April Japan trip – a few quick q’s – Nagoya, Ghibli Park, Hotels near Narita, Wheelchair access

We are heading back to Japan near the end of April, and will be there 3 weeks – yes I know Golden Week will happen while we are there.

Last time we missed out on Ghibli Park because we hadn’t planned for it and did not realise how hard it would be to get tickets. Additionally, my wife has some health issues, and I will likely need to be pushing her around in a wheelchair a fair bit. She can walk, but runs out of steam after about 100M and overall low energy.

So we are flying into Narita on April 23, landing around 6:30pm. I am thinking rather than do the usual and head into Tokyo, we will head to Nagoya. Given our arrival time and my wifes health, I am thinking that the smart money may be to stay near the airport and catch a domestic flight to Nagoya in the morning of the 24th. If I was by myself, I may have considered trying to get a connecting flight, or jumping on the train and getting the last train out. Are there any options that wont make us need to rush like crazy people for the evening? I cannot bank on flights landing exactly on time, and getting through customs with luggage is likely to take at least an hour or more.

Once in Nagoya, we mainly want to see Ghibli Park. The ticketing system is not intuitive. There are multiple areas that seem to require different tickets. What is the best set of tickets to buy? Is there 1 ticket that covers all areas there?

Further to that, is the entire park wheelchair accessible? I mean she can get off the wheelchair and move around some areas, but ideally to conserve energy for the most part I will push.

What else would you suggest we do in Nagoya?

We will likely head back to Tokyo for Golden Week as I have heard that its less crowded then, and we can do a lot of the things we missed last time. The plan for this holiday is to meander and make sure we do not overdo it.

I will do a fair bit of solo stuff when the missus is resting, might try to find a nice bike ride – did the Shimanami Kaido last time, any suggestions of nice rides up to 200km, that have somewhere I can rent a road bike for also much appreciated.