This was from our very first cruise all the way back in 2008 aboard Diamond Princess in Asia for our honeymoon and it was taken on one of the last sea days of the fabulous experience. I didn’t really take very many photos of the ship at all which can be explained by a lack of mobile phones with good cameras on them and me only having a 50mm prime lens on my DSLR at the time with the photography hobby being very new. I did pick up a Tokina wide angle lens in Hong Kong during the cruise and this shot was using it and getting more of the ship in view. But because it was late in the cruise all the excitement and strangeness of being on a ship for the first time had eased away into wonderful relaxation aboard and things like photos and videos of ships just wasn’t a thing back then. Oh for a time machine.

The photo now is a lot brighter and sharper, with a lot of the noise colour noise removed and some brightening of the shadows to just pick out what’s going on under the covers. A pale wash to both lighten the yellows and make the water in the pool pop has been added and the curves have been stretched to bring out more contrast.

This is a short post documenting a few activities that took place at the conclusion of our excursion while docked at the port of Shanghai (at Waigaoqiao) which had seen us take a tour of the ancient water town of Zhujiajiao.

Our honeymoon cruise aboard Diamond Princess took place in November, so while it was still just about light by the time we’d reached the port and boarded the ship at the end of the long drive into the megacity, it wasn’t long before darkness fell. The early part of the evening – following a quick freshen up, of course – included a stroll around the promenade deck to see what the port area looked like from the ship. Cruise ports in general tend to fall within one of three categories:

• No port at all to speak of; you take a tender boat to and from the ship
• A dedicated cruise terminal
• Docking facilities shared with some other purpose

Of the latter category those other purposes can be ferry or fishing uses, or, more typically, commercial and industrial ports, and Shanghai at the time was most certainly an industrial area. The views from Diamond Princess were not only dark but fairly bleak, harshly-lit, concrete and steel.

Over the years that we’ve been cruising we’ve discovered that we’re not really interested in going to see evening shows. In fact, if you’d asked me if we ever went to shows I might have said only once, because the only one I could remember was a Madness tribute act aboard a P&O cruise ship. However, when I stumbled upon a few photographs for the evening of this Shanghai port stop I realised that we had actually attended a performance on this very first cruise of ours; I’d almost completely forgotten about it, which is not to say that it wasn’t good. The pictures below – excusing the quality, once again – show the skills of the Chinese acrobats who’d boarded the cruise ship to entertain the passengers. I certainly took enough photographs to indicate I must have been impressed at the time even if, perhaps in comparison to all the other amazing sights and experiences of this trip, the memory of what we’d seen that night swiftly faded into the background.

After the acrobats had performed and departed the ship, and after Diamond Princess had left the port of Shanghai, and after we’d had some food somewhere in there, we ended up in Skywalkers Nightclub. On these Grand-class cruise ships operated by Princess Cruises Skywalkers is quite probably our most-visited spot on the vessel. We will typically finish every evening with a couple of hours of listening to music, maybe strutting our stuff to a tune or two, people-watching (if we’re not the only people around; which happens more often than you’d think, and happened an awful lot on this particular cruise), and, naturally, grabbing some late drinking opportunities. Jack Daniels and Coke would be my go-to drink for this cruise, and with us often being the only people around in venues at night we soon got to know many of the staff and they got to know us too, to the point that I would frequently walk into somewhere like Skywalkers or Explorers, catch the eye of a waiter, nod, get a smile, and get a drink in short order without even having to say a word or show my cruise card. What’s not to love?

The following day would be a sea day as Diamond Princess made her way towards the Japanese city of Naha on Okinawa.

Bus rides, and especially those on which no photos or videos were taken, are generally not that interesting, but there are two points to remark upon on this one.

The road that we were originally following was a wide, multi-laned affair through the Chinese landscape southwest of Beijing. Driving distance to the port is around one hundred and seventy kilometres so we were expected to be on the bus for a little over two hours but within half an hour it became clear that there was a problem as the very little traffic that we’d seen on the road was clearly coming to a halt for reasons unknown. We initially thought that there must have been an accident ahead but another bus travelling in the opposite direction was being driven by someone who knew our driver and so stopped alongside to let him know what was happening. Immediately afterwards, while the other cars were still waiting in line, our bus did a U-turn across the opposite lanes and headed back the way we’d come, then turned off to find a new route. With Beijing relying heavily on good transport links to the port this was luckily fairly easy to do. We soon learnt from our representative on board that some Communist party leaders were apparently on their way somewhere and as was apparently the way things were done back then this meant they got the road all to themselves until they’d passed by.

