LAFFNVEGAS Live from The Diamond Princess 8 Night Circle island Japan

Next up more shopping

I came extremely close to purchasing the new Apple Watch 3 I have the Apple Watch one I got over 2 years ago but wanted the Stainless with cellular and the cost here with no tax and in yen would me close to 200 but they found it would not work in the US.

There was also a big thing going on that the Governor of Tokyo was out campaigning, lots of tv crews all over.

About this time while we had lots of plans , I was hitting the wall with exhaustion, we had already done close to 4 miles walking so we decided to take a break and went back to our hotel for a nap.

Saturday morning I woke up at about 5:30 and was going to write here but I had left my phone at James place.

Anyway we went down to the Coffee shop and had breakfast which was a nice small mini buffet and themJames and Aileen came and got us for Day 2 first stop Ginza.

 

Very crowded due to the Holiday

 

Next was lunch Shabu Shabu which was lots of fun

It all looks great I'm looking forward to following your adventures.

James and Aileen arrived back to our hotel around 6:30 we decided to stay in Shinjuku and went for Chinese, we had some very good Peking Duck and lots of other good things.

There was a bit of a wait so we went for drinks, then dinner.

I think I am caught up although a mini version of everything [emoji6]

I am about to get up and get ready for Sunday, it’s now 7:50 am we are going to try the buffet here at the hotel for breakfast then James is coming to get us at 11.

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing. Love, love, love Japan. Makes me want to go back!

Ohayou Gozaimasu , it’s almost 7 am oddly by body wakes up the same time it does at home. Let me see if I can you you caught up on what we have been doing.

We have been extremely busy and when we have come in for the day was just too tired.

The best thing for this trip and one of the reasons for coming here was to see our good friend James Deering and his wife Aileen, many of you may remember James while he is now retired from working in the cruise industry he has been a Passenger Services Director for Princess as well as a Hotel Director for Holland America. We met James about 13 years ago on Hal.

He had his wife have been the most gracious hosts for taking us all around Tokyo. We have had so much fun.

So glad to hear news of James Deering. He was more than our HD on the 2015 Kobe/Vancouver re-positioning cruise. He held several sake tastings and it was there that I became engaged to the extent that I am now a Certified Sake Specialist. I missed him on our 2017 repo :(

Wonderful pictures Lisa and great reporting.

Looks like you are having a fabulous and busy time.

You'll need the cruise to rest up. ;)

Thank you for posting your report and great pictures.

Rest when you can.

Enjoy.

Nice seeing photos of James and his wife. I have such wonderful memories of him when we sailed on HAL>

He was the best.

Gloria:D

I am enjoying your "Live" and pictures.

I think you have to have chosen that option.

 

Or maybe I unchose that option since, thankfully, I am not subscribed to every thread I reply in, just the ones I manually subscribe to, like this one.

I must have chosen the "automatic" option (a long time ago) because every once in a while I go into the user control panel and delete/unsubscribe threads I don't want to follow.

Good Morning from the Diamond Princess, what a beautiful morning with calm seas and 77 f degrees.

I have forgot what for sure I have written and writing this off line before I post.

I will start with embarkation, we are normally those cruiser that like to be first on board which does not happen when you rely on the cruise line with transfers. We are on Baja deck and suites so we would have been first on but as it was it still was quick and painless. We arrived via coach from the Keio Plaza at 12:25pm after going through security we were Checking in at 12:35 and a quick picture we were on board by 12:45.

The first thing we did was to go to the front desk, I had read here on CC from previous Diamond Japan cruisers that there was Japanese Tea Ceremony that is limited and an English Champagne Tea and both needed to be signed up for the first day since they were limited, of course no one at the front desk had any clue about either one. So we headed to our cabin.

I had originally booked a mini suite on Emerald deck and about 2 months ago got an upsell offer I could not resist. We are aft on Baja in 751. The suite is amazing, the bed comfort was wonderful just one small complaint and that is the small closet[emoji50] for hanging clothes. Drawer space is more than plentiful but we hang most of all our clothes.

Being in a suite we got Sterling Steak House free the first night, oddly we were the only passengers eating there till right before we left then there was another couple.

After dinner we just walked around the shops, we both felt exhausted so did not go to the show.

This morning we got up and went to breakfast at Sabatini’s had our Mimosa then went shopping [emoji6]. I have to say something that I have said before, Princess has all other cruise lines beat for logo wear. Regular Princess cruisers that do not sail other lines have no idea how good Princess is in this area. I so love the quality and style and fit. I am not talking about the tacky T-shirt’s that Hal and NCL offer. I bought 4 shirts and Tom bought two. There were two others I might go back and get [emoji4].

