Osaka World Expo

[aikman]

Share your experiences and tips here.

Mine are:
- Stay for the evening water/fire/light/sound show.
- Stay for the drone show.
- The site is huge. I broke my daily step count record.
- Expect to spend most of the day queueing. All big pavilions have queues. It's hard to tell how long you will spend in the queue. Some are slow, some are really slow.
- Queues are a little shorter after 7pm but there are still queues.
- My average queue time was 30 mins each but I only joined the queues which looked short. Seeing the queues outside is a massive deterrent in visiting the pavilions.
- Some pavilions are by reservation only in the app eg. Japan. Even then I still queued for 55 mins to get into the building.
- You even have to queue to get into 7-Eleven.
- The app is unnecessarily complicated. Upon entry, you can reserve a pavilion one at a time. You can't reserve another one until your current one is finished. Slots understandably fill up early. I only got two reservations for the day this way - Japan and Gundam.
- I went on a hot and sunny Saturday and it was BUSY.
- Overall at Y4,000 a ticket, it was outstanding value for 12 hours of world class entertainment.
- I'd describe the experience as a cross between Disneyland and TeamLabs.

I planned on coming back Sunday but the thought of the queues scared me. I changed my ticket to Monday to see if it will be less busy.

 

[Pushka]

I was tempted we are in Osaka next week. But the logistics and now your comment of queues isn't what I need to do. Their website and ticketing process was astoundingly complicated.

 

[Himeno]

Share your experiences and tips here.

Mine are:
- Expect to spend most of the day queueing. All big pavilions have queues. It's hard to tell how long you will spend in the queue. Some are slow, some are really slow.
- Queues are a little shorter after 7pm but there are still queues.
- My average queue time was 30 mins each but I only joined the queues which looked short. Seeing the queues outside is a massive deterrent in visiting the pavilions.
- Some pavilions are by reservation only in the app eg. Japan. Even then I still queued for 55 mins to get into the building.- The app is unnecessarily complicated. Upon entry, you can reserve a pavilion one at a time. You can't reserve another one until your current one is finished. Slots understandably fill up early. I only got two reservations for the day this way - Japan and Gundam.
- The app is unnecessarily complicated. Upon entry, you can reserve a pavilion one at a time. You can't reserve another one until your current one is finished. Slots understandably fill up early. I only got two reservations for the day this way - Japan and Gundam.

I saw someone report that they could have a number of reservations queued up somehow. Not sure how they did it (something other then the 'normal' process), but they were able to get to most of the pavilions in one day.
The expo runs until mid October. They should be easier access to things, without this reservation system, after it's been open for a few weeks.

- You even have to queue to get into 7-Eleven

Sounds normal for large events in Japan. Have to do the same for the combini around Tokyo Big Sight during Comiket and the Lawson at K Arena on concert days.

 

[Mr Bill]

I'm going to Osaka in June for a week, specifically for Expo. My intention is to purchase a multiple entry season ticket for JPY 30000 (approx $330). J class BNENRTBNE for less than $2700 with FJ. Happy to take Shinkansen to Osaka and fly back to NRT with Jetstar. All major travel for around $3000.
Looking forward to further comments re does and don'ts at Expo.

 

[ZaibNaeem11]

Share your experiences and tips here.

Mine are:
- Stay for the evening water/fire/light/sound show.
- Stay for the drone show.
- The site is huge. I broke my daily step count record.
- Expect to spend most of the day queueing. All big pavilions have queues. It's hard to tell how long you will spend in the queue. Some are slow, some are really slow.
- Queues are a little shorter after 7pm but there are still queues.
- My average queue time was 30 mins each but I only joined the queues which looked short. Seeing the queues outside is a massive deterrent in visiting the pavilions.
- Some pavilions are by reservation only in the app eg. Japan. Even then I still queued for 55 mins to get into the building.
- You even have to queue to get into 7-Eleven.
- The app is unnecessarily complicated. Upon entry, you can reserve a pavilion one at a time. You can't reserve another one until your current one is finished. Slots understandably fill up early. I only got two reservations for the day this way - Japan and Gundam.
- I went on a hot and sunny Saturday and it was BUSY.
- Overall at Y4,000 a ticket, it was outstanding value for 12 hours of world class entertainment.
- I'd describe the experience as a cross between Disneyland and TeamLabs.

I planned on coming back Sunday but the thought of the queues scared me. I changed my ticket to Monday to see if it will be less busy.

