Tips for a Summer Visit to Ghibli Park

We finally did it! Ticked off a bucket list item and visited… here are some summer-time tips:

Ghibli Park is about 40 mins to an hour away from downtown Nagoya, so plan accordingly. It’s part of Aichi Commemorative Park which was built for the 2005 World’s Fair, so the grounds are quite extensive. Because it’s part of this bigger park, you’ll be asked for your ticket admission quite often (not like Disneyland where once you’re in, you’re in). Since the tickets are just a web page, make sure you have at least one fully charged phone (and maybe a battery bank)

I couldn’t find any hotel or airbnb near the park, so we opted to stay near the train station. Getting there by taxi is probably the fastest (although most variable depending on traffic and 5x more expensive). We went there by taxi (~40 mins - we were running late) but took the train back (~1 hour). A nice plus of taking the train is that the line closest to the park (Linimo) is Maglev - very smooth and still feels futuristic!

It’s definitely worth getting there at opening time 10am as Ghibli Park can easily fill a full day. Better still, get there a bit earlier to see the rest of the Commemorative Park (I think there’s a small museum about the expo that opens at 9.30am - we didn’t do that)

Ghibli Park is still in the rapid improvement stage and a lot of info on the web is outdated (writing this July 2024) The Valley of the Witches is the brand new “land”, opened just in March and probably the highlight of our visit. It used to be that you are given a designated time slot for each land, this is no longer the case. The only designated time slot entrance time is for the Grand Warehouse

If you can, definitely get the O-Sanpo Premium as that lets you into the recreated houses of most of the lands. There is much less to see and do in each of these lands if you don’t have the premium pass

We went in July in the middle of a heat wave, so “temperature optimization” was #1 on our Maslow hierarchy. There’s a lot of walking to do, and a lot of it without shade.

The lands are mainly outdoors. In these lands, only Valley of the Witches has air-conditioning in the homes and the sit-in restaurant. The Grand Warehouse (literally a giant warehouse) is entirely air-conditioned. 

There is also a lot to see and do in the Grand Warehouse (I would allocate at least 2 hours).

Given these constraints, I would recommend getting a 1 or 2pm Grand Warehouse slot, so that you’ll be in air-conditioned comfort during the hottest time of the day. The 1pm slot may be most optimal, as I would then also recommend going there late like 1.30pm (as the Japanese tend to be extremely punctual which means long lines at the top of the hour). You are allowed to go anytime within 60 mins after your slot time.

The other macro consideration is what order to visit the lands. You will probably enter the park via the North Gate and see the impressive elevator towers beckoning you:

Taking the elevators or the gentle ramp down, you’ll be in the Commemorative Park but remember you’re still not really “in” Ghibli Park (i.e. you won’t be asked for tickets), which was a bit confusing for me.

From there, you’ll see this map station (below). If you head straight, you’ll get to the Grand Warehouse (the largest building around, it also houses an ice-skating rink). We turned left and went to the Hill of Youth instead. We had read to do that first because it would get crowded later. I think that’s old info. Maybe because of the heatwave or because the park is over a year old, the park wasn’t super crowded.

Because we did the Hill of Youth first, we decided to traverse the park in a clockwise direction. We went to Hill of Youth, Mononoke Village, Castle playground,  Valley of Witches and finally Dondoko Forest.

If I were to do it again, and facing the same heatwave conditions, I would probably do the reverse and start with Dondoko Forest and go in a somewhat counter-clockwise direction. Here’s why: Going through Dondoko Forest is a mini-hike (maybe 1.5 km each way) and best done when you still have energy and it’s somewhat cool. Depending on your grand warehouse slot, it’s also much easier to do Hill of Youth after the Grand Warehouse, rather than Dondoko Forest

Whether you go clockwise or anti-clockwise, don’t forget to do the tram ride which will lead you to a trail that includes an aerial view of Valley of Witches. The tram ride is sort of “outside” of Ghibli Park, no tickets required!

The valley of witches has a nice sit-in restaurant. Unfortunately, there was a slow-moving line for the restaurant. Strangely, on the day of our visit, the line was as long or short around 11.45am or 12.30pm. I was expecting it to get a lot longer! Shuya was raving about the Witch’s black curry. If you don’t pack your own lunch, the only other lunch spot is within the Grand Warehouse (but in a separate building)

Your mileage will of course vary, but in terms of time spent in each place, this is kind of a very rough guide:

• Grand Warehouse 2-3 hours

• Valley of Witches 1.5-2 hours (depending if you have lunch there)

• Dondoko forest 1 hour

• Mononoke Village/Cat Castle/Tram trail <1 hour

• Hill of Youth <1 hour

Small tips:

• Definitely watch the movies (again) - there are all sorts of easter eggs in the park that only the most observant and rabid fans will notice (in general there’s very little sign-posting/explanation)

• Most of the lines (besides the one leading to the grand warehouse) are photo-taking lines. Don’t let your inner FOMO take charge! Also, if some place is crowded (esp. in the grand warehouse), just come to it a bit later.

• Don’t miss the mini-theater in the Grand Warehouse, they show short animations that are not available here - a real treat! - and the theater is a beautiful experience in itself

• The Grand Warehouse is a real maze (like a super giant Ikea store). Search the web for a checklist of places/exhibits. We used a list and found a couple of things we missed.