We’ve just experienced a 5 hour VIP tour at Universal Studios Japan (USJ) – here is our VIP Tour review from start to finish, with lots of handy tips along the way!

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First things first…

Before we get to our minute-by-minute 5 Hour VIP Tour itinerary, here are some need-to-know things about the USJ VIP 5 Hour Tour.

Arrive early – around 7:30am to 8am – if you want to use your VIP day to maximum effect and fit in as much as you can. This will allow you enough time to pass through security when it opens and go straight to the Universal Studios Japan VIP Entrance. There you will wait for (the usually early) opening time.

Arrive at least an hour before your VIP Tour starts – if you want to arrive as late as possible. This will give you time to clear security and get checked in at the VIP entrance, then walk to the VIP Lounge to have a free drink or two and meet your Tour Guide. I wouldn’t recommend leaving your arrival too late – you will be able to get your unlimited ride bracelet as soon you enter and start using it straight away. Very few people say they had too much time at USJ!

What is the VIP Tour entrance?

To the left of the main turnstile gates at the theme park entrance, you’ll find a special VIP entrance – complete with a red carpet. It’s here you’ll be met and checked in. You will have your Studio Passes and VIP Tour code checked. Then you will be supplied with your VIP bracelets (or express passes if you are on a 3hr VIP) for the day. You won’t meet your guide until your Tour meet up time at the VIP Lounge.

What can I do with my unlimited ride VIP bracelet?

Every person on your 5hr VIP Tour will be given a VIP bracelet as soon as you check in to the park. VIP bracelets are great, because they act as an unlimited ride Express Pass when you are not on tour with your VIP Tour guide. They allow you to enter the Express priority laneway of any ride at Universal Studios Japan and be expedited at some shows too. In addition, you can skip the queue into Super Nintendo World anytime you like without any Timed Entry slot.

Unlimited access includes Super Nintendo World entry

A mere flash of our VIP bracelets allowed us to skip the queue at every ride we wanted before and after our VIP Tour, and like the name says you can ride as many times as you like.

You can’t get an unlimited ride pass with unlimited Super Nintendo World access any other way than a private VIP Tour. We definitely felt like VIPs with our VIP bracelets!

What’s the difference between Express Pass and private VIP pass?

Before our tour using our unlimited VIP bands we accessed the same Express Laneway as Express Pass holders do. The big difference is that Express ride passes usually only allow one ride (and one Super Nintendo World entry with some) each.

We could use the Express Laneway on the same ride multiple times if we wanted to, and we had multiple entry into SNW.

Using the Express lane always involves a short wait, relative to the time and ride. Wait times can vary anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes or more if it’s a busy period, following a ride break-down or a very popular ride like Donkey Kong Minecart Madness.

Your VIP Tour Guide takes you right to the front of rides

During our private VIP Tour our Tour Guide personally took us to the very front of each ride. He did this a variety of clever ways! Often it was via the ride exit or even back ways and hidden passages, such as in Bowser’s Castle in Super Nintendo World, or Hogwarts Castle in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Two exclusive VIP buildings

The USJ VIP Lounge

You will have access to the USJ VIP Lounge all day which includes complimentary hot and cold drinks and secure bag and shopping storage via lockers.

The USJ VIP Lounge will be where you first meet your Tour Guide to discuss your day. Even though you submit a form with your VIP purchase, you can still add or subtract activities if you like.

The Luminant VIP Restaurant

The Luminant VIP Private Lounge and Dining restaurant is where you’ll enjoy your buffet lunch or buffet-a la carte dinner. Your guide isn’t with you during your meal and your lunch or dinner (whichever you choose for your VIP Tour) is scheduled outside of your VIP Tour time.

The VIP restaurant overlooks the Universal Studios Japan Lake and is a lovely space to enjoy a meal. There’s plenty of great options with kid-friendly foods, including lots of themed snacks you would normally pay for in the park. There’s also a small bar with some standard alcoholic drinks included such as beer, wine, whiskey and sake.

Our Universal Studios Japan 5hr VIP day

For a rough idea of how you can shape your 5 hour VIP Tour at USJ, here’s our own blow-by-blow diary/ itinerary which was pretty-much completely unplanned. Our strategy was no strategy at all, other than riding the Flying Dinosaur and hopeful most of the other major rides too. What followed was a gloriously self-indulgent romp through the park which we all loved to pieces! (For privacy I am not naming our Tour Guide).

