Fastpasses, Child Swapping, and Single Rider Lines at Disneyland

While lines are a natural part of a trip to Disneyland (if you're not expecting lines, you're really deluding yourself), Disney has done a few things to help you minimize the time you spend standing in those lines. There are a ton of different methods you can use to maximize your time in the park and avoid lines, but that would probably take multiple blog posts to cover. Maybe we'll get there. But for this post, we're going to focus on Fastpasses, child swapping, and single rider lines.

Fastpasses

Fastpasses are a glorious invention that Disney came up with many moons ago. It allows you to basically make a reservation to go on a ride at a later time. Because of this, there are normally two lines at each ride: the standby line and the Fastpass return line. Since Disneyland only offers a certain number of Fastpasses for every return time, during the busiest times at the parks, the Fastpass line will often take at most 30 minutes, in comparison to the standby line which at the same time can be hours long. Essentially, you do your waiting while doing other things in the park.

You can get Fastpasses two ways: with the MaxPass system and in person at or near the ride. To do it in person, there are kiosks where you scan your ticket and it will print you out a reminder ticket with the time frame in which you can return to ride. Usually you have an hour return time, so for example, you go pick up your Fastpass at 9 am and it will tell you to return between 10:20 and 11:20 am.

The other method, and in my opinion the superior one, is through the MaxPass system. MaxPass is an additional service you can buy that allows you to get Fastpasses through the Disneyland app. We enjoy this because it's faster and easier. MaxPass costs $15 per day per person. That seems pricey, but you also get every photo taken by a Disneyland photographer (you'll see them posted around the parks and hanging out with characters). The photos will show up in the Disneyland app and you can download them right to your phone. But when it comes to Fastpasses, the main benefit is that with MaxPass, you can select a Fastpass from anywhere in the parks. So if you're in Disneyland and you know you're heading over to California Adventure soon, you can grab a Fastpass for Soarin' Around the World while you're in line for Splash Mountain. It's pretty awesome.

You can only have one Fastpass at a time, and your current Fastpass will tell you when you can get your next one. It kind of depends on how far out your return time is. If you grab a Fastpass for a popular ride at 10 am and your return time isn't until 5 pm that night, it is not going to prevent you from getting another one until 5. Typically, you'll be able to grab another one about two hours after you picked up the first one. The other exception to this is Fastpasses for shows (World of Color, Fantasmic, etc). They are not on the same Fastpass system as the rides, so you can grab a World of Color Fastpass as soon as you get in the park and then immediately pick up an Incredicoaster Fastpass.

If you are using MaxPass, you can use the Disneyland app to pull up all the rides that offer Fastpasses and it will tell you the time frame they are currently distributing passes for. The app is also nice because it shows you the current standby wait time, so before grabbing a Fastpass for a ride, check and see how long the line is. If it's under 15-20 minutes, grab a Fastpass for something else and just hop in the standby line.

Child Swapping

No, I'm not talking about some child exchange program hosted by the Mouse. Child swapping is a great way for parents to enjoy all the rides in the parks, even those that little ones can't go on, and it will save some time.

So the basic gist is both parents go up to the ride entrance and speak with the cast member. They will scan the ticket of whoever is staying off the ride with the kids. This will give the parent staying off a sort of Fastpass. The other parent then gets in line as usual. After that parent gets off the ride, the parent that stayed off simply goes to the Fastpass return entrance and scans their ticket to go on, thus preventing them from having to wait in the regular line. So this procedure is for when the first parent is getting in the standby (regular) line or the single rider line.

If you are going to use Fastpasses, you'll need to make sure that both parents have Fastpasses. We tried on different occasions to have just one of us get a Fastpass for one ride (i.e., Space Mountain), while the other got a Fastpass for a different ride, thinking then that we'll do child swap on both rides and speed up the process. That way instead of waiting for your spouse to go through the standby line, you're only waiting for them to go through the Fastpass line, which is far shorter. Sometimes it worked; in fact, some cast members actually applauded us for thinking of it, while some others said that if one parent was going through the Fastpass line and child swapping, both parents had to have Fastpasses. It seems to depend more on which cast member is manning the line. So you're welcome to try this method; just know you might get some grief from cast members.

Single Rider Lines

The last line option is the single rider line. This is exactly what it sounds like. If you don't care about sitting next to people in your party, or if you are traveling alone with your family and don't have another couple to child swap with, this can be a great option to bypass long standby lines. It's also helpful if all the Fastpasses are gone for a specific ride. Radiator Springs Racers is a great example of this. Those Fastpasses will go pretty quickly (they're usually gone by early afternoon), and the standby line can be two hours or longer. The single rider line can you get you on in under 30 minutes, even at the busiest times.

Now, not all single rider lines are created equal. Some are not great time savers. Any ride that seats people in twos is not great for single rider, as most people are going in twos. Space Mountain is a prime example. I did the single-rider once when the standby was about 40 minutes. The single rider took almost the same amount of time. Rides that seat in ones or by threes are great because there are almost always spaces to fill. Also, be warned that sometimes they close the single-rider line with really no notice and won't allow more people to get in line. On our last trip, both Space Mountain and Indiana Jones closed their single rider lines.

So yes, lines at Disneyland can get long. But if you use a combination of Fastpasses, child swapping, and single rider lines, you can help minimize the time you spend waiting in lines and spend more time playing.