I am going there in June hopefully by then the situation will be better with the excitement a bit older and the end of the prime season. Cheers,

 

[ncm]

I went the day after it opened (14 April). I think the word 'queue' should be in the advertising. There were ~100k people reported there that day (very believable) but hopefully that dissipates as time goes by as the central area of the site doesn't handle it well. Transport via metro was easy though and gets you to the front gate where there is an airport style bag and person search. There were LOTS of staff and volunteers all day.

The apps are a disaster. Auto logout after 5 mins meant I was logging in every time I wanted to look at something. And imo it was overly complicated to book pavilions and then to try and secure new bookings after going to the first booking. And don't get me started on the additional ones for stickers/rewards. I'm not familiar with Japan though so maybe I didn't get the point.

The weather was great the day we went but if it's stormy I'd be concerned. It was rainy and windy the day prior (opening day) and reports are that there wasn't much shelter from the elements. The wooden ring is enormous and will provide shade but little cover from sideways rain. Many of the queueing areas are exposed.

The main food section is a good 400-500m from the ring and when we tried to reserve a spot at Kura Sushi there was an 8 hour (!!!) wait. I'm sure it can be done prior to arriving but I couldn't get the website to work so tried our luck on the day.

Some of the pavilions are pretty good (Belgium, the Baltics, Saudi and Thailand) but the queues meant we missed a lot we were keen to see). Australia is meh, but you can get a toasty, pie and a Coopers or VB if you're missing home.
I found the best attractions to be the 'Commons' pavilions where smaller nations exhibit side-by-side in a large building. Some of the small stands are really informative and you can see a dozen of them in short time with little queueing.

Overall though I guess we had a decent day for the price, even if we missed a lot that we wanted to see. We walked miles and miles too so wear comfy shoes. Maybe with 50k less people there it would've been better but I get they want to maximise attendance. And it was the 2nd day so I guess people were keen to see it. Maybe by September...

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks "ncm". Very informative. I'm currently navigating the Expo website. Managed to secure a 3 day pass for early June. Started to pull my hair out trying to register for photo Id.....then discovered that it can only be done "in country". Next challenge is to join the lottery for pavilion visits.

 

[Mr Bill]

Correction : NOT a 3 day pass. I purchased a multiple entry pass for JPY 30000. However, can only book 3 days initially, then further days after the first visit

 

[Pushka]

So we are currently in Japan and met a couple who had visited last week. They arrived at lunch time and found that you need to arrive before gates open and then immediately select a pavilion to see. This is for the onsite bookings, not pre reserved/ballot. You can't do this until you arrive on site. Many pavilions were sold out due to pre reserved. They managed to see a few. Saudi Arabia they mentioned was good. Huge crowds for China. Several countries were combined. They enjoyed their day. Managed to source some food. They went by subway to one of the gates where it was easy to enter.

 

[aikman]

Here are my thoughts after completing a 3 day visit.

- a 1 day visit will let you visit 5+ pavilions, walk around and see the buildings, walk on the ring, watch the evening show and leave satisfied
- a 2nd day visit will let you see another 10+ pavilions and explore the areas you weren't able to on the 1st day
- I feel like 3+ day visits are more for the passport stamp collectors, literally
- don't get frustrated by the 35-50 min queue for security at the front gate. ie arrive at 9am, queue for a while, then get in around 9.40am.
- 10 mins after entering you can make a reservation online for one pavilion. At 10am I could only get slots for mid afternoon.
- most country pavilions accept walk-ins. The only ones currently which do not are Japan, uk, Ireland, Netherlands.
- Ireland was excessively restrictive. You had to visit in person to find out what time they release tickets, then come back way before that time to queue for tickets then come back a third time for your timed entry.
- there are plenty of non-country pavilions, almost all of which require a reservation. I recommend using your reservation slot for these. I find them more fun since you don't know what to expect and can be of higher quality than the country pavilions. I really liked Obake Wonderland and Electric Power Pavilion.
- the country pavilions will eventually seem like they are all the same ie. Show a video or animation on a wall/ceiling/floor on a curved/wraparound/spherical/360° screen, etc. Some countries did try harder than others. Canada stood out to me as being unique. I also liked Italy.
- I originally planned consecutive day visits but ended up changing dates to allow a rest day in between. My feet thanked me for it.
- weekdays were quieter than weekends
- look at the map for the physicially larger pavilions, these ones are usually more entertaining with more to see
- I saw almost all of the large country pavilions over the 3 days. I read very little of the museum type exhibits as I was more interested in the entertainment factor.
- there are 4 convenience stores spread out over the site for cheap food as well as various food courts for not so cheap food