USJ 5 Hour VIP Tour Itinerary

Date of VIP Tour: 01/05/2026
Number of people: 3
Price of USJ tickets: 2,325.62 AUD (for up to 4 people, purchased 19/03/25)
3 x USJ 5hr VIP
3 x Studio Passes

What we did before our 5 Hour VIP Tour started

9am – Checked out of Hotel Kintetsu Universal City. Left our luggage there for the day
9:06am – Enter under the USJ theme park Archway – grab some photos at the globe
9:11am – Get processed through USJ security – bags and body scans
9:16am – Arrive at the VIP Entrance queue – there is approximately 12 people/3 groups in front of us. We are immediately welcomed in the queue and our Studio Passes and VIP Tour QR codes are checked in line.
9:25am – We enter the VIP Entrance reception & are assigned a reception staff member to welcome us, check us in and give us our unlimited ride bracelets. The staff member asks about any disabilities and if a wheel chair is required. He lets us know what time our lunch is and shows us where the VIP restaurant is located in the park. As we already knew in advance, our lunch time is confirmed as 12 midday to 1:30pm and our VIP tour commences at 2pm from the VIP Lounge.
9:36am – We enter the park and decide to go straight to the VIP Lounge to take a look and have a drink.
9:40am – We locate the VIP Lounge and are welcomed in. At the VIP Lounge there are several families with their tour guides or having a drink at the tables. There is free tea, coffee, hot chocolate, soft drinks and water.
10:10am – We leave the VIP Lounge to spend time in the park until our VIP Lunchtime. We meet and get some character photos with Felix the Cat, Cookie Monster and some other Sesame Street characters. We look through a few stores and do some shopping and stop for a special Mario Brothers themed pancake breakfast.
11:00am – We enter the family-friendly Wonderland Area to explore and do some rides. We look around Snoopy Studios and use our ride bands to use the priority queue to ride Snoopy’s Flying Ace Adventure roller coaster and The Flying Snoopy. We wait about 10 minutes for each ride. The regular stand by queue waiting times are 30 minutes.
11:55am – We leave Wonderland to head across the park for lunch.

VIP Lunch at the Luminant VIP Private Lounge and Dining Restaurant

12:05am – We enter the Luminant VIP Private Lounge and Dining Restaurant. Lunch is a buffet selection of basics like pizza and rice to elegant seafood cocktails and fancy desserts and snacks. Drinks are readily served with attentive serving staff almost outnumbering diners. Alcoholic drinks are included and served from a small bar.
1:08pm – We leave the Luminant restaurant to do a ride or two before our tour at 2pm.
1:12pm – We enter Minion Park to do some shopping and use our unlimited ride wristbands to access the Express queue to ride Despicable Me Minion Mahem. We enter the pre-show area of the ride in 5 minutes.
1:52pm – We leave Minion Park to go to the VIP Lounge to meet our Five Hour VIP Tour Guide

