Kid Swap

Despite spending many days in the park last year, I did not realize until after the park was closed for the season that there is a rider-swap for parents with small children.

The idea is that one parent waits in line, rides, and then gets off to let the other parent on immediately. Does anyone know how this works in CP? We'll be there a lot this summer with our 3 and 5 year olds, but the wife and I still crave thrill rides. It seems to be a non-publicized feature, but the brochure mentions it. Disney has a system that works great to do this, in conjunction with their fast pass system.

It's really easy. We plan on using it a lot with our 2.5 year old as well. You simply tell the ride op when you get to the line, and they will instruct you...it works just like you explained.

It works super-great at CP because you get to be the "single rider" that fills in a seat on rides like TTD and MF...and of course the single rider line on Maverick.

The parent that rides first brings a parent swap pass with them and gives it to the ride host as they sit in the train. The 2nd parent is allowed to come up the exit with one other rider. At the exit gate simply tell the ride host the name on the parent swap and they will get you a seat asap! The key is to have the first parent give the pass to the ride host and not the 2nd. Have fun!

The parent swap is a great thing.

At kings island, they have pens that the kids wait in while the parents are on the coaster. They also have the parent swap as well.

All you guys are right, but left out one thing. I believe you have to go to Park Operations to get the parent swap pass and put your name on it. If I'm not mistaken, you can only use it on each ride once. Some of the people who have used them before might know better. My cousin used it once when her boys were smaller a couple of years ago, so they might have changed that.

You may pick them up at the ride entrance as well as Park Op. and Town Hall.

I don't know if they still do it (our kids are much older now and it's been years since we've used parent swap), but for season pass holders they used to provide (on request) a "permanent" (laminated) parent swap pass that you could use throughout the season (they'd actually do 2 - one for each parent.) All you needed to do was go to park ops and ask. It would be ready to pick up the next time you visited the park. That saved us tons of time throughout the season.

From CP's Website:

PLEASE NOTE: To participate in Parent Swap, parents need to obtain aslip at Guest Services (at the main gate), Park Operations, Town Hallor Resort Entrance Gate (near Magnum) to authorize them for theprogram.

It does not mention a limit on rides; I'm going to place a phone call to find out. Just 13 days to go until our daughter's first trip to CP. :)

Note: The gentleman on the phone told me that, as far as he knew, there is no "limit" to the number of times you can use parent swap on any particular ride. You just use the Parent Swap slip each time to indicate to the ride attendant that you will bee doing this.

I suspect that with many rides eliminating entrance hosts last year, it's probably no longer possible to get the slips at the rides themselves. What Kevin quoted from the website sounds right.

Correct. You have to pick up the slip at guest services when you enter the park.

The rides have the passes on them too. All you have to do is ask.

you can for sure pick them up at whatever ride you are riding. working there for 3 seasons i think i would know

My wife would stay with our little ones and get them ready in the room while i would go in for morning ERT, and get her parent swaps on Maverick MF and Raptor. Then when she came in, i stayed with the kids at the exit and she walked right up the exit and got on the ride. So she didnt miss out on anything, then off to camp snoopy we go, WOO HOO! :) We still have some more years of doing this since both our kids are 3. We are happy that they have a system like this, but there are people that abuse it!