Anyone been to the Neruta, Awa Adori, or lantern festival in Japan??

I would love to know how you got to your seats, if they were good seats, and how you went to a bathroom during the 5 hour tours!

We did the festivals cruise last year. Most of the time, it was not worth doing them as a Princess excursion. For instance, the Neruta festival in Amori....we saw some of the parade during the excursion and then went to a museum area where we saw the winners from the previous year. Rather than returning to the ship with the group, we opted to spend more time in the town and just happened to see the floats returning to their storage area. We got a much better look at them then we could during the excursion.

For the evening parade,(different festival, sorry I'd have to look up the name) we went on our own. The drop off point was exactly the same as those on the excursion. The only difference was that they were guided to an area with folding chairs which had been reserved; we had to find our own seats/watch area. The meeting place for the bus back was exactly the same. There were 2 lines--one for those who had paid for the excursion, the other for those who were riding the free city bus.

At most of the ports in Japan, the city provided a complimentary bus into town or to the train station. Most locations had public restrooms. At the temples and shrines, the key is that you want a US toilet, not a Japanese one. And use it when it is there; you don't know when the next availability will be.

One great thing--we spent an extra week in Tokyo after the cruise. My daughter wanted me to see a place where cosplay is the norm every weekend....except that this particular weekend we stumbled on their national dance festival. That was a lot of fun to see.

We did the festivals cruise last year. Most of the time' date=' it was not worth doing them as a Princess excursion. For instance, the Neruta festival in Amori....we saw some of the parade during the excursion and then went to a museum area where we saw the winners from the previous year. Rather than returning to the ship with the group, we opted to spend more time in the town and just happened to see the floats returning to their storage area. We got a much better look at them then we could during the excursion.

 

For the evening parade,(different festival, sorry I'd have to look up the name) we went on our own. The drop off point was exactly the same as those on the excursion. The only difference was that they were guided to an area with folding chairs which had been reserved; we had to find our own seats/watch area. The meeting place for the bus back was exactly the same. There were 2 lines--one for those who had paid for the excursion, the other for those who were riding the free city bus.

 

At most of the ports in Japan, the city provided a complimentary bus into town or to the train station. Most locations had public restrooms. At the temples and shrines, the key is that you want a US toilet, not a Japanese one. And use it when it is there; you don't know when the next availability will be.

 

One great thing--we spent an extra week in Tokyo after the cruise. My daughter wanted me to see a place where cosplay is the norm every weekend....except that this particular weekend we stumbled on their national dance festival. That was a lot of fun to see.[/quote']

 

Thank you for the information. Did you have trouble finding seats? I meant, are there bathrooms accessible during the parade itself? How far did you have to walk? I have difficulty with walking very far.

For the evening parade, there were bathrooms at the drop off/meet the bus building which were open all evening. We walked about 3 blocks, which gave us a feel for the festival and put us in a spot near the end of the parade. We could have chosen to walk a lot farther toward the beginning of the parade, but this seemed pointless. It was nowhere near 5 hours. I would suggest you use the restroom when you get off the bus; that should hold you for at least a couple of hours. Use it again before you get in the bus line to go back to the ship. Since we had no need, I didn't explore the location of other restrooms, but I know we could have walked back to the bus stop.

For the Amori festival, there were restrooms in the museum and gift shop area. If you do it on your own, there is no fee to enter the gift shop area which also houses a snack bar and restrooms. There is a charge for the museum.

For the dance festival--didn't use a restroom so didn't look for one.

For the evening water festival (which you'll see from the ship), something got messed up. We were on deck at the appointed time and gave up after an hour. It started MUCH later than posted as we did hear the fireworks from our cabin.

Thank you

You may want to post this on the Asia sub-forum instead. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=70