DaKahuna

Thanks. Your weather is definitely better from your review photo’s. Enjoy Mexico — take a walk over to WalMart and play the “how many crew members can you spot” game. We ran into quite a few even though most, if not all, of them were shopping for others who could not leave the ship.

The weather could have been better. We’ve not had a chance to eat the foods we know and love but what we have had was to our liking. We’ll save the sushi and sashimi for our post cruise adventures. The cities are very safe. I am still not convince my DW was correct as to the meaning of that sign. I still think both the adult and child look like aliens.

I just had a pop up come up and then disappear asking if someone could join me in the bar. Most certainly. I am the fat old guy in a blue shirt and black pants. Most likely sitting at the bar itself .. headed down now.

Thank you for your service and yes, that was a long time ago. Unfortunately the weather prevented me from taking the pictures I had in mind as any plans I had to walk from the main gate to the NEX, via the road that goes past the hospital were blown away in the wind and the rain. I did try to walk from the exchange up to the skeet and trap pits beyond the baseball field but by the time I got to the field the wind had become unbearable so i turned around. Here are the few photo’s I did capture .. This use to be the field house for the gym. I don’t think it is used today. The new gym/field house is in back to the Benny Decker Theater to the left of the baseball diamonds. These anchors have been there for as long as I can remember. Home of the Yokosuka Seahawks. Watched a lot of softball at this place. The thrift shop The base theater — showing its Our daughter started middle school here . Another part of the school The food court — There is also a Baskin Robin, an American Cafe, and a Pizza Hut in the main Exchange building.

Love to see all these names from our Roll Call spreadsheet announcing their safe arrivals. Glad to see many of you also took advantage of the Keikyu airport Limousine Bus. It’s very inexpensive, comfortable and a safe way to travel. We just returned from venturing down to Yokosuka via train. The weather was not very cooperative as has already been noted. We just arrived back at our hotel shortly before 1600 and cancelled the plans we had to have dinner in Chinatown. We will try and make China Town and possibly Kamikura/Diabutsu on our post cruise stay. I am dried out and changed into my clothes for embarkation tomorrow and we’ll be packing our bags just a little later. In the mean time, I have a ticket for a free drink at the hotel lobby bar that I am going to use and possibly add one or two more with it. While out and about today I got a notice about the safety survey. Went into the Celebrity App and completed the Health Questionnaire and watched the safety video’s. On the way back to the hotel, my wife decided there was a shortage of pastry onboard so she stopped in this store to gather up some supplies to take onboard tomorrow. Time for a cold wet drink with alcohol in it.

I had not planned to post pictures of the base since it’s not really a place cruise tourist may be interested, but since you asked now I will. I was on the USS Oklahoma City 70 - 73, Navy Communications Station 73 - 78, and USS Midway 81 - 84. That all seems so long ago. Funny you should mention that. My wife and I were saying the same thing. I believe I posted somewhere about how we thought when we first planned this tip that a couple of days before and after the cruise should be more than enough time. It’s not. We are looking at coming back, possibly as soon as next year, for a two week vacation. With one week being a trip from Hokkaido to Kyushu via train, stopping at major cities along the way and then a week in the Tokyo/Yokohama area.

This is one of the major reasons that we are looking at other cruise lines. Looking over the pictures of wines I had on our cruise last year almost every one of them is now not included in the Premium package.

We took a nice nap after our busy morning. Fortunately we had planned for this and had purchased bento’s for this evening’s meal in the room. Outside: Inside: For a prepared meal you normally cannot go wrong with a nice bento box . So after waking up from our afternoon nap, we made a pot of hot water for some green tea and had our bento’s. We are now relaxing and watching YouTube videos while planning for our visit to Yokosuka tomorrow. I am going to go to the Navy base, where I was stationed on three occasions, just to look around while my DW is going to be meeting with her sister for lunch and shopping. It’s going to be interesting to see how much the base has changed in 34 years.

As you can see, the skies have cleared up a little Some random photo’s from our trip to Yokohama station. the Golden Arches are everywhere. A police box - very prevalent. Always look for the flashing red light I asked my wife if this was a sign for an Alien Crossing. She said it was a caution to parents to keep an eye on their kids to prevent kidnapping. Strange … Husbands — if your wife wants to go here, you can feel your wallet getting lighter the closer you get. Ladies - a great place to go on your own. Smoking in public and in buildings is frowned upon. The Japanese solution - out side smoking areas …. When is the last time you saw a Shakey’s Pizza — Also the ABC Mart here is very different than the ABC Store in Hawaii. Lunch - My DW says this place has a large YouTube following - we waited 30 minutes to get a seat about 20 people still lined up waiting when we got in. Very popular it seems. We both had the vegetable and shrimp tempura. I thought it was good tasting but did not see what the big deal was about it. I have had better tempura. If you live pastries, you’ll love this place. Grab a basket and some tongs at the entrance and pick out as many as you like. I went with a pecan bun .. In addition to the pastries she bought for herself, my DW bought a pizza for me — How cute is this? I’ll have it later.

Will do.

We went down to the hotel’s Ocean Terrace buffet for breakfast. A very wide selection of food was available, including typical Japanese breakfast items as well as American and European fare (thankfully no beans though that I saw). It was good but I am not sure it was worth the price. This morning was cold, 65 F, and raining but it is starting to warm up a couple of degrees and it is cloudy and over cast. This is where Millennium will be docking Thursday morning. Yokohama Bay bridge. We crossed over it last evening on the way from the airport. Millennium will be sailing under her when we pull out Thursday. Our plan for this morning is to walk to Minatomirai station and take the train to Yokohama station. It’s a six minute ride and cost 200 Yen per person. Have Suica app, will travel!

