Hello Liners! My family plans to use rider switch on FOP next week. In your opinion, will it be more time efficient to try to be at the front of the pack at park opening or ride using ILL later in the day?
I just think rider switch will take a decent amount of waiting time so I wasn’t sure if wasting valuable touring time at park opening was the best way to go but the touring plan keeps putting FOP as our first step at AK.
I would definitely say that the ILL would save time over rope drop for sure. I guess it just depends on if you want to pay. The Rider Swap portion will take the same amount of time either way so I don’t think that matters.
We’ve done both and found ILL much less stressful with young kids (there are SO many people heading to FoP, even if you are literally first at the taps, someone will run past you on the way to the bridge).
That said, keep in mind that if you do decide to rope drop, you could ask the CM to set up rider switch, have the first group ride while others do Navi (will be walk on), and then continue touring while crowds in the rest of the park are low, and come back for your second ride later in the day.
I’ve been told that you cannot hold two pending rider switches at the same time though (have not tested that), so you might have to tour together and focus on rides that everyone will do until heading back later to FoP.
I wish I had done this. We ended up rope dropping FoP with intention of using rider switch. We were at the front of the pack in the holding area but the crush of people all heading to FoP really threw my plans off. It felt like it took forever for my husband and daughter to get through the ride even at rope drop- enough time for me to ride Navi 3x and do a ton of photos with my preschooler, I’d guess at least 40 minutes. By the time they were off I didn’t feel like getting back into that crush of people for rider switch and we just moved on. I still have yet to experience FoP, so just another reason to plan another trip.
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