MUST WATCH Before Visiting Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan! 2023

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00:00 Make the most of a 1 Day Pass
01:28 Prioritize Areas
01:52 Buy tickets
02:48 Universal Studios Japan App
04:49 Download Vouchers
05:14 Prep the Night Before
05:39 Snacks at City Walk
06:12 Get in line before 8am
07:33 Scan tickets with USJ app
08:54 Bag check and scan tickets
09:23 Area Timed Entry Ticket
10:38 Run to Super Nintendo World
10:42 Buy Power Up Bands
11:52 Wifi Internet
12:18 Get in line for ride
12:37 Child Switch
13:22 Mario Kart ride
14:12 Timed entry e-tickets
15:13 Universal Wonderland
15:42 Minions Park
16:17 Areas we skipped
16:51 Christmas tree
17:06 Eat dinner at Universal City Walk

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ABOUT KENSHO QUEST 🏝

Aloha! We are a worldschooling family with three young kids. Our home base is the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii. We've been living a nomadic lifestyle for the past 14 years. Once we started traveling, we just wanted to keep on exploring!

We like to make new friends, eat local foods, and immerse ourselves in culture. We strive towards a natural, minimalist, zero-waste lifestyle. We're not perfect, but we keep trying!

[panda-cool]

Hi! Thanks a lot for the tips, it worked for me and my girlfriend today! (May 10th 2023).
I'd like to share my experience since it was slightly different, in case it can help others! I will also post this comment on your other (shorter) video, hope this is ok!
1) a bit of context about our trip, since it is important for the following: it was planned last minute to have affordable flight tickets (long story short), so I bought the entry tickets for the park a bit more than two weeks before the selected date. We chose a Wednesday, just after the Golden Week so we got the lowest price for the entry ticket (8600¥). At that point, there were still some express passes available for that day starting from about 14000¥, but we decided not to take them.
2) I was able to register our entry tickets the day before in my hotel (I tested right when I bought them without success, but not since then so not sure when it starts). The day we visited, the official opening hour was 9:30. For some unrelated reasons, we were staying in Nagoya, about 1h45 from the park. It was physically impossible for us to get to the park before 8am (unless we took the first nozomi shinkansen, but it is not included in the JR pass so it would have cost us about 6500¥ per person to arrive at 7:44).
Hence we arrived at the earliest possible time, 8:01, which I thought should be ok.
When we got there, there was already quite a lot of people, but nothing really scary, we were just past the tickets boothsq. However I noticed there was a separate queue for people with early access tickets (that you can get essentially by staying in a hotel affiliated with the park).
I got a bit scared since I thought they might finally have decided that early access should only be for these people (which in a way would make sense).
At 8:30, they opened the gates for people with an early access ticket.
At 8h45, to my great relief, they opened the gates for us.
We then rushed for Nintendo World, got there by 9am and could enter without any problem.
They started asking for area timed tickets from 10am, so there was a good time window.
By the way, please do not run. First it is forbidden and staff will stop you if they see you (but they cannot check everybody). Second, it is not necessary, there is plenty of time (+ as I'll tell later there is a good chance you can get an area ticket anyway). Third, it is actually dangerous: there are a lot of people, among them a lot of kids and we actually saw a young boy getting bumped by two guys that did not even look back.
So walk fast, sure, but do not run. You're just wasting your energy and bothering everybody, in the worst case it could even impact the park rules, as Japanese tend to do sometimes (e.g. the sgaff pf super potato in Akihabara is a lot less friendly with foreigners now, because of the behaviors of some disrespectful people).
So, I'm not sure if this is a new way of doing this, or if arriving at 7:30 allows you to enter the early access queue without a ticket, but if you arrive 1 hour and a half before the opening, it should be fine anyway, you just won't be the first people in the park. All this being said, it was one of the least crowded day so I would arrive earlier than we did on a more busy day.
3) about the area entry tickets, they do not run out of stock as fast as I thought (on a not crowded day). At 10am, I checked and could have secured an area ticket for 10am without any problem. I checked again at about 13:30 while queuing and could reserve a ticket for several time windows from 14:00 to 15:00. So in case you cannot enter, it should still be fine to get in, I was not looking frantically and git lots of opportunities. Since once you leave the area you cannot reenter without ticket, it is possible if you enter before the restruction to save a ticket for later, in case you leave and realize you forgot something. Note that you can only reserve one area ticket per day, so it works only once. Yet, I would advise not doing so as this might prevent someone who never got in to have this chance, so be mindful and try to leave only when you're sure (or take a very late entry, just for shopping for example).
To give you an idea of the time it takes, we were in Nintendo from 9am to 5pm, taking our time, doing both rides twice, eating at the restaurant and doing eveything else, including photos with Mario & cie, we left deeply satisfied and still got 2h to try the rest of the park (closing time was 7pm).
4) About the rides: once inside, we went for a power-up band (for those interested, they released a limited edition Gold Mario band on March 2023 for the second anniversary of Nintendo World, as of May 10th 2023, they are still available but are not doing anything more than the regular bands, as far as I know).
Then we rushed for Mario Kart and were allowed (actually asked) to take the fast access lane since they were not checking yet for express pass so we got the ride really fast. Being together in the ride only makes sense if you are 3 or 4 for the team score, so I would advise to use the single rider lane for a second, or a third ride, it really speeds up things (but you miss the nice items displayed on the regular lane). Also, make sure you press the power band several time on the kart to be sure it connects. Since it is not super clear when and if it did it properly, my girlfriend was actually not connected on her first ride although she seemed to do it correctly. In general, although it works pretty well most of the time, the band is sometimes not recognised and it gets frustrating when it happens in Mario Kart since you don't receive the coins etc (for the other interactions in the park, you can simply try again or ask nicely the staff, they are super super friendly, even more if you can speak japanese but don'tbe afraid if you don't).
Then we went for Yoshi, the waiting time was said to be 40 minutes but we only waited for 20 minutes or so. The same happened the second time we did it as well.
In general, it seems that Mario Kart is more crowded than Yoshi, especially since the waiting time seems overestimated.
For the restaurant (Kinopio cafe), it might be a good idea to get there early. We went at 10:50, received a ticket to come back between 11:15 and 11:30, went back at 11:15, ordered at 11:30 and started eating at 11:50. It might take more time if you go later, but i have the feeling their ticketing system works well. For the other food shops, the queue never seemed to long (maybe for the popcorns but we didn't take them). If you're in a rush, I woukd suggest the koopa shell calzone at the Yoshi cafe, it's fast, "cheap", tasty and fills the belly enough.
The little games involving the power band have little queues but it never takes more than a few minutes to get to play them and they are quite entertaining (some more than others).
Finally, for the photos, if you really want to do them, I'd suggest to do Mario and Luigi either directly when you get there in the morning or when you see that some people leave the queue when they do a break. Otherwise, it can take easily 40 minutes. Peach takes 10-15 minutes and Toad (Kinopio) is in "free access", you just need to wave at him and call him.
5) as I said, we didn't see much of the rest of the park since it was not our main goal, but I still have some insights because it is actually a pretty great ressort besides Nintendo: the Harry Potter part is really cool, the Forbidden Journey is amazing, and the Hyppogriff ride is quite cool for a "soft" roller coaster (but is not worth 75 minutes of queuing).
We wanted to do the Minions ride, but we couldn't due to bad judgment: we tought (and the queing times on the app conforted us) that the Harry Potter rides would be more crowded than the Minions, and it was closer to Nintendo so we went there first. What actually happened is that the times in HP halved, while the Minions doubled. At 6pm, the Minion was 55 minutes (and we arrived to late, they closed at 18:05), while Forbidden Journey dropped to 15 minutes, and Hyppogriff to 25 (which is much more reasonable for this ride). They were even allowing access to Forbidden journey at 18:50 when we got off the Hippogriff. So, can't be 100% sure it is a constant but keep this in mind.
Also, it seems that if you have an express pass you can still enter if the ride is closed, I saw some people enter the Minions that way after we were turned down. Also, if staff see you rushing towards the ride as they are closing, there is a good chance they will let you in if you ask nicely (but onge it's closed, it's closed).

