Walt Disney Studios Park—soon to be renamed Disney Adventure World—is the other park at Disneyland Paris resort. While it long had a reputation as a textbook “half-day” park, I’ve recently found that good shows and long waits push it more into the “almost a full day” category. In this post, I’ll walk through spending a day at Walt Disney Studios Park, including what things you need to prioritize, how to make sure you hit the biggest shows, and why you really still shouldn’t stress too much here. Read on to start planning the perfect day at Walt Disney Studios Park!
About This Post
This post is written to help you plan a full, single day at Walt Disney Studios Park, the smaller of the two parks at Disneyland Paris Resort. We have a separate full-day itinerary for the other park, Parc Disneyland.
Before getting to the itinerary itself, I’ll discuss why the park can be a little challenging to plan, along with how Disney Premier Access and Extra Magic Time can fit into your planning (I link to posts that cover these in more depth below). I’ll also talk about the items that this itinerary includes and the (very few) things I left out.
The example one-day itinerary is compiled from a few days I spent at the park trying different approaches. Your experience will vary, and I try to provide context for my decisions in case you want to make different choices. I provide the time I boarded the ride, along with posted wait times. I note the rare instances where the actual wait was notably different from what was posted.
Although I most recently visited solo, I didn’t use single rider lines (these can be helpful, but I want the post to be applicable to groups of all sizes). This post is based on a park day with a 9:30AM opening and a 9PM closing. Check the website and app for park hours the day you visit.
Challenges of Touring Walt Disney Studios Park
Walt Disney Studios Park can be a frustrating park to spend a day in. It has 11 rides, but six of them average over 30-minute waits, with 60+ minutes not being uncommon.
The good news: it’s pretty straightforward math that if you get on a few rides with short waits to start or end the day, a 10-hour day is probably going to be long enough to experience all the rides. The bad news: no one wants to spend the better part of 10 hours waiting in line, and if you want to see some of the park’s very good entertainment, your schedule will get a little tighter.
Walt Disney Studios Park has a relatively small footprint, though ongoing construction (as of this update) can make it feel bigger than it is since you’ll do a lot of walking back and forth. But the bottom line is the small size means more freedom to go where waits are shortest.
While I generally love writing theme park itineraries and giving you the most / best advice I can, the main rule at Walt Disney Studios Park is do not overthink it. Sometimes at this park there just are no good options, but that also means there are no bad options—just look at the wait times and how far you are and pick something that sounds good.
On shorter days (closes of 7PM or earlier), you’ll maybe have to compromise and skip a few things. On longer days, the decisions are likely to just be a lot of “do I really want to wait XX minutes for this ride?” To that end, this post winds up looking a little more ad hoc. A few times, I share a list of wait times or showtimes and explain why I picked what I picked from that list.
Premier Access and Extra Magic Time
With some luck and good planning, you might get a lot of value out of Extra Magic Time at Walt Disney Studios Park, if you have that perk. But generally the straightforward strategy for that time is going to be to start with Crush’s Coaster. This basically saves you an hour of waiting for it later in the day.
Disney Premier Access is the paid “skip the line” system at Disneyland Paris Resort. If there’s one good reason to get Premier Access Ultimate for a day at the two Disneyland Paris parks, it’s to speed up your time in Walt Disney Studios Park.
Without Premier Access Ultimate, there’s no good way to evade several lengthy waits, and, besides its good shows, the park doesn’t offer much enjoyment in between those waits. This contrasts with Parc Disneyland where attractions like Alice’s Curious Labyrinth, Adventure Isle, Sleeping Beauty Gallery, and the Disney Stars on Parade do an excellent job of breaking up your day.
Premier Access isn’t a panacea at the park—you’ll probably still have to plan at least for Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop and RC Racer, but fitting two moderate waits into your day isn’t much of a challenge.
Besides Crush’s Coaster, which is quite popular, you don’t have to worry too much about the availability of the included rides on Premier Access One. To that end, if you think you’re willing to pay, for example, €14 to ride Tower of Terror with no wait, probably don’t wait 60 minutes for it early in the day—give it a few hours to see if wait times drop or if you should instead buy Premier Access One.
What This Itinerary Covers
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to break the rides into two groups—6 “more popular” rides and 5 “less popular” rides.