The second incident I’m mentioning with no respect as to whether you’re eating right now or not was when we took a brief stop to use the rest rooms. This was something that looked like a truckers’ stop in the middle of nowhere because that’s mostly what it was. Normally, I can suppress the need to use the loo on a journey as short (despite the diversion) as this was supposed to be but it turned out that the Peking Duck I’d eaten had different thoughts on the matter. We all got off the bus, some just to stretch legs, and those who didn’t need to visit the toilets almost instantly got back on because the change in the weather from earlier in the day was extreme; it was certainly not t-shirt weather at the exposed rest stop; the wind pickup and the temperature drop was brutal. Off I walked briskly to the toilets.

Ah, toilets when you’re abroad. They can be terrifying things. This was and still remains the worst example of one in all my years of travelling. Picture a large room with cubicles numbering perhaps two dozen lining three walls. The cubicles had doors so that was good, but that was the only good thing. A hole was set in the floor of each cubicle, but not a deep one, and from it a gully ran into a communal trough set into the floor that ran outside and along the front of all the doors. And that was it. A man stationed in the large room had a bucket and mop which meant his job was to enter cubicles after they’d been used in order to throw water into the pit so it would run into the gully and into the communal trough. Water slowly took all that waste around the room and down drains but it made the act of using the toilet one of blocking your nose, stepping over the trough of shit, entering the cubicle, closing the door, squatting and hoping to hell you managed to avoid anything you were wearing, then leaving over the trough once more so the cleaner could come in and manually flush it all away.

Oh, and there was no toilet roll. Cue me turning around, heading straight back to the bus, grabbing all the packs of tissues we’d luckily still got, and rushing back. A wholly unpleasant experience. Stupid, greasy, fatty, tasty duck.

I’m going to freely admit that people who’ve stumbled upon this The First Day Aboard Diamond Princess post probably didn’t come here looking for toilet-squatting terrors in Asia so you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve finished with that now.

Xingang was the name listed on all our documentation but that was just the shortened form of Tianjin Xingang meaning “New Port of Tianjin“, and that was where we finally got to step aboard a cruise ship for the very first time.

I must confess that I don’t have any real memories of this boarding experience. From later cruise-boarding I know that we must have had our suitcases taken away by porters and we must have queued up to have our documentation checked and cruise cards issued but this whole area just isn’t surfacing. Perhaps it was the strangeness of it all, and possibly not helped by the sun having set already at this time of the year. A commercial port in a strange land in the twilight hours likely won’t have too much exciting detail to recall. Most likely, though, is that we’d both had a lot of trouble getting over the jet lag from the flight out to China in the first place – I had found myself awake at four most mornings and crashing early in the evening every day – so we were just tired when we boarded.

We would have eaten, we would have had a drink or two if I know us, we would have unpacked our bags when they arrived, but we very likely went to bed early. We must have explored a little bit too because I have a single photo as evidence. The following picture doesn’t look like much but here it is in all its glory, the very first photo I took aboard a cruise ship and the only photo snapped on that first evening, Club Fusion on Diamond Princess in 2008:

Diamond Princess should have left Tianjin that first evening but our log of the cruise indicates that there were clearance issues with the local authorities leading to a later embarkation process and resulting in the ship staying alongside overnight to ensure all passengers were boarded. By the time we emerged from our cabin, though, the sun was up and the ship was at sea.

If I could list all the things we did and ate and drank on this first day on Princess Cruises‘ Diamond Princess then I wouldn’t hesitate to bore you senseless with the details. As you can tell, no minor bit of useless information is too small for me to overlook most of the time. However, this was 2008 which was a time before cameras on phones was a thing, and with this being our first cruise we hadn’t yet picked up the habit of keeping hold of all the documentation we could. That’s right: no Princess Patters! Shocking. If you’re thinking about cruising for the first time then let me give you some advice, and that’s to keep all those pamphlets that end up in your room every day; they’re fabulous reminders of what will be a fantastic experience.

