We set the 'Harry Potter Day' on a Thursday when we read that it's crowded on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Still, we purchased the 'Universal Express 4' Pass on Klook as we wanted to save time after hearing and reading horror stories of 2- to 3-hour queues at the rides.
Unlike Tokyo Disneyland, you can't purchase the Universal Studio entry tickets in advance on the Universal Studio Japan website. Funnily enough, it directs you to buy the tickets on Klook, a third party vendor. You can only buy the entry tickets on the day itself, on the spot, if you want to buy at Universal Studio. And as I understand it, very few tourists would take the risk to buy tickets on the spot as most do not want to queue twice just to get into the theme park.
After buying the entry tickets, we proceeded to buy the Express 4 Pass on Klook as well. There are a few options which can be quite confusing if you don't understand how it works. In short, 'Express 4' means you get to take 4 different rides at the express queue and 'Express 7' means you get to take 7 different rides.
I chose the 'Universal Express 4 - Minion Ride' Pass which consists of Minion Ride, Harry Potter Ride, Spiderman 4D Ride and Backdraft, which was basically a behind-the-scene special effects revelation. The rest were just too exciting for my lil ol' heart.
It turned out that the passes were more expensive than the entry tickets. The entry tickets cost $95.19 per adult while the express passes were $105.65 per adult. Baby's was child price so hers were cheaper.
With the cold weather and fatigue of travelling, we seldom woke up early so we were fashionably late for our Universal Studio trip as well.
Saw a few characters but it's almost impossible to take pictures with characters in Japan theme parks since they always allow small children to jump queue
We headed straight to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter since that was the reason we came to Universal Studio Japan
At the entrance was the nostalgic Hogwarts Express
Next we stepped into the wintry village of the Harry Potter world where all the shops and activities were
This was where the Harry Potter ride would be
I am not a theme park person. Even at Universal Studio Singapore, if not for being duped to take the Puss in Boots ride, I almost always stick to taking the Mining Truck Ride, a ride that is recommended for children aged 2 and 3.
Rollercoasters give me heart attacks and untold stress even before I ride them. The stress lasts throughout the rides. I feel as if I am about to be thrown out of the seat every time the ride slants or tilts. I find it too stressful to take rollercoasters and I don't want to die taking rides in a theme park!
I googled many time on the internet what the Harry Potter ride and Minion ride were all about and if they were rollercoasters but I couldn't seem to find an answer. Many said they were rollercoasters and some said they were tamed/amazing rollercoasters, especially the Harry Potter ride.
I decided to go for it since it would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing that I would be there.
I am glad I did. We were led to keep our things in the lockers so that they wouldn't fall out during the ride. It wasn't a rollercoaster to me. Everything was dark except for the 2D and 3D image, such as the huge snake (can never remember the name) and the Hogwarts castle, appearing in our faces.
I wished someone had mentioned that your picture would be taken right after Hermione appeared and said a bunch of Japanese words! Our picture turned out hilarious! Nobody was looking at the camera since no one understood Japanese. We were all looking elsewhere and looking serious or sombre, like we were all hoping we didn't fall out of the ride. Awful picture but I just had to pay for it.
Baby was keen to try this 'children's rollercoaster' which I didn't dare to, so William went on it with her. He said it's not as topsy turvy as the Harry Potter ride but it was 'very fast'.
By the end of 4 rides, Baby's verdict was that this was the 'best' ride of all! Lol! And we didn't need an express pass for this!
We spent 1.5 hour in the Harry Potter souvenir shop scouring for things to buy for the potter head back home.
Then as we exited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we saw this van with a long queue where people were queueing up to buy Butterbeer.
We chose the chilled Butterbeer in a Christmas Mug since it was not as pricey as the Premium Stein.
Many people were taking a picture of their Butterbeer with the van and the castle, so did we!
Her sister had got her wand when we visited Harry Potter Studion London so I asked Baby to choose hers here. She picked a Hermione wand.
There is another version of the wand besides the ordinary wand. If I remember correctly, the wands in orange boxes (for Hermione wands) allow you to 'cast spells' at 7 designated places in the Park. Baby was casting a spell under the Japanese instructions of the young lady above. She only tried it once because she 'cannot understand what the lady was saying!'
After that, we visited the Minion Park for our next ride: Despicable Me Minion Mayhem.
I am no fan of the Minions but I could see how big the Minions were at the Minion Park! The buildings and display there were the cutest and even a non-fan like me wanted a picture with the cute shop-front and display!
Where our ride was
The ride was, again, NOT a rollercoaster.
It was a 4D ride in which the 4-seater per row machine rose and plunge you into a screen showing 4D images of how you participate in a mayhem of Minion activities. I felt a little dizzy having been shaken here and there, much like the 4D Transformer ride at Universal Studio Singapore.
Difference between the normal queue and express queue lanes!
We literally walked all the way in while the people were stuck in the queue of madness!
In fact, at Backdraft, Baby said,"Next time when I go to theme parks, I must buy the express tickets because it saves a lot of time queueing!"
Then make sure you make enough money for you to do that!
Mother was hungry so we had our lun-ner at the Minion Cafe
Two choices for us: chicken cutlet with rice or curry minced meat with rice.
Baby had the Minion burger.
I wanted the onsen egg so I chose curry minced meat with rice.
The meat was so minimal I had difficulty finding and tasting them.
After two rides, we moved on to Backdraft for the behind-the-scene works for an old movie which I could not recognise
We entered 3 huge standing theatres, one after the other, of which the last one gave us a scare when where we stood jerked to simulate a slight collapse as the whole place had a fire scene and explosions simulated. Just about the only highlight of the show.
As it was getting late and the crowd was gathering for the night parade, I suggested making haste to the Spiderman ride.
Again, it was a 4D ride of an adventure with the Spiderman. Uneventful, fortunately. Just had another round of slight dizziness due to the 'throwing' of participants within the ride container.
We went around the Universal Studio to check out the other parks. They were either too adventurous for us, like the Hollywood Dream and Flying Dinosaur, too kiddy, like the Snoopy and Hello Kitty rides at Universal Wonderworld, or too boring, like the Jaws boat ride.
We ended up spending a lot of time at the stores trying to find things to buy!
Prior to my visit, I had imagined that Universal Studios everywhere in the world were just about the same so I was amazed that Universal Studio Japan is very different from Singapore's. It is a lot bigger and the rides were essentially different, not just for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. One day is not sufficient to cover the theme park for sure. Perhaps 2.5 or 3 days would be just nice for a theme park goer. I was worried that it would be a waste of money and time to go to Universal Studio. In fact, I wanted to scrape Universal Studio Japan from the itinerary a few times as quite a few people who have gone to Osaka told me they skipped the theme park but I am glad that I went.
So we returned to Dotonburi for our dinner and Ichiran had ready seats for us!
We paid for 4 bowls of ramen and 3 'salted (onsen)' eggs at the machine before going up the stairs to the dining area
William was a little taken aback that the restaurant did not have conventional table and chairs but he agreed that the noodles were better than the one we had previously.
Ichiran doesn't disappoint.
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