USJ Trip Report Oct 31 2023 with wait times

I went to Universal Studios Japan yesterday, and thanks to arriving early and buying an Express Pass, I was able to do pretty much everything. Here’s what my experience was like, including wait times.

**Tips:**

* The Express Pass is absolutely worth it if you want to save time waiting in line for the *non-Mario* rides. I was able to ride several rides with a 6-7 minute wait when the posted wait time was an hour or more.
* If you care about Super Mario World, going very early is also still important even if you have an Express Pass. **Mario Kart has huge lines even with an Express Pass.** Meanwhile, if you go first thing in the morning, you can practically walk on. This also lets you do Kinopio’s Cafe, the powerband challenges, etc.
* If you don’t want to get up early and are short on time, I’d recommend just skipping Super Mario World entirely. It’s not that exciting. The main attraction is Mario Kart, but Spiderman and Hogwarts Forbidden Journey are both much better. Yoshi’s Adventure is a complete waste of time – it’s just a lame kiddy ride where you *slowly* ride a cart around a small loop and then get off again.
* Most rides have a Single Rider line, but it’s still very slow. E.g. it’s typical to see a ride with posted wait times of 90 minutes standby, 70 minutes single rider. Unlike at DisneySea, you can’t just effectively walk onto IJ/Raging Spirits as a single rider, so having the Express Pass is really useful.
* Many rides require you to put all your stuff in a locker, either halfway through the line (Hollywood Dream, Flying Dinosaur, Forbidden Journey) or before you get in line (Sadako). In the former case, the Express Pass only helps until you get to the lockers, as everyone is obviously merged together at that point.
* For Sadako, it’s near impossible to find an empty locker in the main locker areas, but there’s another semi-hidden locker area to the left of the entrance. Remember to bring a 100 yen coin (you’ll get it back).
* Food and drink officially aren’t allowed, but I saw a woman in front of me get let through with a bottle of tea, and later saw someone with an onigiri they obviously brought in. Empty water bottles specifically *are* allowed in the rules, but the security guard still acted like he was doing me a favor by letting me in with one.
* There are several water fountains in the park where you can refill an empty bottle, and the water is cold. I remember one in Mario World and one in Central Park, but I saw several others, too.
* Unlike Disney, the USJ app worked great, but you barely need it anyway. I had to buy my tickets through Klook, since the official USJ site is unusable with foreign credit cards, and the admission process doesn’t involve the USJ app at all. You just scan the PDFs that *Klook* sends you. You basically only need the USJ app to check map/wait times, check your stats in SMW, and get timed entry tickets to Biohazard.
* Don’t bother getting in line to buy a powerband at SMW. They sell them in many places and you can buy one later with no line.
* ~~The drinks for Kinopio Cafe are small and they don’t bring you water. I regretted not filling up my bottle at the fountain outside beforehand.~~ **Edit**: It sounds like there actually is a place to get free water inside the cafe, and I just didn’t know about it.
* There are restrooms all over the place, but somehow it is impossible to find one when you are actually looking for them, so if you see one, try to remember the location in case you need one later.

