UPDATE I appreciate all of the quick responses! She was so bummed early this am that she couldn't go back to sleep. I know it's crazy for some, but it's a trip of a lifetime for her. We will be going to one of those Fivver sellers or Facebook groups to get this done! Thank you everyone!!
My fiancee is getting to goto Japan for the probably once and only time in her life. She and her maid of honor leave in early november for 11 days. I know my are huge pokemon fans, and the number 1 thing she wants to do is goto a particular pokemon cafe who's reservations fill up quickly. I just woke up at 4:45am est to try to get reservations. The website opens at 5:00am. As soon as it was 5am, i was getting traffic congestion errors. By the time it hit 5:02am est every single reservation for 11/9 was taken, and we will have to wait until 5am tomorrow to try for 11/10. If someone wrote a bot/script to snag all of these, how am I supposed to get her one? Are they sold somewhere?
by ryencool
24 comments
Ah I faced this problem as well.. never did get a reservation!
However, they do a waiting line at the cafe where you wait and if they have any cancellations or no shows, they will let people in from the line.
Or at 10.00am everyday before they officially open, they update a board with a few times left to be booked.
I went to the one in Osaka, only purely to see where it was as was going to queue up the next morning, and found myself in the cafe eating food within 25mins. I did go at 5.30pm so a lot quieter but it worked.
You will probably find this answered a few times on here if you search.
How I got my Pokémon cafe reservation was by having the website open on my phone, iPad and old laptop.
Already have the website open to the calendar and be ready to click on the date you want.
Timer counting down until it hit 6pm Japan time, few seconds before 6pm would start clicking on the day. If you are lucky you get to the page with the time slots without the website saying it’s congested.
Just click a time slot, you do not have time to think about it they will just disappear.
I had no luck getting a spot on the first round, after 20 mins so at 6:20pm Japan time the reservations that were not completed will open back up.
Be ready at the calendar and ready to click on your date as it hits 6:20pm – I again had a timer counting down and clicked a second or two early.
Was able to get a time slot and booked it.
I actually managed to get two bookings on seperate days and both times it was at 6:20pm not at the initial 6pm that reservations opened.
I don’t know if it matters what you are using to access the site but both times it was my old laptop that I got the booking on.
Try everything here if you haven’t
https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravelTips/s/3m5Trqc4i0
Have you tried on fivver? There are people who can book it for you. just Search Pokémon cafe.
We also couldn’t book a reservation, despite camping the site. For whatever reason, it seems to not be very conducive to foreign bookings. We ended up going to the standby line and got in almost immediately.
Just went a few days ago, couldn’t get a booking myself beforehand, couldn’t get one through pokemon VIP booking, so we got there at 10am, were about 3rd in line and got a reservation a couple hours later for 4 of us so definitely go and try on the day as soon as it opens!
I could be very lucky, but I was able to get two reservations this year by this method.
Reservations go up a month in advance at 6PM Japan time (4AM for me in EST) so that’s step 1. Both times were completely sold out instantly, I’m talking refresh the page in half a second; my internet is good, and gone. The trick is the listings have a queue to finish seat arrangements and confirmation, meaning after that 15 minute window closes spots will open up. I think people are using bots to snipe the dates but can’t go all the way through.
It will look like you missed the window but I would honestly keep refreshing until about 6:30 Japan time to know if it’s over. You might not get the section you want but you should get in. When you do get in, fill out your info asap to book in case of any internet hiccups. You also have the ability to buy merch at this stage that isn’t available for regular purchase so keep that in mind.
I was able to get two reservations two days in a row, one was a practice run at 5 PM on a Thursday evening, the other was my preferred time at 11 AM on a Friday morning. You would think getting the same place twice within 24 hours was a bit excessive but I would have gone 2 more times. Definitely a highlight of the trip. Best of luck!
I used this service on Facebook and got a reservation https://www.facebook.com/Pokemon.cafe.booking/
I didn’t have any problems getting a reservation so I’m surprised to hear so many people are. Like, it wasn’t that easy, but it definitely wasn’t in the same league as trying to get ghibli museum tickets.
Use another device maybe and see if that works better? I did find the site wouldn’t work if I was on a VPN so there is that.
