My partner and I recently returned from two weeks in Japan, during which we spent a few days around Osaka and one specifically at Universal Studios Japan purposefully for checking out Super Nintendo World.
It was a bit of a surprise to me though how difficult it was to find specifics of how to get into the NintendoLand area of the park worry free. So this post is a set of guidance and lessons to make your Nintendo World trip a success!
We went on Thursday November 17th. Your mileage may vary if you decide to go on a weekend. Things may also change as more people are let into the country (for those reading far in the future, our trip was about a month and a week after tourism opened up again).
**Buying Tickets**
* The one key thing to know is that there are technically TWO tickets you need: 1) entry into USJ, and 2) entry into Nintendo World. However, you actually don’t need to BUY two tickets if you time things well.
* If you go on the ticketing website, there are secondary-park tickets to get you into different areas of USJ that are normally gated for crowds (Nintendo World is a big one, but also Harry Potter and a few others). These are usually called “timed entry tickets,” and they’re sold in bundles so that you can definitely secure your entry in advance. Unfortunately they’re VERY expensive (basically doubling the cost of overall entry for the day).
* Keep in mind that if you do decide to buy these in advance, a website like Klook will randomly assign the time of your timed entry ticket, and you cannot choose a specific time (only the day), so it might put your entry later in the afternoon, which may not be ideal for you.
* You do need to SECURE a timed ticket eventually to get into Nintendo World, but you don’t necessarily need to purchase one in advance.
* If you’re aiming for a weekday, you can absolutely get a timed ticket inside the park without paying for it. In the past, there were kiosks to pick one up, but now with the USJ app, you can reserve a spot in the app as soon as you’re inside the USJ grounds. More on this later.
* Our original plan was to get tickets far in advance of our dates, but our trip was kind of last minute and plagued with a bunch of other non-trip chaos, so we ended up waiting until the day before to purchase. Ultimately this wasn’t a big issue at all.
* We grabbed the USJ entry ticket on Klook. We tried doing it on the USJ website, but it had so many issues with international credit cards (not sure why) and availability on the website.
* One thing to note about the normal USJ entry ticket when you buy on Klook is that there are “A” and “B” dates, but the website doesn’t actually give you much information at all. A (apparently) was weekdays, so I guessed OK. Here’s what the schedule when we bought them looked like https://imgur.com/a/nmntdN0 but it only told us this on the ticket after purchase…
**Before You Leave**
* The one thing you want to make sure you have on your phone is the USJ app. Download it while you’re at home before you get on the train, just in case you have any connection issues.
**Getting to the Park**
* We stayed in the Namba area, which made is relatively easy to get there. You can just jump on the Osaka Loop Line, and transfer easily to the Yumesaki Line… which has a stop directly at USJ. Then you walk straight into the park from there.
* You’ll want to arrive early in the morning. The park usually opens around 9:00am on weekdays, but it’s kind of variable, so if you AIM to get there around 8:30, you’ll be in good standing to get your Nintendo World timed entry tickets quickly and easily.
* When you actually arrive at the park though, it’s a bit confusing on what you “need to do.” Just walk straight down the main promenade towards the entrance gate. They’ll do a quick bag check. Then, with your Klook tickets, you’ll scan them and gain entry into the main park.
* From here, you’ll want to make your way directly to the Nintendo World area (a bit straight, take a right, walk a looong way past Harry Potter, then the Hanging Shark, and towards Jurassic Park until you find the entrance. It’ll be obvious with some signs and a big group of people having their tickets checked.
**Timed Entry Tickets**
* So, as mentioned before, you don’t actually need to BUY it in advance. It’s technically entirely free to grab timed entry tickets (even if the website doesn’t really make it seem so). If you arrive early in the morning, you should be good to go.
* Once you arrive at the Nintendo World area of the park, open up your USJ app on your phone and connect to the park’s wifi. A section of the app will now be available that says Timed Entry Tickets. Click it, choose Nintendo World, and it should be super easy to select them for your group.
* The times offered are based on what’s available for that day. But again, if you arrive early to the park, you should be given options that are early in the morning too.
