Purchasing Studio and Express Pass In Advance ONLINE

[UPDATE 24.03.2015 : USJ HAS REVAMPED THEIR PURCHASING SYSTEM. THE BELOW STEPS ARE NO LONGER APPLICABLE (damnit). PLEASE USE THE UPDATED GUIDE here]

While doing research on purchasing USJ passes and express passes, I found out that you can purchase USJ Studio Passes and more importantly, EXPRESS PASSES online! At not much of an additional cost!

There are several types of receiving methods that you’d need to know in order to purchase these passes.

• Park Exchange – purchase online, exchange your passes at the park. Problem is you may still have to queue, and you can’t purchase express passes via this method.
• Direct In – basically purchasing online, and print it out at home. That would be equivalent to the entrance ticket. Express passes can also be purchased the same way, and a QR code will be provided for scanning. You can save a soft copy on your phone and print out a copy just in case. Do note that it’s advisable to save a copy on your phone and not save the address bar, as there is a chance that you may not be able to surf the net while at the entrance, and the QR codes would not load.
• Courier – basically couriering it to your house. At an additional courier cost unless you spend Y20,000 or more in a single transaction.
• Collection at Lawson – purchase the tickets at Lawson.com and collect it personally at a Lawson counter.

I will provide further explanation below.

Personally, the method I chose was Direct In, because it was the most seamless, and I didn’t want to have to worry about not being able to collect due to queues, or not being able to correctly express myself at the Lawson counters. I also didn’t want to courier it because I was worried it may get stuck in the mail! And that would have been a waste of a lot of money! So I decided that for my own safety and peace of mind, I would go ahead with the Direct In option.

So here’s how you do it!

[UPDATE 24.03.2015 : USJ HAS REVAMPED THEIR PURCHASING SYSTEM. THE BELOW STEPS ARE NO LONGER APPLICABLE (damnit). PLEASE USE THE UPDATED GUIDE here]

Step 1

First, enter the website at:http://www.usj.co.jp/ticket/webticket/?area=w_h_epass. Here, there are basic disclaimers and notifications, basically:

• Depending the type of ticket, there are those that receive methods are determined in advance . There may not be an option to select a direct -ins or courier .
• For cancellation after ticket purchase: for all tickets purchased on or after April 23, 2014, there is no cancellation option. Once you are certain, scroll down and click on the ORANGE button. The Blue button is for purchase via Lawson.

Step 2

Select the date you would like to visit. Do note that you can only purchase up to 3 months (e.g as of today 5^th March, you will only be able to purchase up to 5^th May)

Green stars refer to Musical Starlight Parade (I’m unsure if its referring to availability of booking or whether no star means that it doesn’t operate on that day)

Step 3

Select the type of pass you would like to purchase. Here, you can decide on whether you want to purchase the Studio Pass (entrance) alone, or with the Express Pass, or purely the Express Pass without the Studio Pass.

The first table denotes the many different types of Studio Passes – some of them seasonal and some not, so please double check that the Katakana is the same for the seasonal passes (sometimes there are special passes on special dates).

The amount in the brackets denote the amount AFTER GST, which is what you will be paying.

Select the orange button on the pass you wish to purchase. In this example, I will be selecting the first option: 1 day studio pass.

If you wish to purchase just the express pass without the studio pass, ignore the top part of the page, and simply scroll to the bottom. You will see a greenish table. This denotes the different types of passes. The Japanese and its corresponding English names for the passes are below.

Simply select the pass that you would want to purchase. (please note that if you’re doing this, the rest of the steps I’ve provided below may be a little different, but it shouldn’t be hard to figure out)

Step 4

Once the pass has been selected, you will reach this screen, which basically is asking you which method you would prefer. Select the option you prefer (I selected Direct In), and click the orange button to go to the next step.

Options:

ダイレクトイン – Direct In

Entrance Ticket – Since appears ticket screen with QR code after the purchase is complete, please print the completion screen. The system will generate 1 per person, and you can use it as admission by holding the QR code portion in authentication machine at the entrance gate.

 Purchase period: up to 2 days before the admission date, and admission day

Express Pass –  After the purchase is complete of Universal Express ® · Pass, e ticket (QR code) will be issued. When you use the pass at an attraction, please present your QR code to the responsible crew at attraction entrance. You can also print the e-ticket (QR code) screen in your home, please bring the day to park. If you want to buy for your family and friends collectively, after purchase, please save all QR codes and designate each code to a fixed person. Please note that only 1 QR code can be used per person.

 Admission period: up to 2 days before the admission date, and admission day

宅配 – Courier

In about 4-6 days before the admission date, we will deliver to your registered address. Delivery date might be around by region. In addition, depending on the type of ticket you may delivery date is different.

At a time of your purchase, postage ¥ 450 (tax included) is required. In a single purchase, shipping will be free of charge with a purchase of a total of ¥ 20,000 (including tax).

