The Great Walt Disney World Loophole: Or How I Learned to Love the Rider Switch

If you have a child the right age, the child swap ticket (officially known as the rider switch) is amazing. You get on so many rides and skip so many lines, it’s like cheating.

Here’s how it works. You walk up to the line, children in tow. You show the worker that you have one little kid, so a parent has to stay behind and watch them. The worker will hand you a rider switch ticket. The idea is that since you had to wait, you get to skip the line later.

Why is the child swap ticket so good?

  • It is good for up to three riders. Our family has two boys and a young girl. One parent would go with the boys, then the other parent would go with the boys via the child swap ticket. We would get six total rides, off of a five person family.
  • It doesn’t count towards your Fastpasses. The above transaction only took three tickets. Our other two tickets can continue to accrue Fastpasses at the same time.
  • It can be cashed any time that day. Whereas a Fastpass has a specific time window of when it can be redeemed, the child swap ticket is good throughout the entire day. This means that you cans skip merrily through the lines even at peak hours.

Get to the park early. Start getting your Fastpasses. Start using them. Each time through the line (whether regular or Fastpass), get a rider switch ticket. Within two hours, you should easily be able to (1) get on the busiest and best rides a few times, (2) have a standard stack of Fastpasses, and (3) have a stack of rider switch tickets. Between the rider switch and Fastpass tickets, your are sitting pretty.