Roller coaster
· 2 min
· Multi Pass
A two-launch outdoor family coaster over the top of Toy Story Land, and the hardest ride in this park to get on without a plan.
Slinky Dog Dash is a family coaster with two launch sections, a run of low airtime hills and a layout that climbs above the rest of Toy Story Land. It is not fast by coaster standards and it does not invert, but it is genuinely fun, and it is the ride at Hollywood Studios with the worst wait-to-length ratio in the park: two minutes of ride behind an hour of queue is routine.
Tips for Slinky Dog Dash
- Back row for airtime, front row for the view. Ask at the load platform and the wait for the back is usually one or two extra trains.
- This should be your first Lightning Lane Multi Pass selection of the day, ahead of Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, because the standby alternative is so much worse.
- If you are going standby, go at rope drop or in the last 45 minutes before close. Both routinely produce waits under 25 minutes; the middle of the day does not.
- The queue has almost no shade. If someone in your group is heat-sensitive, this is the single line at Hollywood Studios where you should use rider switch and split up rather than all stand in it.
- Repeat visitors: night rides are meaningfully better. The land's lighting turns the layout into something worth looking at, and the second launch reads much faster in the dark.
Full guide to Slinky Dog Dash →
Dark ride
· 6 min
· Multi Pass
A 3D interactive shooting ride through five carnival games, with a scoreboard that turns the whole family competitive within about ninety seconds.
You wear 3D glasses, sit in a car with a spring-loaded shooter, and rotate between five screens playing carnival midway games: throwing rings at aliens, cracking plates, popping balloons with darts, and so on. Your score displays on the dashboard next to your partner's, and that is the entire hook. It opened in 2008 and it works as well now as it did then.
Tips for Toy Story Midway Mania!
- Fire fast and often. The shooter has no ammunition limit and rate of fire beats accuracy on four of the five screens.
- On the balloon screen, hit the balloons that reveal secondary targets behind them rather than clearing the easy ones; that is where the score separation happens.
- Aim for the volcano on the plate screen and the center of the ring toss target. Both hide multipliers that most riders never find.
- It is one of only two significant attractions here with no height requirement, so it is the natural anchor for a day with a toddler.
- Repeat visitors: the practice screen before the first real game does not count toward your score, so use it to check your shooter is firing properly. A jammed shooter can be swapped if you flag it before the ride starts.
Full guide to Toy Story Midway Mania! →
Spinner
· 1½ min
· Multi Pass
A short whip-style flat ride under a canopy, with the lowest height requirement in the park at 32 inches and the shortest ride time.
Alien Swirling Saucers is a carnival whip ride dressed up as a toy playset. Saucers tow small rocket cars around two swirling patterns while music plays, and the whole cycle lasts about ninety seconds. It is the ride at Hollywood Studios with the lowest height requirement, at 32 inches, which is why families with toddlers gravitate to it.
Tips for Alien Swirling Saucers
- 32 inches is the lowest height requirement in the entire park, which makes this the first real ride many toddlers can do at Hollywood Studios.
- Sit inside, not outside, if you have a shoulder or neck issue. The lateral force is stronger than the ride looks.
- Never use a Lightning Lane Multi Pass here. The ride is ninety seconds long and there are four attractions in this park where that selection is worth ten times more.
- Waits are shortest during the first hour and during the nighttime show, and it is the only ride in Toy Story Land where the last thirty minutes of the night are usually a walk-on.
- Repeat visitors: the ride uses two different swirl patterns and the operator selects one per cycle, so a second ride is genuinely a different path around the pad.
Full guide to Alien Swirling Saucers →
Toy Story Land Character Meets
Any height
Character meet
· 5 min
Outdoor greetings with Woody, Jessie and Buzz Lightyear near the entrance to Toy Story Land, with short queues most of the day.
Woody and Jessie greet together near the entrance arch, and Buzz Lightyear greets separately a short walk away. These are straightforward outdoor character meets with PhotoPass photographers, and the queues are usually far shorter than the equivalent lines at Magic Kingdom.
Tips for Toy Story Land Character Meets
- Go in the first hour or after dark. The midday sun on this pavement is the worst in the park and there is no canopy over the queues.
- Woody and Jessie greet together, so one queue gets you two characters. Buzz is a separate line.
- Character sets rotate through the day with breaks. If a queue is roped off, a cast member will usually tell you the return time rather than the wait.
- Repeat visitors: the greeting positions moved when the land's walkways were reworked, so the spots you remember from 2018 are not necessarily where they stand now.