This week saw mostly stable wait times at Hollywood Studios, with one ride inching up a bit. Our strategy performed well, and we’re happy to share some new results from our “random walk” simulator! Read on to see what wait times looked like this week at Hollywood Studios!
RELATED POSTS
If you’re new to the wait time scorecards, check out our post explaining our Disney World Wait Time Scorecards. That post explains the different numbers you’ll see here including why they’re imperfect. Our wait time scorecards are based on the last week of data from Thrill-Data.com.
Hollywood Studios Wait Times (Aug. 4) (you are here)
We also have a post covering the reopening of Walt Disney World from top to bottom if you’re planning an upcoming visit.
This post works in tandem with our Hollywood Studios Rope Drop Strategy post, which discusses things like when to arrive at the park and what to expect when you arrive. In the case of Hollywood Studios specifically, the rope drop post has very important context about how we pick a best strategy to start the day.
If you’re new to Disney World, you might also want to read out Guide to the Rides and Entertainment of Hollywood Studios, which includes descriptions of the rides.
Bottom Line + Random Walks
Wait times remain mostly unchanged from last week. Our recommended strategy remains unchanged from last week.
I ran 50,000 random walk simulations using wait times from Friday (a busy day). I compared two strategies—go to the rides in random order and our recommendation: start with Slinky Dog Dash, Millennium Falcon, and Runaway Railway before finishing in random order. (We don’t recommend you finish in a random order. You should use your brain and the tips in this post. But to analyze the strategies, we just use a random order for the last five rides.) The simulations ignored Rise of the Resistance.
Here’s how the strategies compared:
Wait Time Data Sourced at Thrill-Data.com
As you can see, even visiting the rides in random ride order you wouldn’t have had a problem fitting them all into a day, and you’d spend about 4 hours in line on average.
Using our rope drop strategy improved upon random order—cutting 29 minutes off the average wait time, and producing a maximum total wait that rivaled the random strategy’s average wait.
As explained in the Hollywood Studios rope drop post, we don’t believe that to be the best strategy when it comes to minimizing wait times, but we recommend it for reasons relating to the Rise boarding group process. We’re happy to see that even if it isn’t perfect, it still performs very well.
Hollywood Studios Wait Time Scorecard Part 1
Wait Time Data Sourced at Thrill-Data.com
Waits are mostly unchanged from last week, although Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster saw a pretty large average increase of over 4 minutes. This also put Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster ahead of Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run for the first time since the parks reopened.
Daily trends also remained mostly unchanged. Runaway Railway starts high and drops. Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster jump early. Tower of Terror stays pretty high, while Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster…looks more like a roller coaster.
One big change was Slinky Dog Dash, which is now starting with an average wait of 36 minutes and slowly dropping throughout the day.
Smugglers Run is still well-positioned to be the second ride of the day. It’s wait doesn’t jump quite as quickly as the other top rides, but its average wait time is still much higher than the lowest three rides.
As we discuss at length in our Hollywood Studios rope drop post, putting together the optimal morning strategy at the park is challenging. There are lots of variable, particularly what time rides actually start operating, and a wild card because you want to be outside, not on any rides or in any ride buildings, at 10AM when Rise of the Resistance boarding groups open.
As we explain in that post, we favor starting with Slinky Dog Dash at 10AM, then heading to Smugglers Run, and then just enduring a longer wait on Runaway Railway. But, as we explain in that post, you might get lucky and fit in some rides before boarding groups for Rise open at 10AM.
Hollywood Studios Wait Time Scorecard Part 2
Wait Time Data Sourced at Thrill-Data.com
Star Tours, Alien Swirling Saucers, and Toy Story Mania spend significant chunks of the afternoon at or under 15 minutes. Fit those in whenever.
If you finish three of the five major rides before lunch, you’ll be left with two for the afternoon. Following our strategy, those would be Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Both of those are at or under 45 minutes most of the afternoon, and both get down to 30 minutes fairly frequently.
For both, I’d definitely get in line if the wait were 30 minutes or less, and I’d probably accept 45 minutes if I was over there and had already watched Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy and Disney Society Orchestra (currently playing at the old Beauty and the Beast theater).
If you pushed one of our three recommended rides into the afternoon, here’s the wait times I’d hope for and settle for:
Runaway Railway — hope for 45, settle for 60
Slinky Dog Dash — hope for 30, settle for 45
Smugglers Run — hope for 30, settle for 45
Conclusions
Hollywood Studios remains a frustrating park because of the boarding pass system for Rise of the Resistance. But even with waits that start the day pretty high, Hollywood Studios easily fits into a single day.