USJ tickets

Hi. I am a bit confused. I'm planning to go to USJ a day after Xmas (26/5) for a day. (will it be very crowded?) so i wanted to ask if buying a 1 day pass be sufficient or have to buy an express pass as well? as i have known the express pass is charged on top of the 1 day pass correct?
and i wanna know if these passes can be bought or booked in advance or just on the day of purchase itself?
by the way, i have also read that a different pass has to be bought to enter the Harry Potter world, is that true?

thanks in advance.
love, Malaysia

I can't confirm if it will be busy, but I would guess yes. You can book the tickets ahead of time if you are in Japan (or outside of Japan from certain travel agents, who may charge you an extra fee). The Express Passes do cost more on top of the entrance ticket; if you are going to buy one of these do it beforehand because I hear they sell out within minutes! You do need a separate ticket to enter HP world, but it does not cost extra - it is a timed ticket, so you enter HP world at a certain time. They're trying to stagger the arrivals so it doesn't get too crowded, but it doesn't seem to be working! :) I suggest getting to the park well before official opening time; they seem to be opening about an hour before the official time these days.

I read a comment of a visitor that they were able to buy a Universal Studios in a subway station. Do you know any subway station that sell these express tickets so we don't waste much time lining up to buy the tickets at the entrance? Or are these tickets available at Lawson?

I believe express passes can only be bought at the park. They open the ticket booths well before the gates, so if you get there early you might have a better chance at an express pass. You can buy the entry tickets from many other places (e.g. Kansai Airport, Lawson, etc.), but I'm not sure about subway stations. You can also book them through travel agents and online, though they tend to charge an extra fee.

You can inquire of a shopping service "Bridge Jpn" for buying USJ express passes. I got the tickets with reasonable price.

I was there just last Friday. A few observations:

1) As others have said, it's likely to be crowded. We specifically chose to go on a non-holiday weekday and it was still a total madhouse.

2) In addition to the options mentioned in previous responses, you might want to check if the hotel you're staying at is a USJ partner, in which case you may be able to purchase tickets in advance at hotel reception and simply join the entry queues at the park (rather than having to queue up separately to buy the tickets on the day of your visit). We stayed at the Hotel Granvia and purchased our tickets a couple of days in advance - saved us a boatload of time when we got to the park itself.

3) HP World doesn't require an additional fee, but if you're not one of the very first people inside the park you'll need to queue up at a certain place somewhere in the middle of USJ where special ticket machines are set up. Upon reaching the machines, choose the number of people in your party and your preferred timeslot from amongst those still available, and you'll be issued a small slip of paper with a 1-hour window printed upon it. You'll need to enter HP World within the time window stated on the slip. (One representative can do this for a group of several people; just make sure the representative has all of your USJ tickets.) Lines are long at these machines, so once you're through the gate, grab your tickets and run like heck to where they are!

To illustrate the morning rush:

http://youtu.be/d8VmvtVaoNo

I shot this video as I was making my way to the HP section of USJ. Our family already sent 2 representatives who ran ahead to get a timed-entry ticket for all of us, so I was taking things fairly easy whilst everyone was dashing madly towards the ticket machines.