Ghibli Park — Attraction in Nagakute

Warning: This is on an Expo Park so Ghibli Park is part of another park with LONG QUEUES, LONG WAITS and A LOT OF WALKING to get from one place to another if you can't make the free bus (that runs every 30 minutes). There are lots of indoor areas you are NOT allowed to take photos and re-entry not allowed.

I booked 12pm for the Ghibli Warehouse for the 25/03/2024 but arrived at the park at 10am with my party of 4. It was raining so we couldn't predict that this will happen as I had to book this 2 months in advance. Booking was straight forward but time consuming after reading reviews to have the website ready very early not at the time that tickets are open for sale to get an earlier number in the queue. I purchased the premium one day tickets. There is a warning on the website that it will take longer than one day to visit all areas of the park and it is true. I couldn't see everything on the day and despite the rain it made it hard to walk around to every location with some being a short couple of minutes walk to feeling like a hike.

I would suggest to book an earlier time to get into Ghibli Grand Warehouse. The ticket says to queue within the hour of booking for Ghibli Warehouse. I rocked up with my party in the very long queue just after 11:00am to be told to come back at 12 as they are letting in those booked at 11am. I came back after checking the Witches area and given a UV light stamp so I can return into the place. (There was no time to come back at all with the time spent queuing in every section).

The information desk is inside the Ghibli Grand Warehouse and the only place that had a physical map of the whole park available and the Ghibli Grand Warehouse. And you have to ask for one and they only provide one per party.

It is very PACKED with long queues to take a photo with NO FACE in the Exhibition which I didn't bother and went to the main entrance to take a quick photo from outside the queue before someone went in for their turn to get their photo taken. More queuing to get photos for each section.

My friends went to the cafes to check for food and some food was sold out. Not great considering that there is more people coming in than the amount of food provided. There is food trucks outside but you can't go back in the Ghibli Grand Warehouse 🤷‍♀️😒so you have to stay in there to check everything.

Ghibli Park is more only for Instagram than for having a good experience.

I was left a little disappointed with the premium ticket NOT having a premium experience and more of a regular experience with lots of queues and having to quickly take photos while everyone is taking their time getting MULTIPLE SHOTS and in different positions.

The MAP is a LIE of the positioning of locations. The Dondoko house is more further than what it is on the map and for foreign tourists I had to follow Japanese locals to get the direction of where to go as there is no English signage. Some of the workers don't speak well English but at least some had the rules in English to follow to show before entering each locations aka no photos inside, no food or drink, no re-entry etc.

I didn't get a chance to catch the free bus that goes around every 30 minutes and the other option the Cat Bus you have to pay 1,000 Yen to take the cat bus to get from one specific place to another which I believe should be included in the premium ticket. I did not bother paying as I think it was a rort.

I missed seeing some locations missing the Free Bus and also by the time I found Dondoko Forest it was already getting hour close to closing time and my partner and I were tired. Our friends left earlier on as the experience was draining and they were not having a good time plus not big...

UPDATED: Returned on a rainy Friday in June. Much better now the entire park is open! We did Dodonki FirstMononokeHill of YouthValley of Witches with Warehouse entry at 2pm. Buy the Sampo pass and go through all the houses. No pictures allowed inside though! The carosel is 1,000Y for adults and 500Y for kids. Additionally you can take the cat bus from Dodonki to Mononoke which is the same additional cost. But worth it! Plan for a ton of walking, stairs and hills. Good luck!

Old review June 2023:

I have very mixed feeling on this place, and can sadly only afford it 3/5 stars. Not even weighing the middle of the night website refreshing, queuing and hoping I had to do just to obtain tickets while located in the U.S. directly from their Ghibli Park overseas website.

I would like to note that we were here June of 2023, at that time overseas visitors were only allowed into Ghibli's Grand Warehouse and so my review is just for this location. We entered right at our noon ticket time (after arriving around 11:20AM) and headed straight to the café for lunch, so to try and avoid a line. The café was honestly super disappointing, and to me, it's hard to get bad food in Japan. Nothing tasted "good", it was just mediocre and with no theme, the best you could get was a paper flag stuck into your sandwich or meal, no Totoro pastries here, a real missed opportunity! Very overpriced too, I believe lunch for 3 people was something like 6,500Y.

