Karaoke in the Largest Ferris Wheel in Japan
Last Updated on November 5, 2024 by Kay
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If you’re looking for a unique karaoke experience in Japan, how about belting out to your favorite songs in a Ferris wheel?
Surprisingly, there are a few Ferris wheels in Japan that offer karaoke. Note that you need to pay extra for this experience and may need to wait since there aren’t many karaoke passenger cars.
Some karaoke Ferris wheels in Japan include:
nORIA Ferris Wheel in Sapporo
Big O at Tokyo Dome
In this article, I’ll share my family’s experience riding the Osaka Wheel while doing karaoke.
Osaka Wheel Karaoke Experience
At 123 meters, Osaka Wheel is the tallest Ferris wheel in Japan! All cars also have see-through floors, which is pretty cool.
We visited Osaka Wheel on a weekday in the late afternoon and there was hardly anyone there!
Tickets cost an additional 500 yen for 18 minutes (one trip) on top of the regular fee (1000 yen). Children ages three and under are free. If you want to sing for longer and make additional trips on the Ferris wheel, the price goes up but it’s slightly discounted. For instance, 54 minutes costs only 1200 yen extra!
We decided to only do one trip, which the staff told us was enough for four songs.
You can’t purchase the tickets for the karaoke passenger car from the machine. Instead, you need to buy it directly from the staff. There are only two karaoke cars so if you’re worried about the wait, you can ask how long it will be until you can ride the karaoke car and the staff will tell you.
We were informed that it would be about fifteen minutes until we could ride the karaoke car, so we purchased our tickets and hung around until then.
The area right before you start heading up to the Ferris wheel is quite beautiful. The decorations change according to the season, so the image below shows what it looks like during summer.
It’s a great photo spot!
If you like, you can purchase drinks and snacks from the Osaka Wheel Cafe to take into the Ferris wheel but we decided not to.
There’s also a washroom across from the cafe, so I recommend going beforehand. (Especially if you have kids!)
The karaoke passenger car was like the others except that it had a karaoke machine inside and two mics. I recommend deciding what songs you want to sing ahead of time because once you’re inside, the clock starts ticking.
Just as the staff told us, we were able to sing four songs during the ride.
Is the karaoke Ferris wheel kid-friendly? Absolutely! Our daughter, age five when she rode, had a great time and loved the view. She was more interested in the view than singing, and I don’t blame her because it was indeed stunning. It’s hands down the best Ferris wheel I’ve ridden in Japan, so I would recommend it for the scenery alone!
There was something really thrilling and exciting about singing on a Ferris wheel, especially when it ascended to the top! My husband and I have done our fair share of karaoke in Japan—he was born and raised here, and I’ve lived here for more than a decade—but this experience reignited our love for it. We belted our hearts out (while our daughter probably wondered what happened to her parents).
Interestingly, they were doing a summer event when we went so our daughter got to play some Japanese summer festival games for free after we got off the Ferris wheel!
Osaka Wheel has other special-themed passenger cars such as zombie and dinosaur ones, so I definitely recommend checking it out!
How to Get to Osaka Wheel
Osaka Wheel is located next to LaLaport EXPOCITY and is easy to reach from Osaka Station.
- Take the Hankyu-Kyoto Line to Minami Ibaraki Station and switch to the Osaka Monorail. Get off at Bampakukinenkoen. (530 yen one-way, takes around 43 minutes)OR
- Take the Midosuji Line to Senri-Chuo Station and switch to the Osaka Monorail. Get off at Bampakukinenkoen. (630 yen one-way, takes around 46 minutes)