We live in Japan, kid is newly 4, parents and grandparents came along. One of us speaks Japanese, and kid speaks Japanese (but 4 year old Japanese).
We visited in mid March, around school vacation, but went on a Monday to try and hopefully avoid crowds (hahahaha). We bought tickets a couple week ahead, but from what I hear, not really necessary.
Getting there: we aimed to get to the park around 10:30am, but due to a 4 year old being a 4 year old, we didn’t get to Tama Center Station until 11am. The themed station is really cute and helped hype kid up after a long and boring train ride. Getting in to the park with our QR codes was a breeze.
Eating: I had already done a little YouTube research and decided to try the buffet, which didn’t have the cute character meals premade (like the food court), but would give us the greatest amount of options for a picky eater and four adults. Very short wait and empty-ish around 11:45am!
Buffet wasn’t the most amazing ever, but kid enjoyed all the themed character stuff (Kitty-chan inarizushi, kamaboko, etc) as well as the mini hamburgers and build your own donburi, and the salad bar helped us get a few veggies into kid as well (the struggle is real).
By far though the highlight of the buffet for us was the characters coming out on the restaurant stage. The kids would gather in front of the stage and wave at the character while the characters made a real effort to wave and connect to each kid. It was super adorable and seeing my kid’s face light up made the exhausting day worth it.
Attractions: so I found this kind of a mixed bag with a 4 year old. She enjoyed seeing some of the decorations/displays/etc, but it wasn’t as interactive as she would have liked. This combined with crowds made it get boring fast for her. Other places such as the Anpanman Museum seem to be more interactive, but we also didn’t get to explore everything as kid was DONE by 3:30pm and there were crazy lines for things like Gudetama, which had more activities. None of us had the energy or patience to attempt much more than a little wandering around, watching one of the dance shows, the boat ride, a bounce house, and a little shopping.
The best was the boat ride, but the line was 90 minutes long. We paid for the priority ticket to shorten the line to maybe 10-15 minutes. Totally worth it. Kid loved her first real “ride” and the whole theme of being invited to Kitty-chan’s party! We bought our official picture at the end because I am a sucker and it was hilarious seeing the whole family in a Hello Kitty boat. This is going to be our Xmas card, haha.
The other big hit was a dance performance— again, kid’s first experience of this sort of thing. It was a bit tough for her to see (just seated on the floor)— they do have a special seating area for young kids, but parents aren’t allowed and kid did not want to separate. So she sat on me while my legs went numb. However she was totally enthralled by seeing Kitty-chan and Pom Pom Purin dance, and I thought the performance was cute and well done. The [songs](https://youtu.be/PvUA1rt4Ous) are now stuck in my head weeks later.
Eating (again): the other place we went was Cinnamon’s cafe, which was cute but much smaller than I expected (and the line was long) Desserts were fun, but kind of sweet and bland in the way many Japanese cakes/parfaits/etc can be. Kid enjoyed her overdose of sugar in a blue yogurt parfait with jelly. We all got a much-needed coffee.
Shopping: At the end we hit the Entrance gift shop. I can see how fans would love this (and the other gift shops), but with my young kid it was just too overwhelming. I feel like she kind of randomly picked a couple toys and sort of glazed over. I prefer our local department store in Yokohama for Sanrio toys, as the selection is good but more manageable for a 4 year old to handle.
All-in-all kid had a good time, but we only saw a fraction of the park and attractions even though we spent 4.5 hours. Eating, waiting in lines, taking kid to the bathroom, etc just took up a lot of time.
Next time I’d get there earlier to capitalize on kid’s energy in the mornings. I’d also map out a schedule better, identifying specific shows to see, more characters, memorize the map a bit, etc.
We just kind of went with the flow this time, which was a good idea, but now that I know what to expect more I’d do it a bit differently. As you might be able to tell, I’m not a theme park person, so I’m kind of new to figuring out how best to use our time at these places. Especially when dealing with a 4 year old in a “carry me” phase!
Kid gives it 2 thumbs up. Mom and dad say never during school vacation ever again!