Here it is, sorry for the very long message, hope it helps anyone!

[EnjoyasEagle]

I would like to thank you because thanks to your advice, we also managed to enter the park earlier than the official opening time. That allowed us to visit Super Nintendo World, that we really wanted to see, without Area Entry Timed 🙏🏼

[grantdole]

3800 yen for power band = less than $30 USD. The bands at Universal Studios Hollywood are $40, so this makes it feel like a bargain! Thanks for this video

[chloecoates]

Thank you so much Heidi! This was so helpful and clear. Took your advice and was able to get into Nintendo world at the start of the day with no times ticket. Really appreciate the clear explanations xx

[lauraagudelo]

Finally a useful and informative video! Everytime I searched I only found videos of people already enjoying the visit but no explanation of how to purchase and entry timed tickets. Thanks you!

[todanator]

Incredibly detailed yet to the point. Great job!

[L-kun]

I picked up an Express pass (even though I'll be visiting during the 'slow' season), and it actually already included timed entry for both Nintendo and Potter, and specific time frames for most of the included rides. Just something to mention for folks who might be considering that route.

[andersonormond]

great video! I was just facing problems to validate my tickets into the USJ app and now I understand why. Thanks a lot, now I can sleep well 🙂

[Dangic]

We will be there Dec 24 and 25
And bought express passes for all 5 family members for both days.
It’s our 1st time at USJ.

[JonZheJun]

Very well explained! Thank you for sharing ur experiences and tips!

[mr.n]

A very clear and helpful guide! thank you for uploading this. we will be visiting Japan in May and this is video helped me prepare for our USJ trip.

[katielrizzo]

Thanks so much for your tips, we got to give our son the best experience at Super Nintendo World this week for his 10th birthday without needing area bookings or express passes!

[Mototoy.]

This is the most detailed video I've ever watched. Thank you so much

[sbadenhorst]

Thank you so much for sharing this! We are headed to USH in March and I was trying to find someone who was explaining the timed entry process! Now my brain is wrapping around it. Glad you had fun! I too am an advocate of arriving early! It's such a game changer!

[songnomore]

Thank you. Traveling dad with two kids in March. First video I found with detailed explanation of the whole process. Thanks again.

[tc]

The most ultimate guide I have ever watched! Appreciate for all your helpful tips. Thank gosh I luckily saw this video ❤❤❤

[xNiely]

I went today and watched your video yesterday, everything went so smooth thanks to your tips. Thankyou so much!

[TheLimeInc]

finally some good tips, the ticketing system feels really confusing! will grab the normal weekday entry ticket and will get a cab/metro to be there around 7 (no kids). We already noticed that the normal tickets arn't sold out for most days!

[Jenny-ywkx]

Thanks so much. I feel like I've finally got my head around this system!

[ZietInvests]

Thank you very much for the guide - it cleared so much regarding timed entry ticket