Background info: Family of four – Mother (Me) – Australian, Father – Japanese born Australian, Children: girls aged 10 and 12.
In 2019, when our daughters were aged 6 and 8, we took a trip to Japan to visit my husband’s family. One of the highlights of our trip was our visit to USJ.
We watched all the vids and read all the posts and made sure we went on an ‘off-peak’ day.
Even though it was ‘off-peak’, it was still pretty hectic. We waited in some pretty crazy lines (60+ minutes) for rides that were not really worth that wait (Spiderman, Minions etc). Our eldest daughter was obsessed with Harry Potter so the hour-long wait for the ‘Forbidden Journey’ was worth it.
However, later in the day, the wait times for all rides went down. When the parades started, the queues for all rides in ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’ diminished to the point where we could get off any ride and get back on within 5 minutes. We went on all the rides several times.
Overall, we had a blast.
Our experience this week (October 2023) was less enjoyable.
As advised, we planned our trip for an ‘off-peak’ day (Tuesday).
We were aware of the new addition of Super Nintendo World (and were keen to experience it) so we arrived early in order to get our ‘Area Timed Tickets’. Despite arriving minutes after the park opened, our alloted entry time was 3:40-4pm.
From the minute we entered, it seemed we were waiting in an insanely long line for something; rides, food, toilets. Way longer than the lines in 2019 at the exact same time of year.
When we finally hit our SNW entry time, we had spent more than 4 hours waiting in lines and we were exhausted. We walked though the tunnel, and the scene we were met with was AWESOME. Had there not been 2000 people to bump around to see each little part, the kids would have been in heaven. However, it was so ridiculously packed, that it quickly became unpleasant.
Now that we were in, we felt obliged to line up for one of the rides: Yoshi’s Adventure (90 mins) or Mario Kart (100 mins). We lined up for Mario Kart…
Over 1.5 hours later, we were finally on the 4-minute ride. Was it cool? Sure. Was it worth the wait? Hell no.
And that’s the thing. Universal studios has a bunch of great rides. And they’re worth the entry price if you’re able to enjoy them without the insane wait times.
In 2019, we were able to do that. In 2023, we spent about 6 hours waiting in lines for less than 25 minutes of ride time.
USJ is letting far too many people in for what they have on offer. It was hellish on a Tuesday, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like on the weekend…
In 2019, I would have given this a five star rating for families. In 2023, I give it one.
19 comments
I went on a Monday a few weeks ago and I found the wait times much more bearable than at Disney. I mean for a highly sought after area 90 and 100 min is now a decent wait. I opted to skip those rides because by the time I made it into SNW I was exhausted and my feet were done.
Of course my experience is much different than yours because it was a solo trip and for a number of rides I was able to do single rider. Even so, after about 5 or 6pm the wait times for rides (except SNW) and horror mazes did die down.
Just went last month and the Express Pass is an absolute must. Is it just as expensive as the entrance fee itself? Yes. BUT we received timed entry for 7 rides, it covered all the rides we wanted to go on, and we were able to walk right onto all of them. The most we ever waited for a ride was 5 minutes or so. We also received earlier in the day entry into both Super Mario and Harry Potter worlds without having to worry about showing up at USJ right for opening. Otherwise, yeah, the lines are crazy. But if I’m paying so much to go there that day anyways, to me it’s worth it to invest the extra $$$ in at least making sure the day isn’t a waste. 10/10 would buy the Express Pass again in the future if we returned.
Express passes are pretty cheap, especially compared to the Universal parks in the US. Why didn’t you get any?
You can actually enter the park starting an hour before the posted park opening time, and SNW is free game for that hour so you don’t need a timed entry pass to get in.
Although draining, wait times are basically something that comes with going to theme parks. I will say that the wait times at USJ are slightly better than TDSea or TDL, but it does get pretty brutal sometimes. I would suggest getting an express pass if you ever decide to go again in the future. The express passes for USJ are a lot cheaper than the ones here in the US, so I always buy an express pass if there are rides that I definitely want to clear. You can also opt for single rider as lines for SR are shorter than the regular line in most cases.
We went in 2018 and there were no lines. I’ve been loathe to go back.