We did pick up some quiz sheets and sat in the piazza – the central space on this class of vessel often called an atrium on other ships and usually if there are more windows present – and, in a rare moment you’ll want to treasure, the closest thing you’ll find of us to a selfie was taken.

We naturally explored outside on the cruise ship since that’s its unique selling point. You might want to visit a hotel somewhere because it has some facilities or it’s near somewhere handy but when you’re on a cruise ship then every inch of it inside and out is all part of the holiday experience too.

Something you might take for granted these days if you’re possibly thinking of taking cruise for the first time is to have a search on the internet in order to see what the ship and rooms and facilities are like from a non-corporate, genuine perspective. Yes, the site existed, but it had only been up and running for a couple of years before we booked our cruise so the vast amount of research material present today simply wasn’t there. We had a few descriptions of how good it was from some relatives and one formal photo of my in-laws to go on. Everything was new to us.

The sea!

There’s a clock there!

Look, lifeboats along here!

A hot tub!

The carpet is a different colour in this corridor!

A first day on a cruise ship is a great chance to be five years old again.

Our levels of unpreparedness were exposed in much the same way as we ourselves were when we ventured out onto the open, top decks of Diamond Princess. This was a cruise to Asia taking in places such as Vietnam and Thailand which for some reason meant we’d completely overlooked the fact that the temperature at points might actually be cold. In fact, while it would reach close to thirty three degrees Celsius at sea later in the cruise, for this first day in the Yellow Sea off China it only just crept into double figures and there was a strong wind accentuated by the natural progression of the ship. One of the other things we did early on this first cruise day, therefore, was hit the shops on board in order to buy some Princess-branded hoodies. Suitably protected from the surprising-to-us weather we then took a look around.

My very first example of taking a photo of a bird during travels abroad and not having a clue what it was (or still is) but knowing that it was just different enough from what we’d be able to see at home to know I wanted to capture that moment.

I think it’s some kind of tit. It probably thought the same about me.

Not too many photos inside Diamond Princess on this first day but I do know that we took part in the trivia games that occurred every few hours. We ended up getting approached by two other couples who had also flown into China early to enjoy the three days pre-cruise tours arranged by Princess Cruises. We’d not talked to them at the time but over the couple of weeks aboard ship we would all be regular quizzing buddies. Sandra and Ian were from somewhere up the north of England, while Ken and Lowell were from Alabama. In case you’re wondering how people become quizzing buddies on a cruise ship then it works a little bit like this approach to us from Lowell:

You were in Beijing, right, before this cruise?

Yes.

Are you here for the trivia?

Yes.

Good, we’ll join you because you look smart.

Flattery has the power to penetrate our Shield of Introversion. Plus, she wasn’t wrong; we ended up winning the trivia many times.

In addition to trivia we would also have checked out the buffet for lunch and taken a look at whatever other entertainment was going on around the ship such as drinks demonstrations. Over the course of this cruise our daytime activities on Diamond Princess would see us also attend lectures on topics such as the history of magic and the life of Houdini, see comedian Kelly Monteith deliver a set (a room of tired, older people was not the best of audiences), and get roped into a demonstration of close-up magic in the piazza in front of everyone (to our horror because of the situation, and to our amazement because of what we saw).

We very much enjoyed heading out onto the Promenade Deck during our cruise, especially since we’d booked an inside cabin and wanted to enjoy the outside views as much as possible. The Promenade Deck on Diamond Princess is a full wraparound deck which means you can walk a complete circuit, although if you have any walking difficulties then you should be aware that there is a section that requires you to climb some steps. This first day of cruising included at least two complete circuits for me and my wife as I took photos on one of them and also recorded the eight-minute-long stroll on another. That video is not included below for reasons. There’s a reason I mostly take pictures and not video.

The last photos taken on this first day aboard the cruise ship were of our cabin, something we did instinctively because it felt like the sort of thing that was required of travellers, and an instinct that has been borne out over the following years as it turns out that literally everyone who writes about their trips includes photos of the room. Basically, if you don’t fell compelled to take a shot of your room then you’ve probably not got the travel blogger gene in you.