Just to let you know If you don’t already, once you are in the process of reserving, there is official merch, that you can only order while reserving. Once your reservation is complete you can’t add or buy them somewhere else. There’s a list on the website. Just cos that caught me by surprise and I wasn’t sure if the person I was going with would want anything specifically.
I think once you hit that stage you have a few mins where your time is locked in, like 15 mins, so no need to panic, but honestly I’d double check that cos I’m not positive on that.
If you dont manage to get anything in advance, she can try herself when she gets here. Made one for the next day when i checked in the evening (about 10pm ish) There are usually a few cancellations for the next day if you are flexible.
If all fail, just pop down there and queue at the cancellation line.
I had the same problem. I ended up using the facebook group: littlecircle100: Pokemon cafe, run by Tiao Tiao Pon. There is a charge involved based on how many people the reservation is for and you may not be able to get the exact time you want. But it is legit and I was able to get myself and my wife a reservation.
I feel your pain! I tried the same for several days prior to going to Japan but I had no luck. When I got to Japan, I figured I would look into it one last time or go early in the morning to see if they have open slots like a lot of other people advised, but then I realized that all of the cancelled slots opened up at 10pm JST the night *before* on their reservation site. I tested this for two consecutive nights since my friend and I were planning out our schedules and there were a bunch of slots available as soon as 10PM hit for the following day. Mind you, this was for the Tokyo cafe. Not sure if the same would apply for Osaka.
Worth a shot! Good luck!
As others have said, if you just check at 10pm Japan time the night before, slots open up. My wife and I had no problem getting a second reservation on a whim by just going to the site at 10pm the night before while in Japan.
I used fiver and got a reservation for the day I couldnt reserve. Well worth the 15-20$ if you live on the east coast.
You didn’t say where you are going so I assume you’re talking about Tokyo? If you’re also planning to go to Osaka that one is way easier to get into and offers the same things. If you can’t get in there’s a lot of places like Pokemon Sweets that aren’t the full cafe with chef Pikachu but have lots of cute stuff
Do NOT let your fiancee think she can just walk in and wait until someone cancels. We made that mistake and waited with a hundred other people for 5 hours before finally giving up. We never saw anyone get in during that waiting period and 90% of the crowd had given up at that point as well.
The gift shop attached was nice enough.
Just check for open reservations the day before you want to go at midnight, there’s always last minute cancellations. I tried to book a reservation for two weeks straight last month. I got here on the 1st there’s been open reservations each day I’ve checked since I’ve been here. My itinerary for tomorrow is empty so I finally pulled the trigger on it today. Don’t use those service websites that book it for you, they’re part of the reason why it’s so hard to get reservations in the first place.
It sucks that things work this way, but using fiverr will probably be your best bet. We went through Yuko M. (@yuko_takoyaki) and she had one of the best prices and tons of positive reviews.
She even got us in super close to our requested time.
If you do get someone from Fiverr can you update me. I feel like that is the only option for someone living in America
I recommend they go on Pokemon and You train. My partner is a huge fan of Pokemon and loved the train way more than the cafe.
I got Pokémon cafe reservations for both cafe locations using this method.
When you in Japan, check the website the night before, around 10pm, and you’ll find open reservations for the next day as people are cancelling their times. I was so surprised I was able to get reservations this way because back home, I tried constantly for 2 weeks to get any time, but it was impossible as they closed up so quick. Best of luck!
We spent 5 days in Tokyo and both me and my husband were on the site every day, don’t ask me how he was able to get 1 reservation for “D”. One thing is don’t choose just blindly click. I had another friend that was able to book day of due to cancellation once they got to Japan.
Otherwise, as many people said here, get there early to queue! It’s a fun experience, but nothing special, but was something my husband really wanted to do. We were also lucky we got Pikachu while my other friend got Gangar during the “mascot” portion.
I would try again tonight/next morning if you can! Use the 15 minute strategy mentioned above, every 15 minutes the spots refresh and any inactive bots will lose their spots. I saw spots open in the 15 min intervals when I booked over a late night this past April.
Also when I was in Japan in May, I would see spots free up throughout the week as people do cancel. There were sometimes several spots open per day, so this is another option when you are there.