loeb

Have you tried Green Tomato, many years ago we used them and provided a Mini bus to pick up about 12 people at different hotels in Tokyo and take us to Osanbashi.

Might help if you provide more information. Where does your cruise depart from? Yokohama? If so, you might want to stay in Yokohama rather than at Narita. However, it also depends on when your flight arrives and are you able to navigate with your luggage on a train. Have you considered booking the precurse hotel and transfer with your cruise line, less hassle, but you will pay more than doing it on your own.

We have been on both ships on Japan cruises, both are older ships. As Bruce mentioned, the Diamond Princess was built in Japan and focuses on the Japanese market, but I would base my decision on the itinerary. The Celebrity cruise as mentioned has the better ports. If you go to Japan, Kyoto and Tokyo are two places you want to see and, you also get to visit both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the Atomic Bomb sites). Shimizu will also allow you to visit Hakone (a mountain area near Mt Fuji.). To us, those are the major sites if your time is limited and you are on a cruise.

The time you arrive and how long your flight is may influence your decision on where to stay. If you arrive early you might want to stay at one of the hotels mentioned previously. However, if you have a long flight and arrive later in the afternoon or in the evening, then you might want to stay at the airport. There are two new hotels connected to terminal 3 at HND. We arrived at 5:00 pm after a 10-hour flight and stayed at one of the new hotels. There are many restaurants to eat at so it was convenient to have dinner and get over jet lag. The next morning we checked out and walked back to the arrival terminal to catch the cruise line transfer to the ship. If you arrive early in the morning or if you have two days in Yokohama, one of the hotels recommended would be a good choice. On another cruise, we stayed at a hotel across the street from the baseball park and a couple of blocks away from Chinatown. It was also close to Osanbashi Pier. Note to get from HND to Yokohama, I would suggest you take the limousine bus (Keikyu Bus) and then a taxi to your hotel in Yokohama. (note YCAT is Yokohama City Air Terminal) Here is a video on the bus (it's an old video but still applies)

Sorry we will miss your presentations, may be on a future Princess cruise we will get to experience your presentation(s) first hand.

With the price increases in the Premium Package, I sure wish Princess would price protect us when we book another cruise. Said another, the 50% future cruise credit is not 50% when you consider the price increases.

Try WhatsInPort to get information about each port.

You might try Green Tomato, we used them in the past (not recently) to get from Tokyo to the cruise port in Yokohama. They arranged a minibus to the port. https://www.greentomato-j.com/eng/

see video on where to pick up the pocket wifi at Haneda

see what's in port https://www.whatsinport.com/Ishigaki-Sakishima-Islands.htm My recommendation is when you have a question about something, try youtube. For example here are two videos on Ishigashi another video

As a starting point when going to a new port / area I look at WhatsInPort, see the link to Singapore under currency https://www.whatsinport.com/Singapore.htm To do further research check Trip Advisor and also Youtube.

see the options from Haneda to Tokyo We stayed at a hotel near Tokyo Station (train station) which is near the Ginza. We used the Green Line (Yamanote line) to see the sites since it goes to most of the tourist attractions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamanote_Line

I should have mentioned that it is just as easy to catch the bus as taking a taxi at Haneda and a lot cheaper. Follow the directions in the second video, even with luggage it was easy to find the bus.

See ATM's at Haneda, easy to use Catch the Keikyu Bus to YCAT (Yokohama City Air Terminal) and then a taxi from YCAT to the Pier.