* Our earliest timed entry option was 9:30am for two people. We arrived at the park around 8:30, and it took about 20 minutes to get through the park entry line. So we got to the Nintendo World area around 9:00am.
* Just be aware that they take the timed entry pretty seriously. There are multiple ticket checks along the avenue to the official Nintendo World entry gate. We tried to get in “early” at 9:10, and they still told us to come back later. In the 20 minutes we had open, we just walked over to Jurassic Park and it took only about 10 minutes to get on the ride (just watch out, you do get somewhat wet).
**Nintendo World, Finally!**
* When your morning reaches the time of your timed entry ticket, head down the Nintendo World avenue towards the entrance! At the beginning of the avenue, there is a ticket check. A lot of people crowd there, so you can kind of walk by it. But there is another ticket check in the middle of the avenue, and they act as the real gatekeepers. Just show them your timed entry ticket on your phone app, and go on in!
* One of the first things you’ll see is a sales stand to pick up your Nintendo wrist bands. SKIP THIS ONE. There’s a pretty long line for it. Instead, keep walking towards the actual entrance gate (big green pipe), and there’s another wrist band sales stand with literally nobody in line.
* The wrist bands are about $30 each, and you can choose from 6 designs. They’re not required for entry or enjoying the park, but if you want to get the full experience, they’re absolutely necessary, and to be honest, I think totally worth it.
* Once you have your bands purchased, then open the USJ app again, because you’ll want to pair the wrist bands to your app, to track your personal and team scores, as well as your sticker collection (it’s a big part of the experience, and was fun to track).
* Finally, head on into the green pipe and enjoy the park!
**Some Other Tips**
* The park is really astounding. It’s amazingly well designed, from the layout, to the soundscape, to the food and gift shops.
* If you’re arriving in the morning between 9-10am, you can definitely walk around and just take it all in. Interact with a handful of objects with your wrist bands. Open up the USJ app too and try to figure out the basics of the Nintendo World app (e.g., using the map and seeing what areas you’ve visited and blocks you’ve punched; it’s not super intuitive at first).
* Next, just head straight on to the VR Mario Kart ride. It consistently said a 60 minute wait throughout the day for the normal line, but our first time in the morning it only took about 15 minutes (mostly just walking through the entire maze inside, and only a bit of waiting). Our second ride after lunch was maybe more like 25 minutes – still not long at all.
* Also, to note: the VR ride is AMAZING. Such an easy to use experience, and if you pay attention, it has a lot of secrets that make it surprisingly “hard” if you’re that kind of a gamer.
* I’d recommend that if you want lunch in the main hall (Toad’s Cafe), to get in line around 10:45, because you’ll wait about another 45 minutes to order, get the food, and finally sit down. The food is adorable and actually very tasty (desserts especially), so I’d recommend it. Just be aware the line was twice as long around noon when we finished.
* The good thing about having an early lunch too is that when most people are trying to get lunch, the rest of Nintendo World is still not super crowded (it seemed to be most crowded/have the longest lines around 2pm when we were leaving).
* Finally, interact with everything that you can, and explore the shops if you’re looking to drop a few bucks (there’s a lot of cool stuff to buy).
* And once you leave Nintendo World, there’s still a ton of other stuff you can do within USJ for the rest of the day if you want to stay (e.g., we saw the 4D Jujutsu Kaisen film/ride before heading back into downtown Osaka for some later afternoon shopping).
In total, we easily spent about 4 hours in the park, and we experienced probably 70% of the things inside (e.g., didn’t wait for all of the “key” games, didn’t go to the snack shop, skipped the Yoshi slow ride, and didn’t go hardcore at collecting all of the stickers). I went into it a little skeptical, but Nintendo World really blew me away personally as a theme park experience. Hope you also enjoy it when you go!
2 comments
Only read about halfway through, but wanted to point out two things:
– you mentioned connecting to the USJ wifi but it should be noted that that’s not available throughout the park. Not even close. But it’s also unclear where it is available.
– it’s Super Nintendo World, not NintendoLand
If you didn’t do the key unlocks, you missed out on bowser Jr’s shadow fight. It is a fantastic ride that you will definitely want to go back and see at some point.