Better crowd for weekend side trip from Tokyo

Hello.. We will be in Tokyo on the weekend of 20-24 April (Friday-Tuesday) and have several side trip options in mind: Ghibli museum & Kamakura (priority), Fuji Five Lakes & Hakone (optional). We are aware the weekend crowd are bad, but one of these destination will fall on weekend. If we have to choose, which one has "better" crowd?

The Ghibli Museum only allows a certain number of tickets to be sold for each day, in two-hour time slots. Tickets must be pre-purchased (no walk-ins, cannot buy them at the museum). Because of this, the crowds are not overwhelming, so I would choose the Ghibli Museum as the weekend option.

Regardless of which day you choose to visit the Ghibli Museum, you will need to be very, very organised to get tickets, as the museum is very popular. On the museum website, there is a link to purchase tickets directly for cost price (1000 yen); these ticket sales open on the 10th of the month before you wish to visit (so for a visit in April, you would buy tickets on the 10th of March). The tickets sell out fast, so make sure you are online exactly when they open (there is a particular time, which I don't remember), and have your passport with you as it is required to book the tickets.

Alternatively, third-party resellers like JTB sell tickets 3 months ahead (so you could buy yours now), but with a considerable increase in price. However, these tickets do not have time slots, so you can enter the museum whenever you like.

For Ghibli museum you will need to reserve your ticket really soon. Have a look, but I think presales abroad starts 3 months before and you need to be quick. I tried to buy in Japan last year, and I was there on the first pre-sale day at 19:00 and already no tickets anymore available for the entire month.

So buy these first. As the number of visitors at Ghibli museum is limited, there are no crowd problems. It is everyday very similar. But it is easier to find tickets for a week day.

The other destinations I think are similar in their crowd factor. Mid April is no longer Sakura season and not yet Ajisai, so it should not be too bad in either Hakone nor Kamakura, so you can probably just do it as you prefer or per weather.

Enjoy your trip to Japan!

If you had to pick one to fall in the weekend. I would pick Ghibli. It has controlled visitor number system in place. All you other locations do not.

Tickets through JTB are already sold out for April 2018 for the Ghibli Museum.

http://online.jtbusa.com/services/ghiblimuseum.aspx

There is still a chance you can get them through Lawson or if you desperately need to go you can pay a premium through Japanican (a subsidiary of JTB) and possibly still get tickets. I've also see them at the same premium through voyagin and a few other tour operators, but you will be paying 5500 yen per ticket.

Thank you everyone for the advise.

The Ghibli museum tickets for weekday and weekend are still available on my local JTB, so finger-crossed, will be getting it for the weekend and enter on the first slot.

Thank you everyone for the advise.

The Ghibli museum tickets for weekday and weekend are still available on my local JTB, so finger-crossed, will be getting it for the weekend and enter on the first slot.