When Azusa and I returned to Osaka by bullet train the second weekend of January, we were surprised to see Christmas trees still up in places, including but not limited to Universal Studios Japan. Evidently, that’s just how they roll in Osaka, where everything from signs to personalities are big and boisterous, and people stand on the right side of the escalator instead of the left like in Tokyo. We were there for one last bit of winter vacationing and birthday celebration over the three-day weekend. Among other things, we did a revenge trip to Super Nintendo World at USJ so we could see it during the day this time.
The day we were there was the second to last day of USJ’s “No Limit” Christmas event, which ran until Monday, January 9. That’s Coming-of-Age Day, a public holiday in Japan. They still had the Mario and Luigi snowmen and other Christmas decorations up in Super Nintendo World, so in a lot of ways, it just felt like the continuation or conclusion of our inaugural trip to USJ in December.
how to buy tickets for USJ
In the coming weeks, I’ll probably have more than one Osaka-related post to share. But for now—as California awaits the opening of its own Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood—I wanted to attend to some unfinished USJ business.
Last month, I wrote about our first foray into Super Nintendo World for /Film, but most of the photos in that article were nighttime ones. This is because I had bought our tickets and Express Passes through Klook, an authorized, third-party ticket reseller that randomly assigns you a Super Nintendo World entry time. You’re not allowed to choose when you want to go in with it like you are in the official USJ online ticket store.
That store unfortunately has the same common problem as Tokyo Disney Resort in that it’s bad about rejecting foreign credit cards. I think it has something to do with the security verification process. Even with our Japanese credit card, we couldn’t get it to work for us, but this time, I found a loophole by using Apple Pay, which is linked to my U.S. credit card.
A note about Express Passes, for first-timers: they’re like paid FastPasses (keeping in mind that Disney itself has done away with FastPasses in favor of paid “Premier Access”). The difference is that you can’t buy Express Passes individually; they only come in fixed combos of four to seven different rides. These combos add to the overall cost of your trip, but they’re a virtual must if you don’t want to be waiting in line all day.
Confirmed: USJ opens well before the official time
Another way to try and beat the system when it comes to accessing Super Nintendo World is to rope-drop USJ, meaning to line up outside the park first thing in the morning so you can enter as soon as it opens. I had heard that USJ opens before the official opening time, too, and when we stayed at the Park Front Hotel last month, we could see firsthand from our 26th-floor window how people started streaming in before the official 9 a.m. opening time.
This time, I walked up on the front gate at 7:45 a.m., thinking I would maybe have to wait 45 minutes or so if it opened around 8:30. To my surprise, they were already doing the announcement that the park was opening at 7:45, a full hour and fifteen minutes before the official opening time.
When I got back to Super Nintendo World, however, they had it blocked off already. Luckily, a staff member was able to give me a quick assist with navigating the Japanese parts of the USJ app on my phone. Thanks to his help, I was able to get another timed entry eTicket for Super Nintendo World and access it twice during daylight hours.
Azusa was back in our room at the Hotel Keihan Universal Tower, resting up, but she would join me in the park shortly. We had Express Passes that would enable us to reenter Super Nintendo World together in the mid-afternoon, but by then it was cloudier. Having that second eTicket let me do a little late-morning photo expedition with the place while it had a clear blue sky over it.
Character greetings and Kinopio’s Cafe
At night, they don’t have any characters out in Super Nintendo World, but during the day, you can see Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad (known in Japanese as Kinopio, a play on kinoko, the word for “mushroom,” and Pinocchio). The warp-pipe entrance to Super Nintendo World gradually becomes Peach’s Castle, and you’ll see her in her own gazebo on the right when you first walk in. Mario and Luigi have a photo spot down on the ground level in the center, and both it and Peach’s gazebo draw long lines.
Toad is set up in a spot around back from Mario and Luigi, near the entrance to the Yoshi’s Adventure ride. It’s marked off so that you have to stay behind the lines on the ground when you’re greeting Toad, but the upside of this is that it makes it easier to get a shot of just him without any people intruding.
I didn’t wait in line for any of the characters, but I was able to poach a few snapshots of them just by hanging off to the side. As I was doing that for Mario and Luigi, I also noticed that they were handing out timed entry tickets nearby for Kinopio’s Cafe.
We wanted to eat there, and the entry time matched up with our Express Pass time, so I got us a couple of tickets for later. It ended up being a good thing that I went into Super Nintendo World ahead of time. Otherwise, we might not have gained admission to Kinopio’s Cafe.
Even with our entry tickets, the line for this restaurant was as long as the line for an attraction. It snaked all around the inside of Kinopio’s Cafe, where we split a Super Mushroom Pizza Bowl and a Question Block Tiramisu plate.
Rides, Yoshi’s Snack Island, and the 1UP Factory
We rode Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge again, and I noticed a few new details in the queue such as the Universal Studios trophy and King Koopa, a.k.a. Bowser’s, oversized chair. The ride itself was less overwhelming now that I knew what to expect and understood the rules better.
Yoshi’s Adventure, while still very much a kid’s ride, was also more enjoyable on a second go-round, and it made for a different experience during the daytime since most of it takes place outside. You can read more about both attractions in my aforementioned /Film article.
After Yoshi’s Adventure, we grabbed another bite to eat at Yoshi’s Snack Island, since Kinopio’s Cafe wasn’t a full meal and we wanted to sample as many different foods at USJ as we could. Though it might not sound that appetizing, the Green Shell Calzone, filled with yakisoba and cheese, was better than I thought it would be. Azusa liked the Red Shell Calzone, filled with ketchup spaghetti and cheese, better, but it was a holiday menu item and has already been discontinued as of this writing (at least until next Christmas).
Before leaving Super Nintendo World, we ducked into the 1UP Factory store, where Azusa bought some omiyage (souvenir sweets) for her coworkers. Call us old, but neither of us were especially interested in purchasing Power-Up Bands (which offer another whole gaming experience at Super Nintendo World), so we skipped that part of things.
Maybe in 2024 when the new Donkey Kong area opens at Super Nintendo World, we’ll do another revenge trip and have the time and inclination for Power-Up Bands. In the meantime, between everything I’ve written about here and everything I wrote about in my /Film article, we both left feeling manzoku (satisfied) that we had experienced most of what Japan’s version of Super Nintendo World has to offer.
reviewing Mario’s tips and lifehacks for Super Nintendo World
If you’re visiting Japan from abroad and thinking about planning your own trip to Super Nintendo World, then, to review, I’d recommend securing your Express Passes beforehand using Apple Pay on the USJ website, or less ideally, Klook. When I was there, the ticket window up at the front gate was already sold out of Express Passes before the park even did its early opening.
If nothing else, you can rope-drop USJ like I did, but just keep in mind that the park’s real opening time is somewhat nebulous, and if you show up expecting it to open at 9 a.m. on the dot, you might already be too late. Another option for those who can’t read Japanese is to get someone to help you with the USJ app so you can snag a separate timed entry eTicket if need be.
Be on the lookout for when they’re handing out timed entry tickets to Kinopio’s Cafe as well. And when you do finally enter Super Nintendo World, be ready to throw up your arm like Mario and say, “Here we go!”
To see more of Super Nintendo World, check out my full gallery of 100 photos.