Questions about rider swap and fast passes

[NewDVCowner]

I'm getting ready to make fast pass reservations for an August trip. This is the first time I'm traveling with a child (5 months old) so am unfamiliar with the whole rider swap thing. I believe I read that that pass is good for up to three people however I have two questions about it.

1. For the people waiting with the baby, do they need to get in line directly after the first group gets off the ride (I'm picturing basically a batton pass off) or can the group grab lunch and then the second group goes on the ride?

2. If we have fast passes for a ride that we do the rider swap on do the people in the second group need fast passes for that ride in order to use the rider swap? My brother is on the larger side and is afraid that he won't be able to ride the mine train so is going to do space mountain instead. I don't want him to be by himself with that. If I got a fast pass to do space mountain with him and the rest of the group has passes for mine train can I go on the mine train with the rider swap card with the people that stayed with the baby even though I didn't have a fast pass for that ride?

Thanks so much!

[Jeddie]

We just got back last week with our 3 DDs, with our youngest being 2 and needed rider switches a lot. I think this will answer your questions.

1. The rider switch tickets we got said they expired end of the month (5/31) so they would be good for that day or another, so you can definitely go grab some lunch.

2. You don't need FPs to do the rider switch, but if you do have FPs my suggestion is to make sure that you scan them if they are going through even with the rider switch so that you get the "credit" for using the FP and can move forward on your 3 initial ones to get others for later in the day. For example, it was just the 5 of us (me, DW, DD-9, DD-7, DD-2) and we had FPs for say Splash - I would take DD-9 and DD-7 with FPs and DW would use the Rider Switch to retake on DD-9 and DD-7 but would scan her magic band to knock off the FP).

Hope that helps, have a great time!