We are considering visiting DL with our four kids ages 6, 5, 3 and under 1. I know the ride policy is that children under 7 must be accompanied by someone over 14, but does that apply even if parents are riding as well but in the next ride vehicle?
For example, on Mr. Toad, could the two older kids ride in one car, and each adult with another child, in the vehicle in front of and behind them?
What about rides like Pinocchio or space Mountain? Could two kids sit in one row and the adult behind?
@Jeff_AZ or @lolabear_la might be able to weigh in here!
Was looking into similar questions recently as I have a 6,4,2 and on our next trip the 2 will be tall enough to do a lot more rides. Been trying to figure out myself how that will work with an odd number and none of the kids willing or able to ride by themselves.
I found these blogs (link below) to be pretty helpful. These only cover WDW attractions and I don’t think they did one for DL or DCA, but maybe you can find similar ride vehicles and compare.
For rides like Mr Toad and Pinnochio that have a bench, I would think you could fit 3 to a row.
I’m pretty sure Pinocchio, Alice, etc would be ok as as an adult was at least in the car, but thought I’d ask to be on the safe side. I think rides like Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion, we’d each be able to squeeze in with two kids. Mr. Toad might be tough. That’s why I was hoping that if one parent and a kid went first, when they exited they’d be there to meet the older two kids riding solo, followed by the other parent and fourth child.
Or maybe they’d just let us ride swap, albeit that would all take longer. My wife sometimes wears baby forward, though I don’t know if that would be allowed on Toad.
1 adult and 2 kids should easily fit on Toad.
I’m trying to remember the exact rules:
On rides that have two rows (such as Snow White, Pinnochio, Roger Rabbit? I think?), parents can sit behind a row with their younger children. I think this is the case with Big Thunder as well?
On rides that have only one row (Peter Pan, Mr. Toad), the under 7 must be in the same vehicle with the over 14, so you’d have to squeeze three and three.
It’s tough to have four under 7 for ride configurations at Disney! We had this situation for a brief period. Once we had to recruit a stranger to ride with DS, which he gladly did! 
The lady was very nice and made him feel safe. (This was on the now defunct Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train. )
If you have a 15-18ish year old babysitter/cousin/etc. who can go with you, and you can cover the expense then that could be an option to really help with not only ride seating, but also just general kid-wrangling, re: strollers and bathrooms breaks and meals. It’s a lifesaver to have an extra set of eyes when you get to the bus stop and realize you forgot something essential, so one adult has to run back to the room to grab it. The last time I did a trip with a lot of littles we also had a lot of adults/teens, so we had plenty of extra hands to mange things.
Thanks for the tag to page me here! 
We never had all 4 of our kids under 7, but we did have 3 under 7 for a second (but went on a bunch of trips and one of those there was a good chunk of the day where I was the line adult with the 3 kids in the parks). From what we’ve learned…
Yes, this is all accurate, including Roger Rabbit. Other rides that would allow you to sit the row behind (& are smaller bench seats where you may want to make use of that fact) include: Winnie the Pooh, Alice, & Monsters Inc.
Pirates & Small World would also allow you to ride behind, but it’s more likely that they can fit you into two rows with more than enough room for 3.
Also want to call out that for Casey Jr, you can all fit in one cage and that will be easiest as there’s no limitation or requirements for how you all sit on the benches within the cage. But if you want the open-air benches, the kids will need to have an adult in their row or the row directly behind them on the same car and there aren’t two cars next to each other so you’d have to split up or sit 3 to a row (which you can especially if the littlest one in each row lap rides). There is the caboose as well but the two rows of the caboose face opposite directions (the front row of the caboose faces forward but the back row faces backwards) so if anyone wants to sit in the caboose, they MUST have an adult in their own row with them and if more than one kid wants to sit in the caboose, then there’s not room for the 3rd and the bench on the caboose is tiny so I wouldn’t even dream of trying to either lap sit or add a third, even small child. So steer the kids to the cages if you want to ride Casey Jr.
Very much this. Peter Pan is roomy enough to actually fit an adult and two kids easily (and if the adult is a smaller adult and none of the kids are bigger you can actually get a 4th). Mr. Toad’s will have room but might be a tad squishy. Dumbo will be squishy (but the smallest ones can lap sit to help make room). Haunted Mansion can fit up to 3 adults so 1 adult & 2 kids is doable. And Ariel clamshells can actually easily fit an adult and 2 kids. And like Peter pan, even 3 small children with 1 adult.
Rides like Buzz and Toy Story MM will also require you to ride 3 to a vehicle (there is empty space in the middle of the bench seating to fit a 3rd) but only two scoring apparatuses means that one person won’t be able to play. For Buzz there is a joystick control that the middle person can control that can make the ride a more teacup-like experience. Toy Story there’s nothing for the middle person to do so the days that we had to have 3 to a row, DH & I would let the youngest kid control or help with the shooting.
