Sanrio Puroland is often referred to as Hello Kitty Land in tourist guidebooks. Note: This is not located inside the city centre so you’ll need to set aside the good part of the day to attend. It is approximately 30 minutes from Shinjuku Station or 60 minutes from Tokyo Station. The good thing is – because it’s not that easily accessible from the centre of Tokyo – weekdays are rarely insanely busy.
While it is no where near as polished as a place like Disneyland, it caters to the hardcore fans ( and, boy, is it fun to watch those hard-core fans who often come dressed accordingly) from the shopping details to the decorated food options.
The entire theme park is indoors so it is not a weather dependent day.
Who will love Sanrio Puroland?
This park is aimed towards small children 1-6 years old and teens who love to dress up like the characters.
How to get there?
I recommend using google maps to work out the fastest route for your time of day. There are often a few train changes required.
Are there any rides?
Only 2-3 rides and they are all aimed at Sanrio character loving children so are all “it’s a small world” pace and because there aren’t many rides.. the lines are often 1 hour long.
It is possible to buy a fast pass for a ride at a vending machine though – a family ticket is 2000 yen. That fast pass can only be used once to skip the queue for that one ride though,.
Are there shows and parades?
There are shows (which were really cool), some little rides, interactive areas, restaurants and toy stores. Don’t miss the shows which are fun and upbeat -but are entirely in Japanese.
There are change tables and a baby centre that sells nappies , baby food and baby formula. There are also breastfeeding rooms. Over the past few years, they’ve decided to let strollers inside. Warning: there are still lots of stairs so I’d make sure it was light and foldable.
The park can get very busy on weekends and holidays.
If you’d like to try and attend on a less busy day – click on the Japanese version of their website (the English site doesn’t offer this information) and click on the calendar icon. The days that are marked with pink flower are predicted to be especially busy ( also as an FYI… the green flags mean they have a special event going on that day that you can take part in and a character picture on the calendar means that it is that particular characters’ birthday.)
It might be helpful to keep in mind that Sanrio Purioland has a particularly large amount of adult fans. If you have small children, I’d make sure you are standing at the front for show times or they may not be able to see at all.
SANRIO PURIOLAND
東京都多摩市落合1-31
1 -31 OCHIAI, TAMA, TOKYO
OPEN 10AM-5PM (UNTIL 6PM ON SUNDAYS AND 8PM ON SATURDAYS)
WEBSITE
If you still want more Hello Kitty things to do in Tokyo, see my post here.