Our cabin was C116, a deck and position – forward – that would become our favourite over the years on these Grand-class vessels, but we’d booked an Inside Cabin following advice from my in-laws. It was cheaper, they said, and you would be able to get sea views from the Promenade Deck or on top of the ship. That was certainly true, but it was the only time we booked a room without its own view because for us the sea is an important aspect of cruising and we’ve come to love having our own balcony on which to read and stare out to sea with a drink, and without people around us. They also convinced us to take off the daily gratuities that would be paid to save money too which we did at the reception desk because we were virgin cruisers. Again, the only time we’ve done that because we now understand how the wages work on an American-run ship and how the tips are pooled; anyone who stops the automatic payment of tips to staff is doing so because they’re short of money, they’re tight with money, or they think it will make them appear more special when they personally hand out cash to individuals (who won’t be allowed to keep it) and so boost their ego. Don’t do that. Budget for that when you’re booking your holiday. There’s a good you.

Inside cabins on a cruise ship have lots of mirrors to make the room feel larger. Great if you’re vain, but problematic if you don’t like having yourself in any photos. Hence the dreadful angles. Two beds pushed together as a double with small tables either side. A long desk with some storage. Plenty of space for cases and hanging clothes. A TV. A bathroom with shower. It’s a room on a ship. There’s only so much you can say about them.

After this full day at sea – the first of many sea days we would grow to adore over the following years – we would be returning to China with a stop at the port of the staggeringly large city of Shanghai where we had pre-booked an excursion to visit the ancient water town of Zhuijiajiao.

We had no big plans for the day other than to leave packing as late as possible because all the while your clothes are still in the wardrobe you’re still on holiday and they can’t remove you from your room. Old maritime law. One thing we had discovered, though, was that through a combination of the ESPN channel that was available in the state rooms and the time difference between where we were on our approach to Japan and the east coast of the USA we would be able to watch the Patriots taking on the Bills first thing in the morning. With me being a Patriots fan this was something I couldn’t really miss so with breakfast out of the way we settled into our room ready to watch some football. I know the rest of the world and I shouldn’t call it football but you pick up American terms when you’re a fan of American sports. Same applies when you’re a software developer; we all spell colour color in our heads. We even say it that way. You can’t tell but we know we’re saying it without the ‘u’.

The game wasn’t long underway before there was a shipwide and in-cabin announcement from the captain. In-cabin announcements are rare and are for important things. The captain announced that two passengers had been taken seriously ill in the early hours of the morning and required an air evacuation by helicopter. However, the Japanese Coast Guard helicopter had turned up an hour ahead of when it said it would which had thrown a spanner in the works as far as Diamond Princess was concerned because the passengers weren’t ready to be moved and the top decks had not been cleared of people, something necessary for any ship that wants to keep its Days Since Helicopter Rotors Sent Passengers Flying Overboard figure as high as possible. While that activity was taking place as quickly as possible and while the ship was being turned to make it easier for the coast guard to gain access we were treated to the helicopter circling, looping out, and making close overflies for the best part of half an hour. For me, then, it became a task of ducking out onto the balcony to see if there was anything to see (naturally nosey, me) and ducking back into the room to make sure I didn’t miss any of the football action. It was the most exercise I got during the cruise.

This was the second time we’d been on a cruise and had a helicopter airlift for passengers take place, the only previous time being earlier that same year aboard Sapphire Princess. As with that occasion the main action seemed to be visible only from the port side of the ship. We tend to cruise on the starboard side out of habit so for us there was plenty of sound of spinning rotor blades from above and occasional signs of things getting battered by the downdraught of the helicopter but that was all. Eventually, the pitch of the helicopter sound changed and it became clear it had flown towards land as the noise died off, the ship started turning back to its original course, and there then followed the announcement thanking everyone for their patience during the matter. We hope the passengers involved were okay.

With that unexpected activity complete and a victory for the Patriots viewed we grabbed some lunch then went for a nose around the ship to find a spot to read and see if there was anything going on. This was early afternoon and it was time for the Egg Drop Challenge for those who had signed up for the event. In case you’re unaware or can’t guess, this challenge involves constructing something that will protect an egg dropped from the top of the piazza with the winner being the person closest to the centre mark. As with most other activities on the ship this was popular with the Japanese contingent of passengers and mostly ignored by the rest of us; so many Japanese passengers took part, in fact, that they had to drop in pairs in order to get through the challenge before dinner. If you ever find yourself working for a company that does one of those utterly humiliating and dreadful team-building events involving you making things like bridges out of spaghetti or towers out of straw or a sensible business plan out of tears then try to sit next to any Japanese fellow-employees if possible because what they appear to lack in construction ability they more than make up for in will-do-all-the-work-so-you-don’t-have-to ability which is key to your success in any large organisation.