Now to the less straightforward ones. I think this is also the case for Big Thunder, but you would also have to be on the same section of the train (there are 3 different groups of cars with a gap in between the sections and so you couldn’t have some of the kids be in the back of one section & you behind. But if your 3 yo isn’t tall enough, then an adult and two smaller kids can fit on the bench if you needed to. If your 3 older kids are tall enough and since you only have 1 adult to rider switch, I would talk to the person holding the iPad about the logistics of how best to get all of you on the ride using the Rider Switch.
Matterhorn will also be a similar situation to Big Thunder but with the bobsled configuration that only has 3 individual seats, you’ll be limited to one adult and 2 kids at a time (but again, have them help you with Rider Switch logistics if more than 2 kids are tall enough & and want to ride it, at 3 none of my kids were tall enough so this might be a non-issue for you if that’s also the case).
Autopia will also be similar since you’ll be limited to one adult, 2 kids per vehicle but the height limit is much lower so the 3 yo will most likely want to ride and it may be a highlight for them, so again a conversation with rider switch about who will go with who will be the best way to coordinate.
All of Carsland will pose some level of difficulty since I’m fairly certain the under 1 will not be tall enough for anything so you’ll only have one adult for the smaller rides like Mater’s & Luigi’s where you’ll be limited to 1 adult & 2 kids per ride vehicle that is just one row. So again, hopefully a conversation at the Rider Switch can help you coordinate what to do. For Racers, if you’ll have 3 kids that are tall enough, I would double check that one or two of the kids under 7 can be in the row in front of you.
And I would definitely be on the watch to make sure the kids that are in the row in front are able to get their seatbelts on ok all by themselves. It’s not too tricky, but at 6 & 5 they probably don’t have experience with a car like seatbelt and it can be intimidating to do that in such a highly stimulated environment with a time limit to get the seatbelt on. If the kids can’t do their seatbelts independently you may want to arrange the Rider Switch so that one parent goes with 2 kids and the other goes with just one so that one adult can be in the row to assist.
Now for the less fun section. The rides that you can’t do without some sort of hassle. For the purposes of under 7, Space Mountain considers each row its “own vehicle” so each child that wants to ride will need to be seated next to a 14 or older. You can talk to the Rider Switch assigner again to figure out the best way to arrange your party so you can all ride with each child needing one adult and one other adult needing to be with the non-riding child(ren).
Chip & Dale’s GadgetCoaster in ToonTown also imposes the same limitations as Space Mtn and very strictly enforce that everyone under 7 must be seated with someone 14 or older in each row. And unfortunately it seems as of late they do not man a rider switch nor CM at the entrance to help guide, so I would personally skip it. You can hit it very early in the day when the line is still relatively short and take turns each of you taking one kid at a time on the ride while the other adult supervises play or the remaining 3 in any of the very many fun play areas in the new ToonTown.
And then the following rides are all rides that I would absolutely skip with the configuration they have and luckily nothing here is a must-do amazing ride.
Phew. I think I called out anything & everything that might impose a limitation. Oh, except for rides where you sit all along a row (Soarin’, Star Tours, Webslingers), any kids under 7 cannot be on the edge/next to the opening. But that should be all of it!
I definitely second that having another 14+ person to help wrangle would be an excellent idea, especially to help with a lot of the rides where you would need to re-ride to get everyone sat with an adult where they are required.
I knew you would have a comprehensive response! 
I learned a thing or two the days I’ve done a park mostly solo anywhere from 2-4 kids (back at the height of our attending pin release days in 2016-19, sometimes DH would venture to pin events in Hollywood while I held the fort with the kids in the parks & at least 2 of those were when we had those 3 under 7, so I had to figure out a lot firsthand and I may or may not have encouraged the kids to spend as much time as they wanted to fully explore Redwood Creek Challenge/Toontown play areas while I figured out where/what we could get done next).
Oh and RIP Heimlich’s!!! That was a family favorite (but almost definitely one where you needed to only have one adult & one kid per row)
Thank you so much for the detailed answer! Much appreciated!
Last fall at WDW my then 8 and 5 year old were allowed to ride BTM together with my wife and I riding in the row directly behind them. I don’t know if this is officially permitted or was CM discretion. My kids really wanted to ride together (they are coaster junkies) so I asked the CM when we got to the front of the line.
He said it was ok as long as DW and I were in the row directly behind the kids.
Jeff was standing on the corner showing off his legs trying to grab the attention of an unsuspecting woman to ride Heimlich’s with his son.
Yes now that you mention it, we have received this exact instruction on BTMRR for sure.
In fact, at WDW this last trip, I remember one CM earlier on told us to put the +7 kids in the row in front of us but we didn’t do that because we knew they were allowed to ride on their own – they just look young. My 12-year-old was constantly asked how old he was on each ride.