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Going to Universal Japan in June

Feb 7, 2013
35
54
Montreal, QC
I am returning to Japan in June and given the opening of The Flying Dinosaur, I decided to shift my focus from Tokyo Disney to Universal Studios Japan. At first, I wanted to book an hotel in Universal City/City Walk, but they were rather expensive and I noticed they don't offer any special advantage inside the park. So I changed my plan to a cheaper hotel in town and will take the subway to visit the park.

I heard and saw the waiting time board showing insane waits, so I started looking at how to book Universal Express in advance and it worked! Basically, you can only use the Japanese ticket webstore and need to put a Japanese address and this awesome webpage gives you a step by step process to do that: Donde la oferta me lleve: How to buy USJ (Universal Studios Japan) tickets ONLINE - Viajes de bajo presupuesto

I picked my date, then added Universal Express booklets to help with the biggest rides. I booked the 15th anniversary booklet which gives me a ride each on Flying Dinosaur and Kyary Kyary Panyu VR (the rethemed until June 26th Space Fantasy: The Ride) as well as Parade viewing. Then, I booked a Universal Express 7 booklet with Hollywood Dream: Backdrop as the main ride. It also includes express access to Harry Potter and one time Express access to both Forbidden Journey and the Flying Hippogryph. The rest of the booklet is use as you want one time access to Spiderman, Hollywood Dream or Backdraft (humm, I am a pyromaniac, but you can figure out which one I will ride!), Jaws (closed for refurb) or Jurassic Park: The Ride and Terminator 2.

What I could not figure out at first is how to book them since it asked you to select times. Turns out you book your period for direct access to Harry Potter and then it tells you when to go ride your big ride and when to ride the two Harry Potter attractions.

I visited the park once before in 2007 and it was miserable since the crowds were insane and small things like the Carousel had a 60 minutes wait. So, that's why I booked the Universal Express.
 
This is all really useful info, thanks for sharing! I still intend to head over to Uni Japan at some point in the future to hit up the last remaining JAWS ride. You've reminded me to make sure I double check the refurb schedule before booking!! :)
 
I recommend if you can't get a express pass to ask if there is a single rider on everything. But the Hollywood dream single rider line is only for the backdrop version of the ride. Which there is only one train of. So that can be a long single rider wait.
 
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