Yes, I know about express passes, but my card doesn’t work on a lot of Japanese websites from my home country and Klook tends to give crappy times.
TDR is so much easier. I stay on property, get my 15 minutes early entry, and then pay for the lines I want to skip that day.
Now if it is a good Cool Japan theme, all bets are off, but otherwise I am going to wait until things die down and there are more Nintendo Worlds open in other locations.
Got an express pass and hit every ride at the park I wanted including shows. Arrive at 8:30 and left at 5:30. Totally worth it
i find that since the annual pass is fairly inexpensive (compared to disney) that usj tries to money grab as much as possible with all the passes
We went in May on an off day and like you felt they were letting too many people in. We did get Nintendo world tickets and enjoyed it a lot despite the crowd. We only got to go on four rides (including two in Nintendo world) because the lines were so long. It was also surprising that they closed at 7pm, and some rides had closed 30 minutes to an hour before the. There was a lot we wanted to do and just couldn’t.
Disney on the other hand was a completely different experience. Went on every ride we wanted at least once and lines were not bad at all.
That sounds like hell. My kid is young enough to not know what they are missing yet so maybe I can get away with skipping this for our next trip.
A lot of tourists abroad who don’t often visit Universal Studios buy express passes, though. This is actually really good; you can literally buy time with money.
Going end Nov 2023..bought 2 adult 2 child express pass from klook. Hole in a pocket? Definitely. The kids have been looking fwd to this so this is probably the better choice for us. Not taking risk to be stuck queueing there.
We got the pre-allocated SNW rides for night time though, may I know whether we can go in earlier before official opening time to see the day view of SNW?
I think this is an issue with all theme parks and not just USJ. My theory is that the theme parks are desperately trying to recoup all the losses they “suffered” during covid years and the ones who are suffering are the customers. Universal Studios Hollywood now costs almost the same as Disneyland and we had similar experience with Super Nintendo World at USH, except we skipped the Mario Kart ride – we got there about 1 hour after opening, and the wait time was 240 minutes. We went on a random Tuesday in September.
Went on a Monday and lined up at 06:45 in front of the gate with hundreds of other people. We could go into SNW without any Area Timed Entry ticket and waited about 30 min for Mario and Yoshi each. We left the park at 13:00 because it was scorching hot and insane crowds. Was it worth it? Mwuah, I would’ve been pissed if we had gotten the Express Tickets. Suffice to say that waking up super early pays off the price for SNW.
Thank you for convincing me to buy an Express Pass. The only one left with Mario Kart/SNW access was an Express 4, and we’re still only getting into SNW at 7:40pm.
People need to link to see the wait time:
https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/park/unit/usj/
Peak and off peak is 10 minute average. (40 vs 50 min) wait difference.
Almost 10 rides are 80 minutes + wait.
Not even joking, I was there on the exact same Tuesday as you.
Booking tickets through klook was difficult and we were booked for SNW at around 930am.
It was packed and lines were crazy long for stupidly short rides.
Hour long wait minimum to buy food and not enough staff to manage shops/rides/food counters.
Compared to disney, which also had long rides but felt like they were better managed.
And that’s why you buy an express pass!
We didn’t buy Express Passes because we were expecting to have the same experience as last time; longish queues earlier in the day, shorter queues in the evening.
We weren’t able to buy tickets online while in Japan (foreign credit card issue) so we had to buy them at the gate. According to the signage, all Express Passes were sold out by the time we bought our tickets, so we wouldn’t have been able to get them anyway.
Honestly I had a similar experience this year, also at “off peak” and we had express passes. It didn’t help that it pissed down with rain the day we were there. We entered SNW just before 12 and it was SO packed, there wasn’t much room to move and to look for shelter from the rain or to scan thingys for the bands. We did the two rides with express pass, but Yoshis was awful in the rain lol. We wanted Mario themed foods but the lines were redic. It’s like everyone descends upon SNW and doesn’t leave.
Although we didn’t end up getting any food anywhere in the park because every single restaurant or snack track had the longest lines, and in the rain to make it more miserable. A very different experience to what we had in 2019 where we were able to just get what we wanted and when.