After lunch we headed to the movie portion (very cute, but no English subtitles, so keep that in mind) and touring the rest of the photo spots. Many spots like Castle in the Sky and Arietty were part of the "open" area, but you still have to queue for your 5 seconds to pose and snap that shot. It took about 3 hours for us to do all of that, by this time the 2PM people had entered and we noticed a VERY long line to get into the red building, not knowing was inside, we didn't know any better. After about an hour in line just to enter into this structure, it turned out to be where all of the photos on instagram and google come from, the "movie replica" shots. They had 10 or so movie scenes setup for you to scale so you can pose and get a cool shot as if you were part of the movie. For a fan of Ghibli movies, this might be enough and worth it for a visit! For us, it was so-so, big fans of most of the movies, but not high on our social media/instagram posts. The experience was worth it and we don't regret visiting, but it was a full day and very tiring waiting around in lines just to take a photo for a few seconds and move on to the next one. There is nothing interactive in here at all, it's simply looking at the sets/what they built and taking photos. Some of the exhibits were built around their movies food culture, there was a small play area for kids (12 and under) and finally a cat bus adults could get inside of (if you've been to the Museum in Mitaka, you know what I mean).

Again, no regrets, but this was a whole day from our Japan trip to get to Aichi and stay in Nagoya and very tiring. Make sure you know what you are getting into before going. If you are a really big Ghibili fan, it's not to be missed. We do plan on coming back to visit other parts of the park once opened to overseas visitors, my hope is they are more open air with less lines just to take a photo. If you do decide to go, queue for the big red building in front...

When I was trying to figure this out from Canada I found it really hard to figure out the logistics so that's what I'll focus on.

We did the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo the day before and then took the bullet train to Nagoya that night. We stayed in a capsule style hotel close to Nagoya Station which is the best place to reach the park from. (It looks like it should be Toyota but it isn't. Don't do it!)

You can use lockers at the station for luggage if you don't want to drag it with you but there are lockers onsite too. Wherever you leave your bags remember to pin it and take pictures. Heck an airtag would be handy as there are sooooo many lockers that you can easily get turned around.

In the park, there is lots to see and even though we arrived at 10:00 we actually ran out of time. While in the Ghibli warehouse there's a massive queue to get into the main exhibit that you only need to stand in if you want a picture with noface. If you don't need that, you'll save yourself about 45 minutes. When in the warehouse there's a door at the back where there is a restaurant. Going out that door is not considered leaving the warehouse so you can actually go eat instead of starving like we did.

You can also save park time if you buy souvenirs at the end from outside the park. They don't have the same stuff but they do have a good variety. The gift shops were so packed that at one point I was thinking how screwed we'd be if someone pulled a fire alarm.

Staff are friendly. The houses are amazingly detailed. Crouds are crazy and although it was pretty straightforward to get there by bullet train from Tokyo and then subway/rail from Nagoya I would say this stop is probably only worthwhile for die hard fans. If you've got the time we were actually really impressed by the other things we did in Nagoya but if you're on a strict time budget it might not be worth it.

IF you're keen and time crunched I would: Check out super early from Tokyo and take the 1.5 hour bullet train to Nagoya Station (they leave every 5 minutes. Book in advance on Klook and pay the tiny bit extra for a window seat on mt Fuji side)

Upon arrival at Nagoya Station you can check your bags into a locker and then get your subway/Japan Rail combo to the park(65 minutes). Arrive as early as possible. If you left Tokyo Station at 7:00 you're there for 9:30 (Get the earliest entry time you can) You'll see the park from the train stop. Walk with the rest of the people to get there. Park closes at 5:00 sharp. Souvenirs outside and a stop at Lawson for a snack will take you to 6:00...

Head back to Nagoya Station for 7:30 pick up your bags (best 5.00 you'll spend) and bullet the last 30 minutes to Kyoto (or hour to Oasaka) You can be in Kyoto to check in to your next accommodation by 8:30 no problem.

There is food everywhere in the train station. Bento boxes, convenience store food etc. While eating on the subway is frowned upon almost everyone was eating in the bullet train.

If you are hoping to go to this park or the museum please start researching your tickets at least two full months before you go. Tickets go on sale two months before whatever month you're trying for and it's like trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras tour.

You can't take pictures in most parts and it was slamming busy but our family grew up on these movies so it was worth it to us. The details are...