Dissertations from Diamond Proncess repo to Japan Mar 2018

5 weeks away for us. Yay.

Good one, Are you having a few days in HK as well?

I'm decidedly GRUMPY today!

Last night we had to put our clocks forward one hour so had a short night.

So some bright spark in Guest Services decided that this morning would be a great time to return everyones passports. The poor stewards had to deliver them between 7-7:30am!!!!!!!

I was not impressed by being woken at 7am after a restless night's sleep.

Hopefully I'll be able to have a nap this afternoon (normally hard for me) as it's the last formal night and the Bravo show.

Good one, Are you having a few days in HK as well?

Yes, couple days either side of the cruise

I'm decidedly GRUMPY today!

 

Last night we had to put our clocks forward one hour so had a short night.

 

So some bright spark in Guest Services decided that this morning would be a great time to return everyones passports. The poor stewards had to deliver them between 7-7:30am!!!!!!!

 

I was not impressed by being woken at 7am after a restless night's sleep.

 

Hopefully I'll be able to have a nap this afternoon (normally hard for me) as it's the last formal night and the Bravo show.

Bummer, that was bad planning.

Woops! Sleep in morning?

Enjoying your posts, how's the cabin air con now? What comments around the ship? Can't believe you had to buy a fan!

Woops! Sleep in morning?

Enjoying your posts, how's the cabin air con now? What comments around the ship? Can't believe you had to buy a fan!

I didn't hear of anyone else who had problems with the cabin air con. I "run hot" so are more sensitive to slightly too warm cabin temps. I like a really cold room to sleep in. I never had a problem on Sun or Dawn, nor on Rhapsody of the Seas or Carnival Legend, and the air con on Celebrity Solstice can be set to frigid. I've only had problems on Diamond, Golden & Royal Princess ships.

Greetings from Tokyo.

We disembarked in Yokohama this morning. We chose a late disembarkation time so we could have a leisurely breakfast in the MDR before leaving the ship. Disembarkation was very smooth and we were soon in a taxi on our way to our Tokyo hotel in Shiodome. Traffic was fairly light and the taxi ride only cost ¥12500 (around AU $150), much less than expected and worth every yen for the quick, comfortable transfer.

WiFi on the ship was really bad over the last few days. Sometimes I couldn't even log in to Princess @ Sea.

We really enjoyed the last few days of the cruise.

I did manage to have a snooze before the last formal night so could enjoy dinner and the Bravo show without feeling too tired. Bravo was outstanding, as expected. We'd seen the show before, on Sun Princess, although some of the numbers seemed to be different. On Sun there had been a guest baritone. This time we had a guest soprano who had a glorious rich voice. It was a real treat to listen to her.

We had a wonderful day at the Osaka port stop. Since we'd already seen some of the major sights there we decided to go to Himeji. This was a bit of an expedition. Luckily there was a subway station a short walk from the port. We had to change to a different line to get to the shinkansen station where the express trains leave from. It was 25-30 minutes to Himeji. The castle, reputed to be the most beautiful in Japan, was walking distance from the station. It was gorgeous. Very old although it has been restored a few times. We made it up to the top level although the steep, narrow staircases were a challenge. Beautiful views from the top. The surrounding gardens were lovely too. There were a few blossom trees still in flower which was the "icing on the cake".

It was a big day out though and we were exhausted when we got back to the ship.

Yesterday we had a half day stop at Shimizu, near Mt Fuju. We had glorious views of Fuji-san as we sailed into the harbour and, in fact, all that day. We were so lucky. There was quite a bit of snow on top and blue skies behind. The best I've ever seen it.

We wandered off the ship for lunch. There was a big plaza nearby which had interesting foid outlets but it was crowded with other cruisers so we decided to walk down to the local fish market.

We found a nice local restaurant just before the markets and had the best tuna sashimi I've ever tasted. The selection had different cuts of tuna including the belly meat - so delicious. We also had some very nice tempura.

We didn't have time to explore the fish market unfortunately as the walk had been longer than expected and we needed to get back to the ship to pack.

It was open dining again but a couple of our tablemates managed to snaffle our usual table so we were able to enjoy our last dinner with our regular group and waiters.

We had great tablemates on this cruise and really enjoyed dining with them.

The service on this cruise was the best we've ever experienced overall.

We had great waiters -Arturo and Daivic. Daivic went the extra mile more than once to track down mint sauce for my lamb - the default option was mint jelly which is too sweet for me. He also managed to keep track of our wines - sometimes more than one bottle in storage overnight as we often had a white and a red open.

We had the best greeter, Joel, at the MDR for breakfast and lunch. He had the most wonderful smile and made every guest feel special.

Our cabin steward, Phong, was also the best ever. Everything was perfect. On the Osaka day he had already done the evening turndown before we got back onboard but he came back and cleaned the bathroom after we'd showered and gone to dinner.

This cruise had a slightly different demographic than the Golden repo cruise we did two years ago. Yes, there was a large number of retirees (including us) but the average age seemed lower and there wasn't as many walkers and scooters around. There seemed to be quite a few younger folk as well, plus a few families.

However there were a few negatives:

- this was one of the noisiest cruises we've ever been on. Loud talking even in quiet lounges and there was one group that regularly hung out around the bar at Crooners who actually drowned out the entertainer if we sat near the bar.

- for the first time ever on a Princess cruise I saw people roaming through the deck 7 bar and lounge areas in the evenings (after 7pm) dressed in scruffy shorts, singlets or skimpy tops, and thongs, swigging their Coronas. Yes, I know Princess isn't Cunard where you have to dress more formally for dinner, but on past cruises the majority of people always seemed nicely dressed in the evenings even if it was just clean jeans and a polo shirt.

I'm also happy to report that for thé first time out of seven a Princess cruise (exluding our first cruise where we had no health issues at all) I did not get cruise cough, I did not get norivirus, but I did get fatter!

I did battle a scratchy throat after port stops with bad air pollution, and are experiencing that problem in Tokyo but haven't developed a cough from that. Fingers crossed I'll get back to Sydney without major health issues this time.:D

Thanks very much for your posts, it has been enjoyable following along on your journey.

I've enjoyed reading your posts OzKiwiJJ. Sounds as if you have had a wonderful cruise and hopefully you'll arrive home without being ill.

Leigh