Our 5 hour VIP Tour Starts

1:59pm – We arrive back at the VIP Lounge and are met by our Tour Guide. We grab a free drink and all sit down around a table to discuss what we would like to do most on tour. We can basically choose what we do, when we want to do it and however many times we would like! The form I filled out with our preferences has also been printed out.
As it was a rainy day, we discuss how roller coasters could present a challenge as they are closed on-and-off during showers of rain, but our Guide was ready to work with us to help us ride the Flying Dinosaur and other major rides wherever possible.
We are given VIP lanyards to wear during the Tour and a free wet-weather poncho each for rain or the Jurassic Ride. Because the Donkey Kong ride “Mine Cart Madness” is closed for unscheduled maintenance, we are also given one bonus free Express Lane ride pass each for use at a later date.
2:15pm – We leave the VIP Lounge with our Tour Guide to go to our first ride of choice. Our Guide suggests the nearby Space Fantasy The Ride which has a Club Zedd Remix overlay theme. When we arrive the Tour Guide takes us through a chained off area to experience the pre-show, and then walks us right to the head of the ride queue to board the ride. We love the ride and ask if we can do it again – one of us chooses to wait it out with the Tour Guide as we once again skip the ride queue and ride Space Fantasy The Ride one more time before moving on.
2:48pm – We leave Space Fantasy The Ride to go over to the Hollywood Dream Coaster.
2:52pm – We enter the Hollywood Dream Coaster with our Tour Guide, using the exit to go straight to the boarding area. The ride is experiencing a breakdown. We can see all the people who have queued for over an hour waiting it out but our Guide says we can pop back later and whips us back out the exit and on to our next closest choice – the Flying Dinosaur.
3:00pm – We start to walk over to the Jurassic Park area to ride the Flying Dinosaur.
3:05pm – We arrive at the Jurassic Park area.
3:10pm – We arrive at the Flying Dinosaur and stow our bags in the free lockers. We take an elevator straight up to the boarding area, entering directly onto the platform the opposite direction to everyone else. We really are saving a lot of time with these shortcuts! Every ride operator allows our Tour Guide to go where he likes with us and we are given whatever seat we like on each ride.
3:30pm – As it is now raining the ride stops operating. We wait a little while. Eventually we agree to give up and our Tour Guide takes us back down the elevator to go to another ride. I feel bad for the other people who have been queuing for an hour and now can’t ride the Flying Dinosaur!
3:35pm – We head for Jurassic Park The Ride
3:41pm – After stowing our bags in free lockers we are taken straight to the front of the queue to board the next Jurassic Park The Ride. We put our waterproof ponchos on as this is a splash ride. Our Tour Guide gives us a ride tip – sit on the 3rd row to avoid getting wet! We choose to do the ride sitting in row 3 and barely get splashed! At the end of the ride our Tour Guide is waiting. He doesn’t do any rides with us but surprises us with some photos of us he took of us on the ride! We ask him to take more photos and videos of us throughout the tour and he happily obliges.
4:00pm – We leave the Jurassic Park area and walk over to the Harry Potter area, THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER
4:13pm – We arrive at THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER.
4:16pm – We arrive at and ride the Flight of the Hippogriff. There is a 40 minute wait time but we enter via the exit and board straight away. We choose the front cars to sit in. The front car is the one you want if you are tall, by the way so ask for it!
4:31pm – We arrive at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride and store our bags in the locker. Our Guide bypasses the entire standby queue with us via the Express Pass priority lane and we arrive near the boarding area. Our wait time to board was 5 minutes.
4:52pm – We leave the Harry Potter area and head for Super Nintendo World
5:00pm – We enter the walkway leading to Super Nintendo World
5:02pm – We arrive at the entrance to Super Nintendo World and are taken to the front of the queue for a Super Star Plaza Photo Opportunity which is a professional photo of us popping out of the green Super Mario Game (warp pipe) tubes. Our guide videos and takes photos on my phone, and I purchase two professional printed and digital photos on the spot for 2,200 jpy (almost all professional photos are included with an 8 hour VIP Tour)
5:13pm – Right before we enter Super Nintendo World we check the app and see that the Flying Dinosaur ride has now re-opened and we ask the Guide if we can quickly return to the Jurassic Park area to try and ride it. He is unflappable and helps us to get there as quickly as possible as rain is an ever-present threat.
5:16pm – We re-enter the Jurassic Park area
5:22pm – We arrive back at the Flying Dinosaur ride. There is already a new standby queue of 20 minutes and Single Rider 15 minutes but our Guide takes us straight up to the boarding platform again and onto the next ride. We choose the front row and have a thrilling ride! I choose to ride one more time and the girls wait down with the Guide – climbing the first hill face down is full-on!
5:48pm – We leave Jurassic Park return to Super Nintendo World.
5:51pm – We enter Super Nintendo World. There we play some games with our Power-Up wrist bands (available for purchase in SNW).
6:01pm – We arrive at the Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge™ ride, having skipped the main queue by taking hidden passages through Bowser’s Castle to reach the ride boarding area. Our Guide gives us our special visors to wear during the ride and we are immediately loaded into a Kart carriage. Because we have done almost all of the rides before on previous trips we have no interest in the pre-show areas, but you can ask your Guide to let you also do them if you wish.
6:20pm – We finish the ride and leave Bowser’s Castle and Super Nintendo World, walking past a Princess Peach photo opportunity with a long queue*.
*Only 8 hour VIP Tours can skip major character queues, we would have to line up on our 5 hour VIP Tour. This rule doesn’t count for non-character photos like the SNW entrance warp pipes and the Jaws shark photo opportunity.
6:38pm – After a quick discussion we opt to hurry back to Jurassic Park to fit in one last go on the Jurassic Park ride. It’s quiet enough so that we can have a whole boat to ourselves with some quick placement by our Guide and the ride attendant! We sit in the front row without ponchos on and all vow to plunge down the final drop arms-up at the end. Our Guide is ready to film this hilarious moment! But time is getting short now and we decide to make our last VIP Tour ride the Jaws ride!
6:49pm – We follow our Tour Guide into the Jaws ride through the exit and he puts us into the front row as requested. It’s getting dark now which makes the Jaws ride even more fun. This is the only standalone Jaws ride left in the world!
7:00pm – We get off the Jaws ride and skip the queue on the Jaws Shark photo opportunity out the front. As well as the professional photographer taking our photo our Guide takes our photo on our phone too. We don’t buy the professional photo of this one, opting for our phone version.
7:01pm -0ur VIP five hour tour is over! We thank our Guide profusely and bid him goodbye. We don’t want to return to the VIP Lounge with him just yet. We want to use our unlimited ride bands some more, heading into the Wonderland Sesame Street area. These rides are slated to be removed soon so we take the opportunity to check them out.
7:41pm – We leave Wonderland, pick up our bags from the VIP Lounge and go shopping in the big main gift stores near the main park entrance. The park closes at 8pm!
8:00pm – Park close time. We leave Universal Studios Japan to pick up our luggage at the Kintetsu Hotel and walk down to the Hotel Universal Port where we are staying that night. Absolute best day ever!

