Japan 2025 Trip - Update

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Just be warned - as far as your 'credits' are concerned - their maintenance schedules aren't easily identified - we had several places we planned to visit based on certain attractions we wanted to do and ended up discovering several were closed for maintenance. 

The japanese websites sometimes had the info, but the english mirror sites weren't always updated. Some places didn't really advertise the closure - I can remember two places we went to where we literally arrived at the queue entrance to discover a no entry \ closed sign, and nowhere else could we find this info. For one of those, the website was still allowing people to purchase tickets for that date (so i'm really glad we didn't pre-pay!).

This may not impact you but do keep in mind this can happen. 

[TBoy]

An update: we've booked our Universal tickets this morning: as said before, we will be going on the 26th of September, which is a Friday. The pricing was the highest tier: a bit worried it will be busy due to that.

All of our group (3 people) have also got the Mine Cart and Selection Express Pass, which includes everything in SNW, Harry Potter and either Jurassic Park/JAWS or Flying Dinosaur/Minion Mayhem. I'm very excited for Flying Dinosaur but one of the others isn't, so they're giving me theirs for it which means I get 2 gos.

Our group all has the same return times of:

• 2:40pm: Forbidden Journey
• 3:10pm: Flight of the Hippogriff
• 4:50pm: Koopas Challenge
• 5:20pm: Yoshi's Adventure
• 5:50pm: Mine Cart Madness

The good thing about this is it allows us to quickly get the ones without express done at rope drop (Hollywood Dream, Space Fantasy, JAWS, Minion Mayhem) whilst also allowing us to walk around and experience the park, have lunch etc.

A bit lucky we even got the express passes: we checked at 7:30 this morning and it said "No Stock", but it managed to come back thankfully

Edited June 25 by TBoy

[Brad2912]

Good work! And very good timings 

[themagician]

5 hours ago, TBoy said:

a bit worried it will be busy due to that.

It’s basically busy every day of the years, so there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it. I’ve been to the park twice (during a lower and higher tier) and it was insanely busy both times.

[Baconjack]

14 hours ago, TBoy said:

An update: we've booked our Universal tickets this morning: as said before, we will be going on the 26th of September, which is a Friday. The pricing was the highest tier: a bit worried it will be busy due to that.

All of our group (3 people) have also got the Mine Cart and Selection Express Pass, which includes everything in SNW, Harry Potter and either Jurassic Park/JAWS or Flying Dinosaur/Minion Mayhem. I'm very excited for Flying Dinosaur but one of the others isn't, so they're giving me theirs for it which means I get 2 gos.

Our group all has the same return times of:

• 2:40pm: Forbidden Journey
• 3:10pm: Flight of the Hippogriff
• 4:50pm: Koopas Challenge
• 5:20pm: Yoshi's Adventure
• 5:50pm: Mine Cart Madness

The good thing about this is it allows us to quickly get the ones without express done at rope drop (Hollywood Dream, Space Fantasy, JAWS, Minion Mayhem) whilst also allowing us to walk around and experience the park, have lunch etc.

A bit lucky we even got the express passes: we checked at 7:30 this morning and it said "No Stock", but it managed to come back thankfully

Id personally trim your expectations. Yes park opens at 9 but standby queues for Space Fantasy, Hollywood Dream, minion mayhem and even jaws  can take a fair while (though tbf single rider for jaws is a cheat code, managed to get on it 3 times with a 5 minute wait each go). It’ll take you till lunchtime just to wait in line for those 4, no time to do other stuff.

Universal is always busy. Went in December last year where it was freezing cold outside and it was a full house. I was lucky I went alone and could abuse the single rider line.

Recommend rope dropping Minion Mayhem first purely because that ride attracts guests like a moth to a lamp, so do it first or don’t bother going on it at all.

Don’t forget Waterworld (best ever stunt show at a park) or the sing show that are both really good.

Edited June 25 by Baconjack

[themagician]

4 hours ago, Baconjack said:

or don’t bother going on it at all.

I’d opt for not doing Minion Mayhem at all. I had never ridden a version of it before, so did this year during my trip to USJ and it was not worth it, even with Express. Save your time and do anything else. The Minion land as a whole is worth walking through and the food/shops in the land is good.

4 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Don’t forget Waterworld

I second this. People start queuing for up to an hour before show times, but just join the queue 5 minutes before the show begins and sit near the top row. The thousands of people leaving that show at once creates a massive bottleneck, so if you sit at the top you can get out first and run to your next ride!

18 hours ago, TBoy said:

Flying Dinosaur

You can’t miss this ride, and is infinitely better than Minion Mayhem. And a little cheat code, once your items in the locker, you join another queue that’s generally 20-30 minutes to board the ride. After you’ve been on the ride you can funnelled into the locker area again, which means if you want you can go on the ride again because there is no one to monitor it!

[TBoy]

6 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Id personally trim your expectations. Yes park opens at 9 but standby queues for Space Fantasy, Hollywood Dream, minion mayhem and even jaws  can take a fair while (though tbf single rider for jaws is a cheat code, managed to get on it 3 times with a 5 minute wait each go). It’ll take you till lunchtime just to wait in line for those 4, no time to do other stuff.

We're thinking of getting there around 2-2.5 hours before opening, from my understanding the park usually opens 30m-1hr before listed to ease in the crowds, especially with SNW. We're hoping to get there early so we can be one of the first in and quickly do Hollywood Dream and Space Fantasy whilst most others are going to SNW/Harry Potter.

6 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Universal is always busy. Went in December last year where it was freezing cold outside and it was a full house. I was lucky I went alone and could abuse the single rider line.

I was hoping to use it - unfortunately I have a party with me, but one wouldn't want to do Hollywood Dream at all (afraid) and the other would only do it forwards.

We're lucky it's only a group of three - we were thinking of going to a waterpark in Thailand back in 2023 but we couldn't because there was only one source of transport for the group of 10. And the last time we went to the Gold Coast back in 2022 we had a group of 8, so it's a lot smaller than most holidays.

6 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Don’t forget Waterworld (best ever stunt show at a park) or the sing show that are both really good.

Hoping to do Waterworld at some point - if we get everything without an express pass done quickly we'll have time to do so.

1 hour ago, themagician said:

I’d opt for not doing Minion Mayhem at all. I had never ridden a version of it before, so did this year during my trip to USJ and it was not worth it, even with Express. Save your time and do anything else. The Minion land as a whole is worth walking through and the food/shops in the land is good.

Still hoping of doing it - but if we have to sacrifice one then that would be the one. It just seems like a normal simulator - nothing of note compared to the others.

Edited June 25 by TBoy

[themagician]

10 minutes ago, TBoy said:

It just seems like a normal simulator

Pretty much, but it has poor screen quality and it made me feel a little nauseous after (usually simulators don’t)

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

4 hours ago, themagician said:

You can’t miss this ride, and is infinitely better than Minion Mayhem. And a little cheat code, once your items in the locker, you join another queue that’s generally 20-30 minutes to board the ride. After you’ve been on the ride you can funnelled into the locker area again, which means if you want you can go on the ride again because there is no one to monitor it!

When I went, we had to present our group paper to the metal detectors to enter the final queue, so that cheat didn't work.