More Popular Rides (6): Crush’s Coaster, Tower of Terror, Spider-Man WEB Adventure, Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop, RC Racer, Ratatouille
Less Popular Rides (5): Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin, Cars Quatre Roues Rallye, Cars Road Trip, Flying Carpets Over Agrabah, Avengers Assemble: Flight Force
You can read about all the rides and entertainment at Walt Disney Studios Park here. If you have a smaller traveler in your party, you might also want to double check the height requirements at Walt Disney Studios Park and read about rider switch.
As a rule of thumb, you’re going to wind up waiting 20+ minutes for the more popular rides, and you should probably avoid the less popular rides when they have waits of 20+ minutes. I personally think Avengers Assemble: Flight Force is probably worth a 30 minute wait, but I’d only wait that if absolutely necessary.
The show schedule at Walt Disney Studios Park varies a bit, with lengthy closures not uncommon. However, the “full” lineup as of this update consists of five shows. Here they are in the order I’d prioritize them:
Mickey and the Magician
TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Aventure
The Disney Junior Dream Factory
Stitch Live!
Frozen: A Musical Invitation
Note: The Disney Junior Dream Factory has, sadly, permanently closed. I’m leaving it in this post for the time being in case it is replaced by a new show at some point in the near future.
Note 2: Alice & The Queen of Hearts: Back to Wonderland is a new temporary show (25 May until 29 September 2024) not included in this post.
I personally prefer the Frozen show to Stitch Live!, and I suspect for many Anna & Elsa superfans it would rank even higher. The problem is the show takes place in a very small theater, which means prioritizing it usually means lining up at least 30 minutes in advance.
This brings us to an unfortunate aspect of the park overall—all of these shows are pretty good and popular. You’ll more or less always need to be open to the possibility of arriving 30 minutes before showtime to guarantee a seat.
That said, the park is small enough that I’d probably start by arriving 15 minutes beforehand for an early show. If you don’t make it into that one, you’ll be able to come back and try again later, but at some point you might just need to arrive extra early. Several shows have an option to buy guaranteed seating around €15 per person. I don’t really find this to be worth the cost.
Finally, there are a few small character greetings in the park, along with the “Hero Training Center” in Avengers Campus. Use the app to find character greetings. I don’t cover them in this post since they vary and just aren’t a huge part of this park’s experience. I don’t know anything about the Hero Training Center, and it isn’t covered in this post, but here’s a good post of information about it.
Walking Through a Day at Walt Disney Studios Park
Now, for the heart of the matter. I’ll start with a quick discussion of rope drop, where you hope to catch a few short waits before the average wait time in the park jumps (and it does jump—quickly). After that we’ll move onto midday, where you’re basically balancing showtimes with waiting for rides. The end of the day is about those last big choices—do you really want to wait one hour for this? One hour for that?
Let’s get to it…
Rope Drop at Walt Disney Studios Park
As a general rule, we recommend arriving at the park gates 30 minutes before you’re scheduled to enter. Earlier is always better, but honestly at Walt Disney Studios Park it won’t matter much—waits jump quickly enough that getting a head start on rope drop just isn’t a huge advantage.
If you have Extra Magic Time, our guide to that perk discusses your options (Crush’s Coaster being the most straightforward choice).
If you don’t have Extra Magic Time, you shouldn’t start at Crush’s Coaster. That ride will probably have a long wait by the time you get to it, and it tends to peak in late morning before slowly dropping throughout the day.
instead, you’ve got two good options, each with a backup in case the line for your first choice is already too long by the time you get there.
One option is to go to Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop. This ride usually sees waits pop right up to start the day, and they really don’t drop until late in the day. As a backup if that wait is too high by the time you get there, you have nearby RC Racer. I prefer RC Racer overall, but its wait usually stays low for a few minutes in the morning.
Neither Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop nor RC Racer is a part of the Premier Access system. If you’re planning on riding these, rope drop is going to be your best chance at a short wait. Otherwise, you’ll probably just be waiting until late in the day, hoping waits go down.
The other good rope drop option is Spider-Man WEB Adventure. As a backup if that wait is too high by the time you get there, you have nearby Tower of Terror, which usually keeps lower waits a tad deeper into the morning than WEB Adventure. (FWIW—there’s a lot of variance in Tower of Terror waits, which makes me think the ride has a tendency to drop below 100% capacity sometimes.)
