Hollywood Studios wait times by hour: what 140 days of posted waits show

At Hollywood Studios, the median posted wait was 40 minutes in each hour from 10am to 1pm, against 15 minutes at 8am. That is the pattern in WaitScout's own polling from 2026-06-02 to 2026-10-19.

These are posted waits, not measured standing time. This guide gives the hour-by-hour table, shows how the biggest rides behave inside the park-wide number, and ends with how to use the hours on a trip. The Methodology section explains every figure.

What are Hollywood Studios' posted wait times by hour?

The table lists each local hour from 8am to 9pm, with the median and the mean of every posted wait recorded in that hour across the whole window. Medians move in 5-minute steps, so a difference of one step between two hours is weak evidence.

Hour	Median posted wait (minutes)	Mean (minutes)	Posted waits
8am	15	21.3	4,593
9am	25	29.7	11,429
10am	40	37.8	11,432
11am	40	41.1	11,349
12pm	40	39.4	10,955
1pm	40	37.1	10,584
2pm	35	35.8	9,793
3pm	30	32.7	9,529
4pm	30	31.5	9,343
5pm	30	31.3	8,795
6pm	30	32.4	7,734
7pm	30	31.2	7,442
8pm	20	26.2	5,883
9pm	20	24.6	2,166

The 9pm row rests on fewer posted waits than any other, 2,166, and on 82 days instead of the 137 behind 8pm. Hours before 8am are omitted from the pack as too thin.

What is the best time of day at Hollywood Studios?

The lowest hourly median was 15 minutes, in the 8am hour, and no other hour matched it. The 9am hour was already at 25 minutes. The evening is the second window: 20 minutes in both the 8pm and 9pm hours. The morning window is short and the evening window is flatter, so the evening is the easier one to hit.

Between them sits a long plateau. From 10am to 1pm the median held at 40 minutes, it eased to 35 minutes at 2pm, and it stayed at 30 minutes from 3pm to 7pm.

When are Hollywood Studios waits the longest?

The highest hourly median was 40 minutes, shared by every hour from 10am to 1pm. The mean peaks inside that window, at 41.1 minutes at 11am.

At 11am, Hollywood Studios' median was 40 minutes. The same hour was 20 at Magic Kingdom, 25 at EPCOT and 40 at Animal Kingdom.

So the busy window at this park is wide: four hours at the same median, with no sharp peak to dodge. The way around it is to be in line before it starts or to wait until it ends.

How do the big rides behave inside that pattern?

The table shows nine rides, ranked by overall median, from Slinky Dog Dash at 60 minutes down to Star Tours at 5. For each, it gives the hour whose median was lowest and the hour whose median was highest. Hour-level medians on posted data often tie, and a tie goes to the earlier hour, so read each hour as the centre of a window of an hour or two. Meet-and-greets, shows and films are left out.

Ride	Overall median	Lowest-median hour (median)	Highest-median hour (median)	Posted waits
Slinky Dog Dash	60	9pm (45)	11am (70)	6,423
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets	50	8am (30)	11am (60)	10,762
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance	45	9pm (25)	11am (55)	11,801
Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway	40	8am (20)	11am (50)	12,611
Toy Story Mania!	40	8am (15)	11am (45)	11,765
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror	35	8am (13)	11am (40)	11,755
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run	30	8am (15)	10am (40)	15,785
Alien Swirling Saucers	25	8am (5)	12pm (35)	14,535
Star Tours - The Adventures Continue	5	8am (5)	8am (5)	16,552

The 11am hour was the highest-median hour for six of the nine rides, including Slinky Dog Dash, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run peaked at 10am, Alien Swirling Saucers at 12pm, and Star Tours showed no movement at all, with 5 minutes at both ends.

Slinky Dog Dash is the hard case. Its median ran from 45 minutes in the 9pm hour to 70 minutes in the 11am hour, and its lowest figure is higher than the morning medians of 15 and 13 minutes at Toy Story Mania! and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance sits below it. It ran from 25 minutes at the 9pm end to 55 minutes at 11am. Its opening-hour median was 35 minutes against 50 minutes from 11am to 4pm, so the first hour is a real gain there, which is not true of Slinky Dog Dash (60 against 65).

For the full first-hour comparison, see rope drop at Disney World, ride by ride.

Does the day of the week change Hollywood Studios' hourly pattern?

A little. The median posted wait was 35 minutes on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday and 30 minutes on the other four days, with the mean running from 31.9 to 36.8 minutes.

A gap of one step is small next to the hourly swing, which runs from the morning to the plateau. For the weekday picture at every park, see the best day of the week at each Disney World park. To compare dates, use the Hollywood Studios crowd calendar.

How can you use these hours on a trip?

• Be in line before 10am. The 8am hour had a median of 15 minutes and the 9am hour 25, before the plateau of 40 began.
• Use the 3pm to 7pm stretch for the long rides. The median held at 30 minutes there, below the lunchtime plateau.
• Check the live number for Slinky Dog Dash before you queue. Its hourly median ran from 45 to 70 minutes.

Check the live list for your date at Hollywood Studios wait times, and for paid skip-the-line prices see Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane. For the same view at other parks, see Magic Kingdom wait times by hour, EPCOT wait times by hour and Animal Kingdom wait times by hour.

A table cannot tell you the minute a line shortens. The WaitScout iPhone app can alert you when a ride's posted wait drops, so you can move when the line does. See the app features.

FAQ

What is the busiest hour at Hollywood Studios?

There is no single hour. The median was 40 minutes in every hour from 10am to 1pm, and the mean was highest at 11am, at 41.1 minutes.

What time of day has the shortest posted waits at Hollywood Studios?

The 8am hour, at a median of 15 minutes. The 8pm and 9pm hours were next, at 20.

Is Hollywood Studios worse at midday than the other parks?

In this data its 11am median of 40 minutes matched Animal Kingdom's 40 and sat above Magic Kingdom's 20 and EPCOT's 25.

Are these the waits people actually stood in?

No. They are posted waits, rounded to 5 minutes.

Does this apply in winter or holiday weeks?

We cannot say. Our data covers 2026-06-02 to 2026-10-19 only, so it is silent on every other time of year.

Methodology

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Every figure comes from WaitScout's wait_history table, from 2026-06-02 to 2026-10-19 (140 local days), converted to America/New_York. Only rows with a posted wait are used. The hourly table uses hour_of_day rows for Hollywood Studios, pooled over the whole window; the median is the exact median of posted minutes and the mean is the arithmetic mean. Posted minutes come in 5-minute steps, which is why differences of 5 minutes are not strong evidence. The table keeps hours 8 to 21, each with at least 2,000 posted waits; earlier hours are too thin. The ride table uses top_rides_by_median rows for Hollywood Studios rides with at least 1,000 posted waits; for each ride the lowest and highest hourly medians are computed over local hours 8 to 21 with at least 7 days in the hour, and ties go to the earlier hour. Opening-hour and midday medians come from rope_drop rows (opening hour is local hour 8; midday pools hours 11 to 15). Meet-and-greets, shows and films are excluded from ride claims. Weekday figures use day_of_week rows, about 19 to 20 days per weekday. Park opening times are not in the database. There is no winter, spring or holiday data.

WaitScout is an independent planning tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by The Walt Disney Company. All park names are used for identification purposes only.