Well let me try posting this, we have our CC Meet and Greet in about 45 minutes, I will try to add pictures if the WiFi will let me, often on the ship I can only do Pics to Facebook but not CC.

Signing off from the Beautiful Diamond Princess.

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Holy smokes-if those are photos of your suite-wow, just wow!

We've only tried Princess once and enjoyed ourselves so think we will have another Princess cruise in our near future!

Sounds like a wonderful trip-love your updates & photos.

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Great pictures.

Sounds like you are to a great start.

Good Evening from the Diamond Princess, we are such party animals that at 7:45 at night on the first formal night we are already back in the cabin, Tom is out of his Tux and I am out of my formal dress. Actually we both feel like we are at the very start of a cold, nothing severe just a raspy throat so figured we would call it a night early to hopefully get rid of it.

Tonight we ate in the Santa Fe dining room Club Class. It is our first formal night. We enjoyed talking to the other couples around us.

To our surprise very few were dressed formal, besides Tom wearing a tux, I think we saw maybe two other guys and that is those out in the atrium watching the champagne toast.

In all honesty I felt a bit over dressed. Definitely not what I read on both Facebook and here on CC since it had been a while since we sailed Princess. Although nationality demographics could be a determining factor. At the Meet and Greet they stated there were only 400 Japanese passengers, the majority at just over 1/2 the passengers were Aussie, then U.S, Canadian and U.K. Age is also a bit younger, more 40 something to 50’s.

Pics from today.

This afternoon I went to the Thermal Suite for a while which was relaxing. I would have gone this evening if we were a bit closer.

Tomorrow is our first port stop in Aburatsu, we are going to Aoshima and the Sochi Brewery.

Signing off from the Diamond Princess.

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If I recall correctly, suites on Princess are more like suites i.e. two rooms, than on HAL.

Really enjoying your posts. Have a great cruise and hope you are not getting colds.

Holy Cow!!! Your suite is the size of our first house. Thank you for sharing... we never thought that anything in the Far East would be an itinerary in which we would be interested.

It has been a while since we sailed on Princess.

Glad to see that they still have the champagne toast.

Good Morning from the Diamond Princess where we are head to Busan, South Korea where we should around 1pm so in about 2 and a half hours.

We are currently experiencing some rough seas, lots of white caps and lots of bouncing on the aft.

Yesterday we were in Southern Japan in the port of Aburatsu in Miyazaki Prefecture where we went on a scenic ride to the Aoshima Island which is home of the Aoshima Shrine then to the Shouchu Brewery which is kind of like a whiskey.

Unfortunately the raspy throat I had went into a full blown cold so I felt really bad last night so we canceled our reservations for a Sterling Steakhouse and just ate in the Horizon Court. Have to admit I am quite pleased with the overall food quality. Love the Peanut Butter Cookies [emoji6]unfortunately eating makes me cough of course so does talking.

We have gone three days in a row for breakfast in Sabatini’s it definitely beats Pinnacle Grill breakfast on HAL for Suite Passengers but not quite as good as NCL Suite breakfast. I do like having the morning mimosas [emoji1303] the waiters are fantastic.

Today in Busan we will take the bus to the International Market to do some shopping, we were originally sighed up for a tour that was in Japanese that sounded like it was a scenic drive then a Korean BBQ but it actually was more of a long walking tour on very uneven terrain so I canceled.

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Hope you get well soon so you can really enjoy your cruise.

Thanks for the food pics! love that chocolate and the noodles/Peking duck!

Just got back to the ship from shopping in Busan, a very rainy windy cold day, had it been nice and I felt a bit better we would have explored a lot more . I wanted to go to this Lotte Department store but then could not find it

Sorry you are ill. Hope you get over your cold quickly.

Pictures are great -- love your reports.

Love the pictures! Hope you feel better soon!

Enjoying your reports and pictures very much.

We also slightly prefer the suite breakfast on Princess, and of course the mimosas are a nice touch. For the life of me, I can't understand why HAL will serve suite customers a complimentary mimosa on a room service breakfast, but not in the Neptune Grill. :rolleyes:

Your suite looks great. We were in an aft vista suite on our Diamond Japan cruise and just loved it. I have to ask... do the suites still have the fancy toilet seats???? :D:D:D

Did you eat here? Looks yummy!