Yokohama Cosmoworld is an amusement park in Yokohama’s bayside Minato Mirai district. Although it occupies a rather compact area, it has a variety of rides and attractions which are suitable for either family outings, days out with friends, or romantic dates.
Yokohama Cosmoworld Amusement Park
The park is unusual in that it is free to enter with no entrance charge, so visitors can buy tickets for individual rides. There are however discount books of tickets that you can buy if you plan to try a lot of rides. For example you can buy a book with 3,500 yen’s worth of tickets for just 3,000 yen, or a 5,000 yen discount ticket book for just 4,000 yen. Buying a discount book of tickets also means less waiting in line at the ticket stalls.
Waiting at a ticket booth
The park is divided into three zones:
A merry-go-round in the Kids Carnival Zone. One ride is 300 yen
The Kids Carnival Zone has rides and game machines appropriate for smaller children. Here you will find the Ocean Swinger, rideable robot panda cars, a miniature shinkansen ride, a merry-go-round, bumper cars, and a cycle monorail.
One ride on a robot panda car is 200 yen
The colorful Burano Street Zone is named after a picturesque fishing village in northern Italy. Here you can find the Family Banana Coaster, take a spin on the Galaxy or Super Planet rides, get lost in a hall of mirrors, play on the games machines, or explore a haunted mansion.
A spin on the Super Planet ride costs 600 yen
The Galaxy ride costs 500 yen
The Wonder Amuse Zone is the main area of the theme park and has the most thrilling rides including the “Diving Coaster – Vanish!” which is just like a regular roller coaster until it suddenly plunges through and beneath a pool of water creating a gigantic splash. One ride costs 800 yen.
Diving Coaster – Vanish runs around the park’s Ferris Wheel
The coaster vanishes in a gigantic splash
In this zone you can also find the “Cliff Drop”: a log flume river ride with a steep drop, the final splashdown encouraging screams that are ranked for volume on a nearby scoreboard.
A ride on the Cliff Drop costs 700 yen
This section also features a virtual reality ride, a 360° 3D theater, a games arcade, fairground stall type games, and a food court. In the food court you can buy typical theme park fare such as hot dogs, French fries, crepes, and ice creams.
You can find carnival style game stalls in the Wonder Amuse Zone
Yokohama Cosmoworld is dominated by a giant Ferris wheel, called Cosmo Clock 21, which has a large digital clock at its center. Standing 112.5 meters high with a 100 meter diameter, this was the world’s tallest Ferris wheel until 1992, and it still holds the record as the world’s biggest Ferris wheel with a clock. Cosmo Clock 21 is one of the characteristic features of the Yokohama Bay skyline and is especially beautiful at night when it is illuminated with an LED light show of constantly changing colors.
Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris wheel at Yokohama Cosmoworld
Located in the Wonder Amuse Zone the wheel has 60 gondolas which can each carry eight passengers and it takes 15 minutes to complete a full turn of the wheel. One of the gondolas has a see-through floor, and all of the gondolas are fitted with a touch-screen navigation system, which will help you identify some of the famous sights in Yokohama Bay that you can see during the ride. A ride on Cosmo Clock 21 costs 900 yen
Inside the Wonder Amuse Zone
Cosmoworld is open from 11.00 to 20.00 with the Kids Carnival Zone closing at the slightly earlier time of 19.00.
Location
Yokohama Cosmoworld is a 4 minute walk from Minato-Mirai Station on the Minatomirai Subway Line and an 11 minute walk from Sakuragicho Station on the JR Negishi Line and the Yokohama Municipal Subway Blue Line.
Article and original photos by Michael Lambe. All rights reserved.
