Riding with Adults Outnumbered by Under 7s

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Hubby and I will be taking our then 5 year old girls to WDW in February. We will have 9 days with at least ½ park day, so we should have the chance to experience all of the rides we’d like to if we plan well. My understanding is that most of the rides will allow 1 adult and 2 small children to ride, even if some are a bit tight. We’ll be fine on those riding as a family, with a 1:1 seat/bench and a 1:2 seat/bench.

I do know that there are several rides where this is not the case and am trying to make sure I understand how we will be able to ride them. For the sake of the 2 on 3, we are ignoring the following rides because the girls are too short/scared to do them: HM, Space, RnR, ToT, FoP, EE, PW, Dinosaur. I’ve looking through the Touring Plans seat guides for each park, and here are the rides that I’m questioning:

- Speedway: Parent will have to reach pedals, but kids can steer. I read on here that, when you have two kids, they’ll put a flag on your vehicle so that, after the ride is done, the kids switch seats and go a second time with the other child steering. Is this still true? If not, how does one do Speedway 2 on 3 leaving each child a chance to steer?

- SDD, 7DMT, Barnstormer: We all get in line together. I ride with A while H waits at loading with B/C. H rides with B while I wait at loading with A/C. H exits with A/B while I ride with C. Will the CMs let you do this? It would only work if the loading/unloading area is the same or if guests are permitted to walk from loading to unloading and vice versa. I know that the reason they implemented RS is because they don’t want parents doing this with kids who are too short to ride, but does that apply if everyone is tall enough to enter the queue? If I can’t do this, will they issue double RSs so that we can ride consecutively 3 times switching out kids?

- Any other rides that I’m missing where I’m going to have a problem? Does AS2 fit 3 across? I think I’m OK based on the TP data, but perhaps they changed the rules and now Astro or something has to be only 1:1.

We’re also looking at a few specific instances where we’d like to RS, leaving 1 parent with 3 kids. While I’m not going to try to get in all of the adult rides, I think that 7 character meals over 10 days (they LOVE characters) entitles me to FoP, EE, and Space. In each of those instances, the kids will need to be entertained through two back to back rides, given the structure of the new digital swap. The first ride they’ll need to stay close to the attraction but, for the second, the parent can take the kids towards the next planned area while the other parent takes the second ride. Here are my ideas:

- FoP Swap
Ride One: Other parent uses FP+ on NRJ, Wilderness explorer in Pandora?
Ride Two: Other parent takes kids to bathroom and get dinner

- EE Swap
Ride One: Other parent on Triceratops Spin. I can see from the pictures that each dino has two benches. I would assume they’ll let them ride two girls in front bench, hubby and girl in back bench, correct?
Ride Two: Boneyard or bathrooms before getting in line for Nemo show
Either time: Wilderness Explorer in the area
Mean practical joke: don’t tell hubby that Dinosaur is scary and send him alone with the three girls there. Joke likely ends park day with three crying children and possibly ends marriage.

- Space Swap
Ride One: Buzz? Will they let one of us ride with a girl in our vehicle and then the other two in the very next car? I know there are other options (Monster’s Inc, CoP, Peoplemover, character meeting) but Buzz would seem to make the most sense in terms of the rides finishing around the same time. I know they CAN’T do Astro or Speedway 1 on 3.
Ride Two: cross the hub as next plans are at BTMRR. Adventureland options of Swiss Treehouse, Magic Carpets (again, will they let adult ride immediately behind two, next to one, in the same carpet?), Tiki Room. Liberty Square if Muppets is scheduled to start.

Thank you in advance for all of your input.

 

[DisneyAuntie12]

If I'm reading your post correctly you have three five-year-olds and two adults attending, correct?


There are people on here with much more Disney expertise than me, but my general impression is that:


1. There aren't necessarily hard and fast rules you can 100% plan by, it often depends on who you talk to

2. Either way, Disney is extremely family friendly and will make every effort to accommodate you, so if you get to the boarding area of any ride and explain your situation, I think there is little chance they're going to say something like "No, too bad, your five-year-old has to ride alone in the back" or anything like that - they'll make sure you're comfortable and together as a family.


Regarding whether Rider Swap can only be used for children who are too short / not riding, or if it can be used for children who are too young to want to ride alone - that is a good question, I'm curious if anyone knows.