Both of those rides are available on Premier Access, meaning you’ll be able to pay to skip the line if you so choose. So if you’re open to possibly spending money on them later in the day, you might choose to instead start with Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop / RC Racer.
My last full day at the park was part of a trip where I did a different day with Premier Access Ultimate. So even though I wanted to get on all the rides in a single day, my priority this specific day was rides without Premier Access:
9:42AM - Toy Solider’s Parachute Drop (5 minute wait)
9:59 - RC Racer (10 minute wait)
By the time I was off RC Racer, the four remaining “popular” rides all had waits of 20 minutes or more. I opted to just take care of one nearby—Ratatouille.
10:40 - Ratatouille (35 minute wait)
This leaves Cars Road Trip and Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin in this part of the park for later on. Both of these should have 5-minute waits at some point later in the day, and neither is particularly high priority. Instead, with Ratatouille, RC Racer, and Toy Solider’s Parachute Drop done, my idea is to spend the middle of my day in the rest of the park, between Avengers Campus and Crush’s Coaster.
Midday and Checking Off Some Shows
At Walt Disney Studios Park, waits start to plateau by about 11AM. That means it’s time to start thinking about shows and lunch. My goal for the day was the three larger stage shows—TOGETHER, Mickey and the Magician, and The Disney Junior Dream Factory.
I like to try and show up just before an early show time. If I’m lucky, I won’t waste more time than necessary waiting in time. If that showing is already full, then I know to be a little more aggressive at later showtimes.
I wound up waiting arriving a little earlier than I wanted—just under 20 minutes—for the 11:10AM TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure show.
After the show, waits were still pretty high. There’s a 1PM showing of Mickey and the Magician (the first showtime for the day), so I decided I’d just have lunch and then try watch that show. Walt Disney Studios Park doesn’t offer any better quick service options than Parc Disneyland, but Stark Factory at least has this cook Hulkbuster statue:
Mickey and the Magician is a great show and I’d probably say it’s one of the three best things at Walt Disney Studios Park. It’s a “must do” on my list.
Finishing shows early is also nice because it gives you flexibility later on. If you wait until there’s only one showtime left, you’re basically locked into (1) that showtime and (2) arriving extra early for that showtime. You don’t want to get to 4PM and not be able to hop in a 45 minute wait for something because you have to make a 5PM showtime. As long as you’re not missing out on short waits on popular rides, early showtimes are the way to go.
10:51AM - Queue for 11:10AM TOGETHER Pixar Show
11:40 - Lunch at Stark Factory
12:30PM - Queue for 1PM Mickey and the Magician
With two shows down, it’s time to start accepting that some waits are inevitable. I’ve got 8 rides and one show left on my list. But with about 7.5 hours, I shouldn’t face any real challenges. Tower of Terror had dropped from its 45-minute peak and was down to 20 minutes, so I decided that was a good option.
1:54PM - Tower of Terror (20 minute wait)
At this point I’m done with four of the six “popular” rides. The other two were posting long waits—Crush’s Coaster at 75 minutes and WEB Adventure at 60 minutes. With 7ish hours left in the day, there’s plenty of time to wait those out.
Finding Short Waits in the Afternoon
In the meantime I opted to check off some less popular options. Here’s what those waits looked like at 2PM:
Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin - 10 minutes
Cars Quatre Roues Rallye - 20 minutes
Cars Road Trip - 5 minutes
Avengers Assemble: Flight Force - 25 minutes
Flying Carpets Over Agrabah - CLOSED TODAY (not hard to fit into most any day, though)
The choice here is pretty easy. Cars Road Trip had as short a wait as possible, and it’s also a relatively far hike from the rest of the park, and a long ride. Hopefully by the time it’s done, I’d have some more good options.
Indeed, Cars Quatre Roues Rallye dropped to just 10 minutes by the time I was off Cars Road Trip. These are on the same side of the park, at least, so I didn’t have a long walk just to ride Cars Quatre Roues Rallye.
