Ok well let me start by telling you a story. Not everything goes to plan when travelling I spend a lot of time researching, planning and organising to ensure that the trip goes as smoothly as it can. We have travelled to Osaka for 2 main reasons 1 of which is because Anthony really wanted to go to Universal Studios. So we decided to go on a weekday to try and get lower crowds and we decided not to get express passes as it was over and extra $200 per person. Super Nintendo World is very popular so it is currently on a timed entry ticket. You Either get them as part yor express park or you get one when you get into the park on the app. I had not known anyone who had a lot of trouble so I wasn’t too worried. Anyway we got to Universal Studios early and went into the park. The entry tickets to Super Mario World were gone! Not available as they had all been gotten. Our only chance was to win a standby lottery. Long story short we didn’t win the lottery so we decided we would leave the park as it was the only thing we came for. Anthony was really annoyed and I was really upset. Before we left I thought I would go to guest services and plead our case and hope that they could do the equiveant of Disney Magic. Turns out this was the right move and the wonderful lady in guest services managed not onto to get us timed entry tickets but she also got us into the area at 11:00am. Apparently they put some entry aside for tourists who can’t get tickets ith all the Japanese people. So the day turned from a terrible day back to a good day. We went and bought some Mario hats to celebrate.
We arrived at Super Nintendo World and Anthony got a power up band. The cool thing about Mario World is that if you have this band on you can collect coins and stamps in an app while you explore the park. Also there are mini games you can play to collect keys and once you have three keys you can enter a special area to fight Bowser Jr. It is all interactive and really cool.
You enter the area by walking through the pipe and arriving in Peaches castle and then you walk out into the whole land. It is crazy. There is stuff moving everywhere noises happening and such cool chaos. Anthony wasted no time is starting to pump blocks and interact with the world.
Anthony decided he wanted to play the mini games to get the keys so we lined up to do them. The were all semi skill activities wether you had to solve a puzzle, rotate a black, stop stop watches all different things.
There were also 8 8 bit character to unlock by finding secret Mario symbols and using our band on them, We found them all during the day. We paused exploring to go and have lunch. We wanted to eat at Toads cafe or as it is called in Japan Kinopios cafe. We lined up and eventually got in to get the cutest little food items. The staff in here were so nice and kind.
We explored the shops and did some more mini games before lining up for Mario Kart ride.
To enter the Mario Kart ride you enter through Bowsers Castle. You walk down towards the dungeons and eventually join a first person Mario Kart. The best way to describe this is to imagine you’re plopped right into a Mario Kart race with a mixture of AR (augmented reality) and over-the-top physical sets that deliver a unique experience. You travel through race sets from the games and you can throw shells it was really cool. Anthony said it was the best ride he has ever done. We did line up for it a second time later that night.
Anthony had collected the three keys from the mini games so we were able to get into the locked area of the park to fight Bowser Jr. It was a cool little area to explore and then at the end you got to fight Bowser Jr. When you finish there is a letter from Peach however I am not sure if the translator app worked.
We got to have a look around the park at night and everything was just as pretty at night.
Our feet were really saw so we ducked into Harry Potter World for dinner and butterbeer (mostly to rest our feet) Then it was time to head home.
