ROCruiser

4 minutes ago, chubbypiggy said:

Thank you.  BTW, I am also from L.A. ☺️

Oh, great! We are in Claremont, which city are you in? If you don't mind me asking.

I was just going to say that my Kagoshima video was the one time that the auto subtitle did not work therefore no captions was available. Good to know that you understand Mandarin! Wow! I am so envious of your trips coming up. Sounds fun! We love traveling around Japan. I am sure you all will have a great time!

We have stayed at Intercontinental Yokohama Grand before, a beautiful hotel. It's a little walk from the train station with luggage but a nice area to be. You may find more information in my blog post of other ports in Hokkaido in the past if not on the video list. That was before I started learning to edit videos during the pandemic.

On 7/19/2023 at 5:43 PM, chubbypiggy said:

Really enjoyed your video on Nagasaki.  Have you visited Kagoshima?  If so, did you do a video of it?  In Sept., we will be doing an 7-day Kyushu cruise and an 9-day Hokkaido cruise on the Diamond Princess.  Between those 2 cruises, we will spend 5 days on land.  Will be staying at the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand hotel.  Hopefully not too far to get to the Yokohama station; really enjoyed your video of the underground shopping in the Yokohama station.  

Sorry it took me so long to see your post. So glad that my video helped. Yes, we were in Kagoshima and here is the video on that day. Now come to think of it, check to see if there are other kind of shuttles provided at port instead of the Diamond Princess one (quite expensive) that would take you to downtown. The taxi line was quite long on our day there and the DP shuttle was expensive. Walking out to the tram station was too far for some of us so we took the taxi after patiently waiting for a bit. 

The City View Bus was a good transportation between the sites just not to and from port. 

I also have videos on other ports like Beppu, Seogwipo, Miyazaki, and Wakayama. If you click on my name "Taste of Retirement" under the video, then go to 'video' you will find a list of all the videos that we have. Hope this help.

All you need to do is to walk down from Glover Garden, through the shopping street and you are back at the cruise terminal. Here is our day in Nagasaki, with Glover Garden at the end of the video.

Plenty of taxis outside the cruise port but they may want to do longer drive, like for the day. We had a van for the day for around $200 USD for the 8 of us. This was our day in Jeju, if interested. Originally, that was what we planned on doing, but ended up with the van tour. 

We were there several years back (2015) on a Princess cruise. Quite a charming city. Here is my blog post for that day. 

On 6/18/2023 at 10:31 AM, floralscent said:

Hi ROCruiser. Can you clairify if the shuttle was for anyone or exclusive to the ship you were on? Thank you

Sorry, just returned from another cruise on Queen Elizabeth. The shuttle in Kochi was at the cruise terminal which is far away from anything, so it was for passengers of the cruise ships docked there and we were the only ship that day.

There is so much to see in Yokohama alone, even spending a day will not be enough. We stayed two nights in Yokohama in March and went to Tokyo on one day but spend one whole day in Yokohama. This time in May, we plan on just staying in Yokohama and see the sites that we've missed before boarding the Cunard QE. Senken Garden will be my goal and then spending time at the Yokohama Station underground shopping should be fun too. But then, we have been to Japan many times and saw most sites in Tokyo.

We have been to Singapore several times but on our last visit late February before boarding the HAL Westerdam, we stayed at the Furama City Center for two nights and really happy with our stay there. Nothing fancy but the location can't be beat. This was the best rate that we could find at the time under $100 a night. 7 to 8 minute walk to either Chinatown or Clarke Quay. Malls with food court just across the street. Our room was on the 19th Floor facing the beautiful view of the city. If there is a next time, we will definitely stay there again. If interested, check the video link under my signature.

I believe QE will dock at Daikoku Pier instead of Osanbashi. At least that's printed on the boarding pass. 