Just a heads up, I've heard that the Nemo show can be a little scary, so if that's a concern, you might consider Lion King instead.

 

[BraveLittleToaster2]

I have 3 children myself. We are a family of 5.

We go to Disney all the time and have never had to have a child ride alone. Every ride we've done has allowed 3 and 2 configuration, so it's always worked out fine.

Though I will say that we aren't coaster people so I suppose there could be an issue with those. We only have 2 people in our family who will do those rides.

 

[monorailsilver]

We are a family of 5. I remember way back when they wouldn’t let my then 7 yo ride alone so my dh could ride with the 4 yo and me with the 2 yo. They let the 7 yo and 4 yo ride together and dh and I sandwiched them.

But most of the other rides we were all in the same car or sat 3/2-like HM, pirates, small world, all the Epcot rides.

We didn’t do many if any coasters then other then that. When they were older, I think my youngest was 7 our last trip but dh and I took turns riding alone....oh...so nice.

We are going in a little over a week, they are 17, 14 and 12....I am quite sure the alone time on some rides we will all fight for!

 

[MomOTwins]

I rode as one parent with two 5-year olds last December. We did not try the speedway so I can't comment on that, but for the others:

7DMT - your child counts as "accompanied" by you on this if they are in the same two-row car as you. So my twins rode together in the row in front of me, and I rode in the row behind them in the same mine car.

Barnstomer - this one, they would not even let us get in the queue without a one adult per child ratio. The first time I went there without knowing the rule, and found a family of three getting in the line same time as us, and asked if one of the parents would be willing to accompany one of my twins. The other time, we just skipped it as it was too much hassle. Since you are there with another adult, you could rotate taking turns with one adult riding with one kid and the other two waiting with the other adult, but that would take a long time since you'd need three back-to-back rides.

Triceratops/Aladdin (also true for Dumbo): They were very strict and would not let us ride without one adult rider per row. It is a safety risk as it is slow moving with a wide shared seat belt (no individual belt) and has an open doorway on one side, so would be easy for a child to climb out without an adult next to them. That said, they did let us squeeze in three per row in Aladdin since it is a bit wider, but I don't recommend it because then you are fighting over who gets to control the up/down lever. Instead of triceratops, I would recommend doing the Maharajah jungle trek with the kids while one parent goes on EE. As you note, there are lots of alternatives to Aladdin in that area.

Buzz - No, they cannot ride in their own car until they are 7 years old. You can, however, ride three to a single car. I did this with me sitting in the middle, with one twin on each side to fire the guns.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

I rode as one parent with two 5-year olds last December. We did not try the speedway so I can't comment on that, but for the others:

7DMT - your child counts as "accompanied" by you on this if they are in the same two-row car as you. So my twins rode together in the row in front of me, and I rode in the row behind them in the same mine car.

Barnstomer - this one, they would not even let us get in the queue without a one adult per child ratio. The first time I went there without knowing the rule, and found a family of three getting in the line same time as us, and asked if one of the parents would be willing to accompany one of my twins. The other time, we just skipped it as it was too much hassle. Since you are there with another adult, you could rotate taking turns with one adult riding with one kid and the other two waiting with the other adult, but that would take a long time since you'd need three back-to-back rides.

Triceratops/Aladdin (also true for Dumbo): They were very strict and would not let us ride without one adult rider per row. It is a safety risk as it is slow moving with a wide shared seat belt (no individual belt) and has an open doorway on one side, so would be easy for a child to climb out without an adult next to them. That said, they did let us squeeze in three per row in Aladdin since it is a bit wider, but I don't recommend it because then you are fighting over who gets to control the up/down lever. Instead of triceratops, I would recommend doing the Maharajah jungle trek with the kids while one parent goes on EE. As you note, there are lots of alternatives to Aladdin in that area.

Buzz - No, they cannot ride in their own car until they are 7 years old. You can, however, ride three to a single car. I did this with me sitting in the middle, with one twin on each side to fire the guns.

Thanks for your experience. We'll knock Buzz and the tall spinners off of the list when we're doing RS for the adults. I'm not sure if I want to bother with barnstormer with all of the swapping that is required, considering how poorly reviewed it is as a ride. If it were something everyone likes, that's one thing. It just seems silly to go through that hassle for a ride that's widely panned.