours and Primevil Whirl still do it this way.

Most rides now give you a rider swap pass. The rider swap pass works like a fast pass and allows up to 3 people total to return to that attraction anytime that day so the second parent can ride. You still all enter the standby line or use a FP in the FP line and ask to use parent swap. The CM will give you the swap pass and the parent riding second and the baby (or young child) can then leave to do something else while the first party rides. The second parent then returns to ride via the FP line with the rider swap pass and can bring 2 others along if they like. I prefer the pass because the baby or child that dosen't meet the height requirement dosen't have to wait the line for something he/she can't ride.

Just to clarify, the purpose of parent swap is to allow a family with a child who dosen't meet the height restriction to enjoy the attraction with only "1 wait", rather than "2 waits" not to expeidate the wait.

Hope this helps!
TJ

 

[emma'smom]

We've never tried the babyswap in the stand-by line. However, we just took our baby with us to the fast pass entrance and they gave us a ticket for the swap. I took my dd4 on the ride while dh stayed with the baby (usually in a store or by the toddler playgrounds) and then we switched. Dd4 rode twice and dd1 didn't have to wait in any lines. It was much more pleasant. Since we only did the swap with fast pass, dd1 wasn't waiting so long for the family to cycle through the ride twice (once for me and once for dh).