Alien Swirling Saucers Has New Music. Here Is When to Ride It.

Alien Swirling Saucers averages 17.8 minutes, but the hour you pick moves that number more than almost anything else in Toy Story Land: 5.6 minutes at 10pm against 30.8 at noon. As of Friday 25 September the ride also has a new soundtrack, which makes the timing question worth revisiting.

What actually changed

Disney introduced Lilypad's Jams at Alien Swirling Saucers on Friday 25 September 2026 (Disney Parks Blog, WFTV). Lilypad is the frog-shaped smart tablet from Pixar's Toy Story 5, and the attraction now casts her as its DJ (WDW News Today).

The new lineup mixes reworked versions of "You've Got a Friend in Me," "We Belong Together" and "I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away" with two original tracks written for the ride, "Pizza Planet Promo" and "Spin It Back, Lilypad." The reimagined Toy Story songs were recorded with musicians in Nashville (WDW Magazine).

One detail matters for planning: the music and Lilypad's interactive bits play in the area around the attraction, so you can hear them without boarding (Disney Parks Blog).

The ride's own timing, before and after

We do not yet have enough post-change wait history to say whether the new soundtrack moves the line at all, and we are not going to guess. What we can show is the pattern the ride already had.

Toy Story Land attraction	Avg wait (min)	Peak hourly avg	Best hour	Worst hour
Slinky Dog Dash	60.3	123	10pm (39.4)	12pm (74.9)
Alien Swirling Saucers	17.8	41	10pm (5.6)	12pm (30.8)

Both rides in the land bottom out at 10pm and peak at noon. For Alien Swirling Saucers that is a 25.2-minute spread (30.8 − 5.6), which is a 5.5x difference — a bigger multiple than Slinky Dog Dash manages (74.9 ÷ 39.4 = 1.9x) despite Slinky's far longer line.

Noon is also the single worst hour to be anywhere in Hollywood Studios, averaging 37.1 minutes per attraction against 18.4 at 8am. Alien Swirling Saucers is not fighting its own crowd at midday so much as the whole park's.

What to do with it

Ride it last, not first. At 5.6 minutes, the 10pm reading is close to a walk-on and it is the lowest figure the ride posts at any hour. Nothing about a new soundtrack changes that arithmetic.
At noon, listen instead of queueing. Since Lilypad's music plays around the attraction, midday is the hour to stand nearby, let the kids hear it, and spend your 30.8 minutes on something else.
Do not trade Slinky Dog Dash time for it. Slinky's best hour is the same 10pm slot. If you can only be in Toy Story Land once late, Slinky Dog Dash is the one where the hour saves you 35.5 minutes (74.9 − 39.4), not 25.2.

Also worth putting on the calendar

Two Magic Kingdom closures sit just outside this week. Tiana's Bayou Adventure closes on 2 November for its first refurbishment since opening, with a December return expected but not confirmed (WDWINFO, WDWMAGIC). The Walt Disney World Railroad is already down, closed from 28 September through 29 October (WDW News Today). Tiana's Bayou Adventure averages 25.9 minutes and swings from 6.2 at 8am to 37.4 at 3pm, so a November day without it removes one of Frontierland's bigger afternoon bottlenecks along with one of its better rides.

For the rest of the land, see the Toy Story Land guide and Slinky Dog Dash wait times. For the noon problem in general, the Hollywood Studios midday plan and the full Hollywood Studios touring plan both work around it. The other changes landing this month are in four Disney World changes to plan around.

Check live and typical waits any time on the Hollywood Studios wait times page.

Ready to put this into practice? Park Autopilot creates your touring plan from real-time wait times. Try it free →