If you’re searching for advice on how to best make use of your time at Universal Studios Japan, you’ve probably already heard some of the generic and widely spoken about tips; however, there were a few other things I would personally recommend from my time there that I hadn’t read about before visiting. I’ll go over those in this post as well as my experience on the day I visited!
It had been a long while since I’d been to a theme park but one thing you never forget is how busy and hectic these parks can get. I did a lot of research beforehand on the tickets, opening times, best express passes, longest wait times for rides, you name it! We only had one available day in our trip to USJ so we wanted to make the most of it.
First things first, the basics
- If your schedule allows, try to avoid visiting during Japanese school holiday dates or on the weekend. Mondays and Fridays can sometimes be busier too but obviously less busy than the previously noted days.
- Book tickets in advance – this saves yourself queuing twice at the park (there’s one line to buy your ticket and another line to enter).
- If you only have one day to visit, look into buying an express pass. There are a bunch of different options, so choose based on which rides are at the top of your list!
- Get to the park earlier than the opening time! Most days, the park will open about an hour before the listed opening time (for us, the gates opened 40 minutes beforehand). Even if it doesn’t, you’ll be at an advantage to getting on those first rides with zero wait time!
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What worked for us
The park opening time on the day we visited was 8am. We arrived just before 7am, the gates opened around 7:20am, and we were inside the park by 7:35am. We weren’t super close to the front of the line, but with the order we went with, we managed to do three rides within the first hour of being in the park. Most people rush to Mario World as soon as the gate opens, which leaves a lot of opportunities open for other rides. We decided to do the Jurassic Park ride first (we heard the lines here were some of the longest), and there were only two people in front of us. No line, we just walked straight on!
Next we rode the Jaws ride, which by then had more people. Still, we only waited about 2 minutes. We were right at the front of the line, so we just needed to wait for the boat to swap over before we got on. After the Jaws ride, we decided to try our luck getting into Harry Potter world. This is an area where you do technically need a timed entry, but we’d heard that since it’s not as busy as it used to be, you can sometimes walk right in, which we were able to do. The Forbidden Journey ride also has one of the longer queue waits, so we wanted to ride this one early. When we got there, there were people but not enough for there to be a standing line. We walked the whole way through and up until the lockers, we didn’t need to wait at all.
After we’d completed those rides, we took it pretty chill for the rest of the day. By completing the most popular rides earlier in the day, we managed to get on seven rides in the one day (as well as riding the Jurassic Park + the Jaws rides a second time near the end of the night when line times dropped again).
Food and drink
If you’re wanting to max out the number of rides you get on, food and drink timing is something you need to think about, as the lines here can also get really long. We noticed a lot of the sweet snack food places were pretty empty around lunch time as people were packing into the dining places. We’d heard about crazy lines for the Mario desserts but when we walked by at 11:50am, there were only two people in line! So we obviously took advantage of that opening! Our plan for lunch was to wait until the midday rush was over but unfortunately, it didn’t seem to quieten down until 3-4pm and there wasn’t much of a window there until the dinner rush started. We ended up getting too hungry and tried to get food around 1:30pm, and let me tell you it was madness (we ate at Mel’s Drive-In, so maybe it could be better elsewhere). My husband was in the line to order for roughly 30-40 minutes while I walked circles around the resturant waiting for a seat to become free and I only just managed to get one as he got to the counter. You basically have to be lucky enough to be standing in the right spot as someone gets up to leave because the tables get taken within seconds of someone leaving (sometimes before they’ve even gotten out of their seat!).
We attempted dinner at 4:30pm, which was a much nicer experience. The line only took roughly 15min to get through and there were plenty of seating options available! Obviously, it can be hard to time when you’ll be hungry but I’d recommend trying to get into dining areas before the rush rather than waiting till later if you want to avoid long queues.
One last thing I’ll recommend is visiting Harry Potter world at dark! The castle lights up and the whole atmosphere is completely different. It’s very cozy and 100% worth the second visit if you’re visiting earlier in the day too.
If you’ve already visited the park and have any other tips, leave them down below for anyone still planning their trip 🙂