Nautica China Japan Cruise Review

I had always wanted to visit China and Japan; but couldn’t take off enough time to do it properly when I was working. Now that I am retired, last month we spent 4 days in Beijing before a 16 day cruise on the Oceania Nautica that visited China, South Korea and Japan. What an awesome vacation!

We stayed at the Park Plaza hotel in Beijing and could not have been happier. It was reasonably priced, centrally located and very comfortable; plus they provided great service. We booked all of our Beijing based tours with a wonderful service named Beijing Discovery Tours. When we were planning the vacation, I wavered on whether or not to spend the extra cost for a flight to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors. I am so glad that we did. With it probably being the only time that we will ever be in China, it gave us a chance to see this amazing place.

We were also able to visit the main sites around Beijing including the Great Wall of China, Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. Just unbelievably beautiful places. The biggest issue with traveling to China unfortunately is the pollution. When we arrived it was at a hazardous level. Fortunately it improved and by the third day, the pollution level was actually good. If you are going to Beijing, be sure to use the website http://aqicn.org/city/beijing to see what the pollution level is at; since you will want to have pollution masks to protect you from the horrible stuff. This is what the airport looked like on our flight from Beijing to Xian.

Below are a few photos we took while in Beijing.

Terracotta Warriors

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Forbidden City

Temple of Heaven

Our cruise on the Oceania Nautica began at Tianjin; which is about 2.5 hours away from Beijing, so there is a real benefit in having a cruise start or end in Tianjin, so that you can spend some touring time in Beijing. With this being our third Oceania cruise, we have gotten used to the wonderful food and service. We have been spoiled by Oceania and are worried that we might not be as happy with other lines anymore.

Our requirement for a cruise to Northeast Asia was that we stop in Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo. It was difficult to find a cruise that did all three; but fortunately Oceania did. With the smaller size of the Nautica, we were able to dock in downtown Shanghai, right across from the beautiful Pudong area. It allowed us to be able to watch the Orient Pearl Tower light show each night.

We also visited the port of Dalian in China. We were so impressed with how modern that every city we visited was. Additionally there was so much construction going on everywhere. We had originally expected China to be more like North Vietnam that we visited a few years ago. It was nothing at all like it, thank goodness; and we thoroughly enjoyed all the sights we saw and the lovely people we met.

In addition to Tokyo, we also visited Okinawa, Kobe and Nagoya in Japan. Japan is such a lovely place; but the people are so sweet. They are the most respectful and polite people we have experienced. Plus everything is so clean. There was no trash on the highways and we saw almost no graffiti anywhere. We were able to have overnight visits in both Kobe and Tokyo. By being in Kobe overnight, we were able to visit Kyoto one day and Osaka the next. Both just amazing cities. Below are some pics from Kyoto.

Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine

Golden Pavillion

Below are some pics from Osaka.

Osaka Castle

Shinsekai area of Osaka

We had hoped that with the timing of the cruise that we would be in Tokyo during the high point of Cherry Blossom season. Unfortunately we were a week early; but it was still beautiful with all the buds; plus there were some early blooming trees.

It was a definitely a once in a lifetime vacation. Our full review with many photos is on our website www.thepreismans.com. I hope it encourages you to book a trip to China and/or Japan. You will be glad you did. I now understand better why Royal Caribbean is home porting their newest ships in Asia. It is such a dynamic area with so much to see and do.

Oh good, looking forward to the rest of your adventures and the big review!!!

Beautiful pictures so far!

Thanks Mike

Nice photos

On page 2 of your blog & nice to see the new Nautica

Also the enclosed smoking area in Horizons ;)

Great job as usual

Lyn

Oh good, looking forward to the rest of your adventures and the big review!!!

 

Beautiful pictures so far!

Thanks; but there are whole bunch of pics. Hope it isn't too much; but I put them in so we don't forget our trips either.

Thanks Mike

Nice photos

On page 2 of your blog & nice to see the new Nautica

Also the enclosed smoking area in Horizons ;)

 

Great job as usual

 

Lyn

Having just been on the Riviera in December, I hadn't even realized that the smoking area hadn't been there before. Thanks for pointing it out. I will have to mention that it was added in the renovation.

Having just been on the Riviera in December, I hadn't even realized that the smoking area hadn't been there before. Thanks for pointing it out. I will have to mention that it was added in the renovation.

The smoking area was there before just not enclosed ;)

The smoking area was there before just not enclosed ;)

Thanks for clarifying.

Mike

Mike

Enjoying your post.

This is similar to a cruise we would like to do next year (With O)

Steve

Thanks for posting, Mike, I love your photographic reviews and have had your website bookmarked for a while.