**Timeline:**

* 06:13 – Leave for USJ. Even that early, there are large numbers of people going the same way.
* 06:44 – Arrive at the park, get in line. The plazas in front of the entrance are basically just a mass of parallel lines which aren’t clearly delineated, though the park staff try to separate them a bit.
* 07:20 – Gates open. The posted opening time was 8:00, but I’d read on Reddit that they normally open early, so I wasn’t too surprised. I didn’t see anyone let in 15 minutes early, but I think they only do that on weekends.
* 07:29 – Made it through security, immediately rushed to Super Mario World. It was obvious where to go because there was a huge crowd going the same way. I tried to jog at first but the park staff insisted that everyone walks. Fortunately, I walk pretty fast.
* 07:34 – Enter Super Mario World. Literally no lines or checks of any kind, just everyone speedwalking down the path.
* 07:36?? – Single Rider line for Mario Kart. I sadly didn’t record the exact times, but I’d guess a wait of 6-10 minutes. It can’t have been long since I was out again and bought my powerband at 7:52.
* 07:52 – Bought a powerband at a stall near the exit to Mario Kart, no line. I passed several powerband carts with huge lines on the way in, but there’s no need to wait.
* 08:03 – Saw two people already in line for Kinopio’s Cafe an hour before opening. Some people are crazy, I guess. Speaking of which, there were huge lines for the popcorn stall later. No idea why so many people would line up for popcorn.
* 08:03 – 08:13 – After hitting several coin blocks with minimal wait, I had to wait in line *ten minutes* just to hit the one in the middle (the Mario+Luigi meet and greet area) because there was a huge line of people posing and taking photos of each other in front of that particular block. After that, I decided there was no point in worrying about the coin blocks and I should just try to get the powerband key challenges out of the way, and quickly went upstairs to line up.
* 08:16-08:34 – In line for first challenge (18 minutes). This one just has you turn a handle really fast. It looked to be impossible to fail though, or at least I never saw anyone fail.
* 08:36-08:59 – In line for second challenge (23 minutes). This one requires you to hit a power block twice at specific times to knock a shell out of a pipe. This took me three tries, since the timing required was unclear. Fortunately, the staff gave me exactly three tries. It was a surprise since I had assumed that all the challenges were rigged to be impossible to fail.
* 09:02-09:06 – Went back downstairs and waited in line for four minutes to get my timed entry ticket for Kinopio Cafe, for 10 am.
* 09:08-09:29 – Back upstairs to do the third key challenge (21 minutes). This one has a group assemble a puzzle within a time limit. I did it with the two people in front of me, and it took us two tries.
* 09:31-09:40 – In line to challenge Bowser Jr. (the thing that requires three keys). A surprising number of people in line didn’t understand the requirements and didn’t have the keys yet. I was worried since I was alone and it said it was multiplayer, but they just form everyone up into groups of like a dozen people. It was kind of cool, though I was annoyed that I couldn’t figure out how to throw the fireballs.
* 09:56 – Went over to Kinopio Cafe to wait for my time to come up, and saw them let another guy with a 10am ticket in early, so I went in as well. A lot of people came in soon after, presumably everyone with 10am tickets, so I got lucky there. I was surprised that even with the timed entry tickets, there’s still a huge line even once you get inside the cafe.
* 10:08 – Finally got through the line to order (11 minutes). Fortunately, that gave me time to google the menu and decide on what to order while waiting. For some reason, they don’t actually show you the menu until you get to the counter to order, which seems like a bizarre inefficiency in an otherwise well orchestrated process. They do have rotating pictures of the dishes on the walls while you wait, but they don’t actually list the full menu or prices anywhere except at the counter. Even the official USJ website doesn’t have the menu, though Google easily turns up images of the menu that people uploaded in various languages.
* 10:23 – My food arrived. The waitresses offer to take everyone’s photo when they deliver the food. I got the Teriyaki Chicken Star Rice, Double Cherry Chocolate Cupcake, and an apple juice. The food was good, though as mentioned, the drinks are small and I regretted not filling my water bottle beforehand.
* 11:21-11:27 – In line for **Hollywood The Dream** (Express Pass, 6m wait). Pretty fun and scary coaster, but my one complaint was the loud music they play from the headrests. Using the express pass and bypassing the *huge* lines was pretty cool.