Our Universal Studios Japan strategy for this visit didn’t end there…

Something to keep in mind is that I do take up extra time collecting content for guides like this one – so you may well be able to pack more into your day than we do!

We bought tickets for a second day

We had decided to take advantage of our VIP Day to do as many rides as we could because we would have our unlimited ride bands which save hours of waiting time. We decided not to waste our time on long shows which weren’t hard to queue for. Therefore we bought entry tickets the next day for extra time to do some shows including JUJUTSU KAISEN: The Real 4-D and Detective Conan 4-D Live Show and do a couple of rides we had missed like the Hollywood Dream Backdrop coaster – plus a little more shopping and snacks! Sometimes it’s nice to have some extra theme park time to just soak up the atmosphere.

I hope you found this review helpful in your Universal Studios Japan research! Some other VIP guides you may find useful are:

Universal Studios Japan VIP Pass & Tour Beginners Guide – an ultimate guide to USJ VIP Tours

USJ Express Pass versus VIP Tours Comparison Table – to see the differences between Express Passes and VIP Tours side-by-side.

Get your free Wise travel money card!

Take advantage of our free Wise travel money card offer to save the AUD$10 card fee here.

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Watch an Instagram reel of our five hour VIP day!

Japan mobile phone internet data eSims

Buy an eSim so that you have data from the moment you land in Japan. Airalo eSIM is proven to work reliably in Universal Studios Japan and allows you to access the internet in Japan.

Buy an Airalo eSim

Where should I buy my Studio Passes?

I recommend using Klook to buy your USJ Studio Passes. Klook is the most trustworthy, easiest official seller of USJ VIP Tours and all USJ tickets.

Universal Studios Japan Planning Facebook Group

Love all things Universal Studios Japan, or just have more questions? Join our 80k+ member Universal Studios Japan Holiday Planning Facebook Group here!

What’s the cheapest airline to get from Australia to Japan?

We partnered with Jetstar Australia to fly from Australia to Japan. Jetstar Australia offer cheap fares to Japan every day – check their website for their low Tokyo and Osaka fares and frequent sales!

Check Jetstar’s cheap Japan flights here

Have a question? Drop a comment below! I’d also love to hear about your own USJ planning experiences!

The LETSGOMUM family attended this VIP Tour as partially sponsored guests of KKDay. As always, all opinions are our own.

This page may contain affiliate links. If you book a stay, product or an attraction through one of them, I may receive a commission which will not affect the price you pay. Thank you for your support! Any prices are correct as of August 2026 – always check with the source websites for the most recent prices.

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