Keep up the good work, it's a marvellous resource.

Our requirement for a cruise to Northeast Asia was that we stop in Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo. It was difficult to find a cruise that did all three; but fortunately Oceania did. With the smaller size of the Nautica, we were able to dock in downtown Shanghai, right across from the beautiful Pudong area. It allowed us to be able to watch the Orient Pearl Tower light show each night.

An enthusiastic +1 for all these comments. Amazing itinerary!

We did the same cruise in 2010 and think of it as one of the highlights of our traveling life. Like you, we added pre-cruise land stays in Tokyo and in Beijing. We also added a post-cruise stay in Hong Kong.

Having lived for decades in Washington, DC, we know that scheduling a visit far in advance for the purpose of seeing peak time for the cherry blosssoms is simply a roll of the dice. Even if you arrive in the midst of the official Cherry Blossom festival, the cherry trees read their own calendars! Your photograph shows you did very well, even if not quite peak bloom.

I cannot wait to read everything, thanks so much for all the time you invest.

Thanks so much for the very nice comments. If you haven't been to this part of the world, I highly recommend visiting there. Especially if you can do it with Oceania. O does make visiting great ports even better.

Thanks so much for the very nice comments. If you haven't been to this part of the world, I highly recommend visiting there. Especially if you can do it with Oceania. O does make visiting great ports even better.

+1 We had a great SE Asia cruise on Insignia this year.

Thank you so much for doing this! We are doing a very similar cruise next March (20 days from Beijing to Hong Kong with all the ports you listed). This is a HUGE help in what to see/expect. Thanks again and glad you had a fantastic trip! :)

Enjoyed your post. We lucked out in arriving in Beijing just as you were leaving and the smog or fog as they call it had been blown away, so we had clearer skies than you did. I hope the wind wasn't blowing at Tianjin port when you got there. That was the coldest wind we encountered on our cruise.

Really enjoyed your review, thank you. This is a trip we would love to do. What are the seas like in this part of the world? We don't like rough seas though I know they can be rough anywhere.

Really enjoyed your review, thank you. This is a trip we would love to do. What are the seas like in this part of the world? We don't like rough seas though I know they can be rough anywhere.

Taiwan Strait is among the roughest water in the world. On a Beijing to Hong Kong itinerary you will sail through this twice, arriving at and departing from Taiwan (Keelung).

Taiwan Strait is the body of water whose reputation caused us to book the lowest mid-ships veranda deck, despite previously cruising in a PH. Our advance planning was justified. Transiting the Strait, we even left our deck six cabin and spent most of our time in the public rooms on the fifth deck of Nautica. The bottom line was that I was never seasick. In fact, we were able to eat in the GD although we did ask to be seated away from a window. Otherwise, you should not count on challenging sea conditions, although we all know they occur from time to time.

Really enjoyed your review, thank you. This is a trip we would love to do. What are the seas like in this part of the world? We don't like rough seas though I know they can be rough anywhere.

I highly recommend doing it. The seas were great for us. So I guess we were lucky.

Taiwan Strait is among the roughest water in the world. On a Beijing to Hong Kong itinerary you will sail through this twice, arriving at and departing from Taiwan (Keelung).

 

Taiwan Strait is the body of water whose reputation caused us to book the lowest mid-ships veranda deck, despite previously cruising in a PH. Our advance planning was justified. Transiting the Strait, we even left our deck six cabin and spent most of our time in the public rooms on the fifth deck of Nautica. The bottom line was that I was never seasick. In fact, we were able to eat in the GD although we did ask to be seated away from a window. Otherwise, you should not count on challenging sea conditions, although we all know they occur from time to time.

Thank you very helpful. I think I might have a job to persuade DH to do this trip.

We were on the same cruise. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Not only did it hit the high points, but it stayed long enough in them. And with O's food and service.

We also arrived on Beijing early to allow more time for sightseeing. We came just as the "yellow haze" blew out. Out was cold and windy most of the time, but the sky was blue. We stayed overnight in Kyoto, a great treat. Unfortunately we could not spend more time in Tokyo, but we still got a day and a half and a decent taste of the city.

I don't think we went through the Taiwan strait. We had calm seas.

The only caveats are that Nautica is an R class ship and I prefer the O class, and that the ship's tours were weak. We hired or own guides, and were very pleased.

Thank you very helpful. I think I might have a job to persuade DH to do this trip.

As Mike said, this was a bucket list trip for him. I was not really interested and he had to do a lot of talking to convince me to go. Thank goodness he did! Except for the horrible pollution, it rates as one of my favorite cruises. Thanks Sweetie, for convincing me to go!

Hello

onlyeshgh,

welcome to cruise critic!