* 11:43 – In line for **Jujutsu Kaisen** (wait was at least 8m, but I sadly didn’t record the end time). I’ve never watched the anime and didn’t know anything about it, and the whole thing was (obviously) in Japanese, so I could barely understand it (I only realized the fat guy was the villian when the main characters started fighting him). Overall, I found it boring and unimpressive. Might be more fun if you’re a fan of the show though.
* ~12:20 – **Spiderman** (Express pass, 6m wait). Spiderman was really amazing, so it’s a real shame they’re shutting it down soon. I’d say it’s the best non-rollercoaster ride at the park, although Hogwarts Forbidden Journey is a close second.
* ~12:45 – **Minion Mayhem** (Express pass, 7m wait). Also pretty fun. The pre-ride video is fortunately subtitled in English and pretty funny so that was really nice. The ride itself isn’t, but that’s much less important.
* 13:12 – Got in line for **Flying Dinosaur** (single rider, 43? min wait). Reached the lockers at 13:30, so I had to stow away my phone and couldn’t check the time, but I was done with the ride at 13:57, and the rides themselves are fast, so perhaps 43 minute wait time. This is the biggest and most intense roller coaster in the park, although I actually found it to be less scary than Hollywood, perhaps because I’d done that one first to get used to it.
* 14:09 – Checked **Waterworld** while I was nearby and saw that the next show was at 14:15, so I headed in and just barely got a seat. The show was extremely impressive. I haven’t seen Waterworld and the show is in Japanese, so I could barely understand the actual story, but the special effects and stunts are *amazing*.
* 14:40-14:47 – In line for **Jaws** (single rider, 7m wait). Pretty cool, though the boat pilot sometimes failed to keep her pretend gunshots in sync with the pyrotechnics.
* Wandered around for a while looking for restrooms and snacks. I got ice cream at Baskin Robbins and a giant churro at Racoon City. They were ok, though I was really disappointed that even in an American-themed park, the NY Pizza Parlor still serves Japanese-style pizza rather than American-style pizza. I also picked up an e-ticket for Biohazard for 20:45 at this point.
* 15:55 – Again tried to go to Sadako, but I still couldn’t find any open lockers.
* 16:08 – Got in single rider line for Hollywood again. I had SMW timed entry soon, but figured I could just get out of line early if necessary.
* 16:45 – With a huge line still ahead of me, I asked the staff to let me out of line and rushed to SMW. It’s a good thing, since getting into SMW with the express pass took a lot longer than I expected.
* 16:51-16:56 – Even with the pass, I still had to wait in line for 5 minutes just to get into SMW, and then quickly fought through the crowds to get in line for Mario Kart.
* 16:59-17:23 – In line again for **Mario Kart**, this time with the express pass (24 minutes). I couldn’t believe how bad the lines were, even with an express pass. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have bothered and just rode Hollywood Dream a second time instead.
* 17:32-17:46 – In line for **Yoshi’s Adventure**. I’d read on Reddit that it’s not that impressive, but figured I might as well since the express pass covered it. *Big mistake*. It’s a lame kiddy ride where you just go *slowly* around a track. The one silver lining was that I could take photos of SMW from a different angle. Most rides don’t allow photos for obvious reasons, but I didn’t see any signs and Yoshi is slow and sedate enough that there’s no risk to getting out your phone, and I saw others taking photos too.
* 17:52 – Finally got off Yoshi’s wild ride.
* 18:04 – Tried to find a locker for Sadako **again**, but they were *still* all taken. I used Google Translate to explain the problem to park staff, and he showed me the semi-hidden locker area on the left, where there were a few lockers free.
* 18:09-18:41 – In line for **Sadako’s Curse** (single rider, 32m wait). The ride was very different than I expected – there are no jump scares and Sadako herself doesn’t actually appear. It’s actually a rollercoaster in near-total darkness, and it was definitely fun.
* 18:59-19:34 – In line for **Chucky’s Carnival of Terror** (estimated wait 50 minutes, actual 35). This turned out to just be a haunted house, and a pretty lame one at that. It doesn’t help that they just had everyone in a continuous line slowly shuffling through, which ruins the effect somewhat as you see the jump scare actors come out of the walls at random people in front and behind you.
* 19:55-20:08 – **Hogwarts Forbidden Journey** (express pass, 13 minutes). Also pretty cool, reminiscent of Spiderman. I’d rate it as the second best non-rollercoaster ride.
* 20:19-20:35 – **Hippogriff** (express pass, 16 minutes). Kind of lame. There are much better rollercoasters in the park.
* 20:49 – **Biohazard Claire Route** – (timed entry ticket, only a minute or two wait) Another haunted house, but much better than Chucky.