パーク引き換え – Park Admission

Receive your purchased ticket at the ticket booth.
(If the ticket booth is congested, there are times where you will have to wait)

Bring the admission day, the credit card that was used to settle in the WEB ticket store at the ticket booth.

Purchase period: up to 2 days before the admission date

Step 5

Select the quantity you would wish to purchase based on the prices below. The first row would be adult price, second is child price, and third is for seniors. To double confirm, you can double check the “after tax” prices on step 4 and the screen below. Select amount and click “Next”.

Step 6:

Next step, select any additional express passes that you may need. For this, please use google translate to see the different types of express passes, as it is too exhaustive to translate the many many many many options they provide.

If you see the red text as shown below, it means that the pass either is not available for the day you have selected, or is completely sold out.  Select the pass that you want, and click the yellow button at the bottom again. (Not the 2 buttons on top). In this scenario I clicked on Express Pass 5.

Step 7:

In this step, they are asking you to select the time you would like to enter Wizarding World of Harry Potter zone. This is the time that you designate to cut the queue, meaning that if you enter at this time range you would not be required to queue. It’s like a FAST Pass. Do note that anytime out of this if you do try to enter you would have to queue the normal queue.

To find out more about the timings, click the button on the RIGHT of the dropdown menu.

Example: if you select in the above drop down menu “10:30am ~ 11am”, you are selecting the option to enter the Harry Potter area between 10:30 am to 11am, and that you will be present to queue for the Harry Potter – Journey of the Forbidden ride between 10:45am to 11am. That is the specified time you have chosen. Any time out of this, your pass will be invalid and you would have to queue at the normal queue instead of the express queue.

However, this does NOT mean that you have to exit the Harry Potter area by 11am. You are free to explore as long as you want as long as you reach the EXPRESS QUEUE within the time that you have selected. When you exit, that’s your choice. But do note that if you do intend to return later, you would have to re-queue in the normal queue.

After you’ve selected the time you want, click on “次へ” to go to the next step.

Step 8:

This is basically a summary – you can change the amount of passes you want here. I’ve allowed google to translate it automatically so you can have a brief summary of what I’ve purchased.

If you have verified that your pass is correct, you will need to click on the “同意する ” below as shown. This is basically an “I agree” to the terms and conditions.

Then, click on the red button to register yourself as a Universal Club Member (you will need to do this in order to complete your purchase).

 Step 9:

Once again, I’m turning on google translate to show you how to fill in the fields. For address, just fill in your hotel address – it doesn’t really matter as it won’t be sent there anyway. The Postal code is usually the 7 digit number “XXX-XXXX”. E.g Address is 1-1-34 Hiro’oka, Kanazawa-shi, Ishikawa 920-0031, the postal code will be 9200031.

For phone number, you can either give your hotel number or a Japanese friend’s number. The rest of the fields you can fill in pretty straightforwardly. For your phonetic name, you can either directly translate it or simply use an online translator like the one here: http://www.sljfaq.org/cgi/e2k.cgi

After you’re done, click the yellow button in the middle – not the one at the side.

Step 10:

At this verify page, check a last time that your purchase is correct. Click on the MIDDLE BUTTON (with the CLUB word) to continue. Now, your Universal Club membership is completed.

Step 11:

At this step, you enter your credit card details. So far I have used a non-Japanese credit card without any issues, so I doubt anyone will have an issue here.

Select the large PINK box, and a credit card payment portion will drop out. Fill in the necessary card details:

The red text basically says that you cannot get a refund if you were to cancel.

The content in the red BOX is to ask you to confirm that you have purchased correctly:

1. Number of passes is correct?
2. Number of adults and children is correct?
3. Date of admission is correct?

If so, tick all 3, and press submit. If your card is successfully charged, you will be brought to a final page.

Step 12:

You will then see this page. (note yours may be a bit different as mine is from retrieving a previous sale.)

The first yellow button will open a PDF file, where you can print all the studio passes.

The bottom 2 buttons will produce the Express Pass QR tickets (1 ticket per person). In this scenario, I purchased 2 Express Passes. The URL provided at the side can also be saved on smartphones to use on that day, though it is advisable to take a screenshot or printout along in case the WIFI doesn’t load.

Just print all these things, and you’re done!

JUST IN CASE:

In case you wish to come back at a later date to print, simply follow the below steps. From the USJ page, click on the button with the word CLUB on it. That is the login page for Universal Club members.

Here, sign in with the credentials you earlier registered (using the left side. The right side is for registration).

Click on the grey button at the right side of the screen (near the bottom).

After clicking that, you will be sent here.Simply click on the blue button to reinvoke the printing documents page above.

I hope this helps anyone trying to purchase Express Passes out of Japan in advance 😀 I actually intended to write this because I realised that there are a lot of people searching for an English guide like this. Hope this helps anyone! Do let me know if there is anything I missed, and I’ll try to fill it in!