Actually, if you wanted you could use a padlock to lock the door closed using the chrome hardware. The hole should line up when the door is closed. Great way to keep kids off the balcony if that was a concern.

You can count on it. The one you kept winning on never treated me well the whole cruise. Then again, I did not fare any better on any of the others. The roulette wheel was the only one that paid off for me.

Thank you buy do not go through any trouble. I have never seen it at Costco but I know I can buy it online as I ordered some as a present for a friend of ours. I actually discovered this while vacationing for a long weekend on Maui while I was stationed on Oahu. I have a friend that one of his hobbies is roasting beans. He buys green beans from all over and then roast them at home. I have two 1/2 lb bags of his latest batches at home that I need to work my way through before I think of buying any new coffee beans.

Me and you both and I am a couple of days away from embarking on Millennium again. Going to see how your favorite slot machine treats me.

Good morning. It’s not jet lag, or at least I do not think it is but I stayed up until 11 PM last night but still woke up after five hours of sleep. It always takes me a day or two to adjust to a new bed. Anyway, today’s plan is to do a lot of shopping and eating mainly in and around Yokohama train station. But in the mean time we are just taking it easy in the room, waiting for the hotel breakfast buffet to open. We’d like to thank everyone who is following along on this journey with us. We have been looking forward to it ever since we booked the cruise a year ago. We hope to we can make it interesting for you and share with you our experiences.

All this talk of Hawaiian coffee has me strongly considering ordering a bag of Kona Peaberry from my favorite Hawaiian coffee brewer — Bad Ass Coffee. They use to have a store front in Manassas, VA but was closed the last time I looked. It’s been a few years.

It will be a while before I start getting anxious for Power Up points. We make Elite + on our upcoming cruise and since the gap between Elite + and Zenith is so huge, we’ll never make it to that next level.

This is what you have to add extra sausage gravy — to soften them up !!

I think any post about Japan would be remiss without the following, taken during our approach to Haneda this afternoon

I wish we had flown ANA instead of United. The food on ANA has always been better than United’s. Lesson remembered for our next trip.

Absolutely. I welcome anyone on this cruise to add their comments, observations, etc. to this. It’s good to see the same thing from a different pair of eyes. Also others are going to have different excursions from the ones we are taking and the more pictures the better. We are going both pre and post cruise stays in Yokohama. It’s a lot more convenient for some of the personal things we want to take care of on this trip.

We arrived in Tokyo at Haneda airport about 4:43 pm. I think the walk from the gate to baggage claim took longer than it did to get our bags, clear immigration and customs and get to the bus ticket counter. We only had to show the Visit Japan QR code one time but had to show our passports multiple times for customs and immigration. I think we were through in under 40 minutes from the time we got off the plane until we were in line to purchase bus tickets. There was only one other flight in there with us from what I could tell. BTW, our flight was only slightly over half full in Polaris, lots of open seats, which I guess is how we got upgraded, and even six or more empty seats in Premium Economy. Never checked how full the Economy seating was but pretty sure from a glance at the seat map it was not very full. We had about a 50 minute wait for the bus, and then about a 50 minute bus ride. Both were uneventful. We got checked into the hotel, received our bags from the bell service, and then walked to a train station nearby, in the Queens and picked up some light fare for dinner. Here’s a little nighttime view of the harbor from our hotel, on the 20th floor.

It is comfortable. We have a harbor view room so will be able to get up early and watch Millennium enter port and dock It was a little windy and around 72 degrees under cloudy skies. When we took a walk to get some light food to bring back to the room it was breezy and felt like it was in the mid to upper 60’s. Will have to wait until after we board and have been on the ship for a couple of days before I can answer that question. I will try and remember.

Greetings from the InterContinental Yokohama Grand Hotel. We arrived at Dulles for our departure around 0945 on Sunday. Due to having to use her passport which scans as her maiden name and not her married name, her KTN was not associated with her ticket so no TSA Pre. This only added 10 minutes or so time as the airport was not busy at all. After clearning TSA we caught the train to C-Gates and proceeded directly to the Polaris Lounge. This is our first time flying Polaris Business on an International flight, our other Polaris Business have been to/from Hawaii which does not give you lounge access. We had a little over an hour in the lounge and took advantage of the buffet and I gave me recipe for a rum old fashioned to the bartender. He said this was the first time he had ever made an old fashion with rum. He did make one change - instead of sugar water, he used maple syrup. He put very little in and the drink did not turn out overly sweet as I had initially feared. We had the smoothest boarding I have encounter on a United flight in years. Very few needing additional time, no children under two — under a dozen Global Services and 1K. We were quickly in our seats and having a welcome sparkling wine. Then things came to an abrupt halt. Our 1235 departure was delayed 3 times and we ended up taking off around 1330. Once airborne it turned out to be a long but comfortable flight. After dinner service, I had the beef with barbecue sauce, with a a glass of champagne to go with the shirmp appetizer, and a glass of Pinot noir to go with the beef. For dessert, I had everbody’s favorite ice cream Sunday - with chocolate, nuts, and Bailey’s. It was delicious. I watched two movies starting before, during and after dinner and then layed the seat back and had a nice 5-hour nap. They served half of a grilled cheese sandwich and soup, I passed on the soup but liked the grilled cheese. About an hour and a half before arrival they served breakfast, sorry no photo’s. It was okay — I had the egg dish with a sausage and potato’s. Nothing to write home about. I have to say, I have joined the ranks of those who think the food is okay but believe it should be better in First Class/Business Class, especially on long intercontinental flights.