Parent/child swap question

[Jodon]

I'm going to Great America on Saturday for a little bit with some friends of mine who have a 1.5 year old. I know Great America has a parent swap system, but does anyone know how it works?


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[hoju74]

If I understand correctly, one parent rides while the other stays behind with the little one. When the first parent gets back, the second one rides. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong...lol

[coasterkidd100]

The first parent will wait in the regular line with everyone else. Right before the first parent gets on the ride, tell the ride operator/attendant that you will be doing a parent swap. For most major attractions they will give you a lanyard that says Kids Swap on it. Give that lanyard to the second parent and they will be able to walk up the exit and get on the ride. The second parent doesn't have to wait in the regular line.

[Jodon]

Ok...after some first hand experience with the child swap I can confirm that there is an official Child Swap program at SFGAm. Unfortunately, the website does a terrible job of explaining what it is and how to use it, but Coasterkidd100 was pretty accurate.

The first thing that you do is go to Ride Information Services in Mardi Gras. There, you will get a Child Swap wrist band for every adult in your group. In my group on Saturday, there were 3 adults and one almost 2 year old in a stroller. When we wanted to go on a ride, two of the adults would enter the line while the 3rd adult would wait/wander around with the child. After the 2 adults finished the ride, they would tell the ride ops in the station about the child swap and the ride op would hand them a laminated child swap card to give to the 3rd adult. The 3rd adult would then head to the station via the exit and be placed on the next train. I was fortunate that I was able to pretty much select my seat (back row on Goliath, and then lucked into a front row ride on X-Flight).

After using the program throughout the day, it was apparent that not many people use the system. In most coaster stations, the ride ops had a hard time finding the child swap card and the Flash Pass operator at Raging Bull and a station ride op at X-Flight had no clue what the child swap program was, but both eventually figured it out and all was fine. I also found it interesting that one of the supervisors at Goliath was almost excited that people were using the official child swap and thanked me about 3 times for using the program as I was waiting for my ride.

All in all, the program is really helpful for groups with small children and more people should use it.