We are on the same sailing in May. Planning to take the Airport Limousine from Narita to Yokohama a couple of days before the cruise.  We have done that a couple of times and found that to be the most convenient without having to deal with the luggage. Some buses to Yokohama will have a stop at Hotel New Grand near Yamashita Park where the shuttles to Daikoku should be available. Ask before purchasing the bus ticket. Otherwise the last stop will be at YCAT at Yokohama station and will need a taxi ride to wherever your hotel is. This time we booked the Mielparque Hotel for around $100 a night. Never stayed there before but the location is appealing. Across from Yamashita Park and close to Chinatown. We usually like to stay at the Sotesu Fresha Inn in Bashimichi/Sagurachico area but it's a little further from Yamashita Park. BTW, the Airport Limousine have discount rates for seniors, the last time we rode in April was around $21. 

If a self-administered test is required this was what we did, not on a Cunard ship but on Diamond Princess in March 2023 for our cruise in Japan. After the test is done, put the test card down with your passport open page, take a picture with your cell phone of both together. When you go to see that picture, just slightly slide the picture up a little, it will show the date, time, and place when the picture was taken. Take a screen shot of that and that will be sufficient to show your test result. They did look at the picture closely when we checked in at the port terminal.

We were on the Diamond Princess in March 2023 and took a taxi to Daikoku because we were not aware that that were free shuttles taking passengers over from Yamashita. Some passengers on the same sailing told us about that afterward and said they were notified by Princess that there was such service. 

People from our sailing in March said it was available but we were not aware of it and took taxis. Check first because there are some sailings on Diamond Princess that will dock at Osanbashi in April. 

When we were in Kochi in March, the shuttle was $25 per person round trip from port to bus station downtown. We opted for taxis since there were 6 of us. Each taxi was about 3200Y from port to Kochi Castle. There was a sign posted the price of taxis to city for around 3500Y at the taxi stand. The problem was the long line for taxis (no line at the shuttles). Get in line as early as possible because there weren't many taxis coming into port, maybe because we were the first ship there after the restart. We were about the fifth in line so the wait was OK but a huge line was already formed behind us.

When we were at Jeju on Diamond Princess, March 19, K-ETA was not required. We had ours but nobody asked for them. Not the ship, not the port. Some think that maybe because we were the first ship they were welcoming and did not want to turn the ship around if there were many coming in without the K-ETA. That was our experience.

Most of the free shuttles that were available at Japan ports a few years back are now charging $20-$25 per person round trip and most ships are docked quite a distance away from city center. We were on HAL Westerdam and Diamond Princess in March and found that it's cheaper to take taxis for the 6 of us than the shuttles. Sometimes, the paid shuttles may drop their prices because they did not get enough passengers. Ask in port before taking the shuttles.

Hong Kong and Taiwan should be fine. They have reopened their ports to receive cruise ships. We were the first cruise that was welcomed in ports after the reopening in March. If interested, you may check out our videos here (work in progress.)

If interested, here is my blog post on the day we were in Langkawi in 2016. Port Klang here. Penang here.

Our day in Silhanoukville 2015 here, if interested.

We applied and approved within an hour today. I have read somewhere that you cannot board the ship without the K-ETA, so just to have a peace of mind for $8.77. 

I sent him a quote request last week but haven't heard from him. There are some YouTube videos about his tours.

Thank you, Oakridger, for the detailed information. Making it clearer of what we need to do. It was much easier last year on our Alaska cruise.

I understand I will need to do the ArriveCan before we board our Alaska cruise R/T Seattle on Sept. 17 (HAL Eurodam) for our brief stop in Victoria, September 23. We will debark on September 24 in Seattle, then we will take the Quick Shuttle from Pier 91 to Vancouver for the night before boarding the Royal cruise that would take us back to Los Angeles. We need the second ArriveCan done after our stop in Victoria for the bus trip on the next day, correct? After the bus trip, do I need another (the 3rd one) done before boarding the ship out of Canada Place? We are leaving Canada but have a stop in Victoria the 2nd day on this cruise. This is getting to be more confusing.