Wait times for Disney's Hollywood Studios

Walt Disney World: Which attractions have shorter, longer or average wait times, relative to each other?

From Robert Niles
Posted November 3, 2011 at 2:40 PM
We're continuing our project to record relative wait times for attractions at the Orlando theme parks. Today, it's Disney's Hollywood Studios. (I explain what we're doing in the threads about wait times in The Magic Kingdom and Epcot.)

For shows that operate pretty much continuously, we're calling the wait "shorter" if you will get into the next showing, regardless of whether that happens in one or 20 minutes. If you have to wait for the second showing, make it "average" or "longer," based on the length of the shows.

For shows that run only at fixed times during the day, select "shorter," "average" or "longer" based on the time you need to arrive early (to get enough seats for your group) being shorter, longer or the same as the average wait time in the park for other attractions that day.

Here's my first draft, subject to change according to your comments below:

Hollywood Boulevard
Great Movie Ride - Average

Echo Lake
The American Idol Experience - Shorter
Sounds Dangerous - Shorter
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular - Average
Star Tours - Average

Streets of America
MuppetVision 3D - Shorter
Lights, Motors, Action - Average
Studio Backlot Tour - Average

Pixar Place
Toy Story Midway Mania - Longer

Mickey Avenue
Walt Disney: One Man's Dream - Shorter

Animation Courtyard
Voyage of the Little Mermaid - Shorter
The Magic of Disney Animation - Shorter
Disney Junior - Live on Stage - Shorter

Sunset Boulevard
Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage - Shorter
Rock n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith - Longer
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - Longer
Fantasmic! - Average Longer

From Skipper Adam
Posted November 3, 2011 at 2:51 PM
I'd make Backlot Tour shorter and Fantasmic Longer because you might have to camp out for a long time and not even make it in the show on summer days.

From Tim W
Posted November 3, 2011 at 4:07 PM
I agree. Fantasmic! should be marked as a "longer" wait. In fact, it usually gets so long that I have not seen it in probably 5 years or so.

From Matt Babiak
Posted November 3, 2011 at 4:27 PM
Toy Story Mania:You need to make up a special longer than long category. Shorter, Average, Longer, and the insane wait of TSMM :)

From Giovanny Cruz
Posted November 3, 2011 at 4:36 PM
Im sorry Robert but I think that Star tours Its longer but none are longer than Toy story midway mania thats for sure.

From Amanda Jenkins
Posted November 3, 2011 at 7:02 PM
Fantasmic is definitely a longer. Everything else looks about right.

From Tony Duda
Posted November 4, 2011 at 11:28 AM
Robert, you have a math problem with this list. There are too many shorter and average waits compared to the longer waits. But I read the list several times and can't figure out what to change. I guess it's just that DHS has many live show attractions with large capacity theaters and your rules pushes them into the shorter category. MuppetVision could go up because I have waited a show cycle during big crowd days when the line snakes outside.

From Robert Niles
Posted November 4, 2011 at 3:36 PM
No, there can be noticeably fewer in one category than the others. They don't have to be split in thirds. If a couple of attractions are outliers on wait time versus the others, that's what I'm trying to get at here, so it's fine.

"Average" can be pretty broad, too. There doesn't have to be just one, median-wait attraction as average.

From Dan Babbitt
Posted November 11, 2011 at 1:20 AM
On any given day DHS is the hardest park at WDW to calculate and predict wait times, other then Mania which will always be long.

This is due to the amount of shows at the park.

At the other parks either they are balanced between shows and rides (DAK and EPCOT) or ride heavy MK. DHS has 6 rides and the rest are shows. So at Tower of Terror we are affected most by both Beauty and the Beast and Lights Motor Action!.

So while each show is going on the lines for the Tower are much shorter then average then when the shows "dump" or get over with we get a higher then average lines. So during the summer you can go to the Tower and have a walk-on wait then go back an hour later and get hit with a 30-45min wait.

Now every ride is affected here and our wait time boards cant keep up!

Now at the other Parks because they arent show heavy you can easily predict what the wait time is because you dont have the ebb and flow of the shows going in and out.

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