I was in Disney from 2/22 thru 3/1. Prior to my trip I monitored these boards quite a bit looking for updates on how the rider swap system was working as there had been several posts saying that it was not working how it always had. Here is how it worked for me, and I’m going to give a lot of detail so that people really understand.
My family is myself, my wife, 6 year old son, 4 year old son, 1 1/2 year old daughter. I booked my fast passes under the premise that the people riding second did not need a fast pass. To make things easier for me to keep track of, I always kept myself and my 6 year old son together and my wife and 4 year old son together. So every time I approached a ride, there were two possible scenarios.
Scenario 1: Dad and 6 yr old son have a FP and will ride in Group 1. Mom and 4 yr old son do not have a pre-booked FP and will try to get rider swap.
Scenario 2: Mom and 4 yr old son have a FP and will ride in Group 1. Dad and 6 yr old son do not have a pre-booked FP and will try to get rider swap.
At almost every single ride where we attempted to obtain a rider swap, Group 2 was given a rider swap despite not having a Pre-booked FP.
Here is exactly how the conversation happened each time:
Me: My daughter is too small to ride so we would like to get a rider swap.
CM: Who will be riding in the 2nd group?
Depending on who had the FPs, I would identify the non FP holding people as those who would be riding in Group 2. Depending on the ride and if it was possible for one parent to ride with 2 kids I would also inform the CM that one of my kids would be riding twice. First time on a FP, second time on a rider swap.
Now continuing the conversation...
CM: Are the first riders going through the standby line or FastPass line?
Me: FastPass line
CM: OK
About 5 minutes later the rider swap would show up in the My Disney Experience app. It would show a start time usually no more than 10 minutes later than when the rider swap was requested. It would also show all the riders in group 2. It would not show an expiration time. Group 2 usually rode right after Group 1 finished so I cannot really comment on how long the swaps are good for, but since there was no end time shown I assume it was good the rest of the day.
What I described above is how the process worked on the following rides:
Soarin
Test Track
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain
Slinky Dog Dash
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
My kids are not tall enough for some rides like Flight of Passage or Space Mountain so I cannot comment on those.
Now there was one ride where I had an issue and that was on Alien Swirling Saucers. Here is how that conversation went:
For this ride, my wife and 4 year old son had the FP and me and my 6 year old son were trying to get Rider Swap. We also wanted to get my 4 year old on a second time with rider swap.
Me: My daughter is too short to ride so we will need a rider swap.
CM: Who is riding in Group 2?
Me: Myself, my 6 year old son, and my 4 year old son.
CM: OK I will scan your boys so they can ride again, but I’m not going to scan you since it will just take your FP when you ride.
Me: I do not have a FP, only my wife and 4 year old son do.
CM: Why would you only make a FP for half your party?
Me: Since I was planning on getting a rider swap, I did not think we all needed a FP.
CM: Well you should all have FPs. I will put the rider swap on your band as well but from now on you should make FPs for your whole group.
Me: Ok thank you
So out of 7 attempts, 6 had no issues and the 1 that did have an issue still ended up working out.
One other thing worth mentioning. With Seven Dwarfs Mine Train I got a little greedy and tried something hoping to get everyone in my family on the ride twice. I made a morning FP for me and my 6 year old son. I also made an afternoon FP for my wife and 4 year old son. I was going to try to rider swap both of those times and get everyone two rides. Well this does not work. As soon an the CM went to give my wife her rider swap he saw that she had a FP for later in the day and said you cannot have both. So he removed the FP for later and she rode on the rider swap. No big deal, but just wanted to throw that out there that you cannot hold a rider swap and a FP for the same ride. Yes I know that was really taking advantage. What can I say, this may be our only trip for a long time so it was worth a shot.
And one more thing. If you get a multiple experience FP, be careful with your rider swap. We had a FP for Thunder Mountain but the ride was shut down during our time so we were given a multiple experience FP. We then got the Splash Mountain rider swaps. When Group 2 rode Splash, the system took their multi experience FP instead of the rider swap. Luckily we realized this soon after it happened and the CM outside of Splash was able to fix it and put the multi experience FP back on which was then used on Thunder Mountain later on when it opened.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to make everything as clear as possible for those who are planning to do this.