2:23PM - Cars Road Trip (5 minute wait)
2:51 - Cars Quatre Roues Rallye (10 minute wait)
Wrapping Up the Day - Long Waits, Last Shows
After Cars Quatre Roues Rallye, Crush’s Coaster was still posting a 70 minute wait. I didn’t really want to endure that, but the truth is that with about 6 hours left in the day and only three high priority things to do (Crush’s Coaster, WEB Adventure, and the Disney Junior Dream Factory), I was probably going to have to endure a long wait for something.
This is pretty much the quintessential moment for why I consider this park frustrating. You inevitably wind up with enough time (yay!), but it’s enough time to wait in the long lines (boo!).
I opted to instead go with Spider-Man WEB Adventure, which was posting a 55 minute wait. I didn’t really consider it a better option, but I figured it would put me in a good position to either (1) have plenty of time before the 5:05PM showing of The Disney Junior Dream Factory or (2) ride Avengers Assemble and then hope I can catch that 5:05PM showing.
While I didn’t luck into any short waits, nothing took longer than expected, and I wound up making it into the queue for The Disney Junior Dream Factory. (Notably, there was a final showing, at 6PM, that I’d have no problem catching as a backup, but that show would have put me in the exact position I said to avoid: no way to fill the hour before it because the Crush’s Coaster wait was too long.)
3:57PM - Spider-Man (55 minute wait)
4:30 - Avengers Assemble (20 minute wait)
4:48 - queue for 5:05PM showing of The Disney Junior Dream Factory
While I think The Disney Junior Dream Factory is worth a viewing, I think it probably loses some of its luster if your kid doesn’t know Disney Junior. Mickey and Minnie are present, but if Fancy Nancy and Vampirina aren’t household names for you, you might find the show skippable (Zoe only knows these characters from their presence in Disney parks shows).
With a 9PM close, this leaves me three things to complete in the last 3.5 hours of the day:
Dinner
Crush’s Coaster
Slinky Dog ZigZag Spin
To put it bluntly—I’d spent enough time in Walt Disney Studios Park for my liking. If you have park hopper tickets and can finish the day over at Parc Disneyland, that’s always a nice way to wrap up the day. For all its positive qualities (a few great rides and a few excellent shows), Walt Disney Studios Park simply isn’t a pleasurable place to be.
Crush’s Coaster was posting a 60-minute wait, and I waited 67 minutes. For the sake of completeness, I swung by Slinky Dog ZigZag Spin, a walk-on posting a 5 minute wait.
6:44 - Crush’s Coaster (60 minute wait)
6:59 - Slinky Dog ZigZag Spin (5 minute wait)
This actually allowed me plenty of time to go have dinner and catch the evening entertainment over in the castle park.
Conclusions
The important thing to know going into a full day at Walt Disney Studios Park is that there will be waits, but you won’t be wasting time waiting in them. Unless you’re deliberately going to the longest wait available, you’re probably going to have an alright day. Stick to common sense principles—don’t wait for final showtimes, don’t sleep on rope drop, and don’t walk back and forth too much (mostly for your sanity).
Of course, Walt Disney Studios Park will change greatly around 2025, when the new World of Frozen opens and the park becomes “Disney Adventure World.” But, until then, the perfect day at Walt Disney Studios boiles down to 20% planning and 80% patience.
What are you most excited for at Walt Disney Studios Park?
All Your Other Disneyland Paris Planning Questions Answered
Don’t be overwhelmed by Disneyland Paris planning! Take a second to check out our most important content! Just starting out? Check out our Disneyland Paris Trip Planning Guide. Need to know how much this is going to take out of your pocket? We’ve got a post on How Much it Costs to Go to Disneyland Paris.
When it comes to hotels, we’ve reviewed three of them. Check our our Review of Disneyland Hotel (Paris), Review of Disney's Sequoia Lodge, and Review of Disney's Hotel Cheyenne. We also recommend considering an off-site hotel or Airbnb when visiting Disneyland Paris.
Know what to ride with our: Disneyland Paris Rides Guide and Walt Disney Studios Park Rides Guide. And just as important, know how to get on the best rides without the wait with our Guide to Disneyland Paris Fastpass! For the complete guides to a day at the park, we have a One Day Disneyland Paris Itinerary and a Walt Disney Studios Park Itinerary.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.