Universal Studios Japan
Universal Studios Japan is bumping!
This place was crowded! We went on a non-holiday weekday and did not expect such long lines! Pretty much every ride had a wait time of about 1-2 hours and you had to wait in line to get food too. Even with so many awesome options for restaurants, everywhere felt crowded.
Thankfully, our young kids were easily entertained by this new experience and didn’t need much to be happy!
We chose to wait and ride the Minion Mayhem because they love Despicable Me, and the nice thing was the wait in line was entertaining with TV screens (though in Japanese) and scenes from the movie.
We also watched the dinosaurs come out in Jurassic Park and they thought that was pretty cool and as close to the real thing as they’ve ever seen.
We circled the entire park, but spent most of our time in the little Hello Kitty/Snoopy/Sesame Street land because lines for those rides were short and they were perfectly happy just being free on the playground.
The newest attraction that I think was bringing everyone to USJ was Mario Land! Unfortunately, we couldn’t go inside because passes were needed just to get inside that area. Not to ride, but just to walk in, so I highly recommend pre-purchasing this if you really want to go. It’s quite expensive (approximately an additional $80 per person) and it was sold out when we checked prior to our trip, but they had a few passes for sale the again day of, but entrance admittance time was at 9pm and too late for us! :p
Again, thankfully the kids were happy just walking around and soaking it all in. And they did get to pick up Mario Land goodies from the gift shop so were super happy! They loved watching the huge rollercoasters soar past over head, taking pictures in all of the different lands, and caught a glimpse of the parade which was pretty neat with Pokemon too! And even if you miss that, everyone at USJ in Japan is dressed up! And I mean majorly dressed up so much so that it makes you want to buy a costume too! So we ended up buying our Halloween costumes here. :)
USJ had the characters our kids loved more than Disneyland and surprisingly, they thought it was awesome! I personally was bummed we couldn’t go on some of my favorites like Harry Potter and think this place is better for older kids who don’t mind waiting in lines or who have the luxury of fast passes, but it was still worth the experience because the kids loved it!
erin’s tip
Go when it’s not crowded (though I’m not sure when that is so may need to do more research) and be ready to either wait in lines, or spend money on fast passes. Also downloading the USJ was helpful for us to check the ride wait times and find and research food nearby when we waited in lines :p