The last sea day was a busy one for the piazza on Diamond Princess. Not too long after the entertaining egg drop challenge had completed and the floor area had been cleared of any residual egg shells and yolks from the less successful uncontrolled landings a large group of passengers who had been learning different dances from around the world during the cruise gathered to show off their moves in the Festivals Of The World performance. Your challenge is to guess what festival and culture is being represented in the video below and if you guess correctly then you’ve done better than me because I still don’t know.

The early evening then saw the piazza transformed for the late night balloon drop. This is something we’ve never attended on any cruise because it’s always been rammed with people, we just haven’t felt the urge to stake out a decent viewing location early enough for the farewell party, and the timing always seems to clash with a bar somewhere else on the ship serving us a drink. One day we’ll see one, I’m sure.

We headed to the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers for some nibbles and cocktails and final sunset views over the ocean from the aft of Diamond Princess. It was a stunningly beautiful sight with which to end the cruise. These are the views for which we cruise.

Our final evening meal was interrupted as per tradition by the Baked Alaska Parade which naturally meant that Baked Alaska was the last dessert we ate aboard the ship.

We finished the night off with a cocktail in Crooners and another one in Skywalkers for some final disco music to round the cruise off in traditional style. In the morning we would be in Yokohama from where we’d started the cruise and several hours later we would be flying back home. Boo and, indeed, hiss.

Princess Patter

Every evening you’ll have delivered to your stateroom the Princess Patter, the programme of events for the following day. On the front on port days you’ll find very useful information relating to emergency phone numbers, shuttle buses, tender boat operations, etc. On sea days it’s typically more general with a few spotlights of events you can enjoy aboard ship. You can see the Princess Patter information for our penultimate cruise sea day below. We like to have a good nose at what’s going on around the ship in the printed version in the evening and morning then tend to rely on the digital version during the day that’s available on your phone for free when connected to the ship’s wi-fi in airplane mode. You can see the information on how to do that in the Princess@Sea box on the front page.

Morning Activities

It was great to wake up to yet another blue sky (despite the weather forecast in the Patter) and Diamond Princess was passing the Amami Islands when we emerged from our night’s slumber. There was a pretty strong northerly breeze with a bite to it but it otherwise looked to be another glorious day at sea. They’re all glorious, really.

After breakfast we would normally take part in the morning trivia but we decided to skip it in favour of the Culinary Show taking place at 10:15 in the theatre. We’d been to one of these before on Sapphire Princess (see: Sapphire Princess Food And Drink) and wanted to see how different it would be on a ship catering to the Japanese market in the way that Diamond did. The answer: not very, and probably a side-effect of having a vast number of Italian chefs on the Princess Cruises fleet who then favour the same sort of food specialities to demonstrate. Nevertheless, it was fun, with a very amiable executive chef again in the form of Fabrizio Fazzini. All of his preparation explanations were translated by one of the Japanese staff with the exception of a remark about how extra virgin olive oil doesn’t stay that way long around Italians. “Yeah, I’m not translating that,” she said to loud laughter.

I took video of the culinary demonstration and of the walk through the galley that takes place afterwards and will upload the unedited versions at some point but for now you can see short clips in the sea day activities highlights video at the bottom of this post. You’ll also be able to see some footage of the outlet sale area in the dining room through which you exit after the galley tour and clips of the Bollywood dance class that was taking place in the piazza just afterwards too.

Afternoon Activities

Sea days are swimming days for us. Diamond Princess hadn’t been particularly kind to the avid swimmer by not heating any of its pools but we’d found that south of Japan the shallow depth of the Sanctuary Pool under the sunshine was just about acceptable temperature-wise. We decided we wanted a swim, changed into the appropriate gear, made our way to our favourite pool and discovered it had been netted off. The sea wasn’t rough so there didn’t seem to be a good reason for it and nobody could give me an answer as to when it might be made available so we took the plunge and tried the main outdoor pool for the first time since the first day aboard. It was cold but tolerable so long as you kept moving and kept your shoulders below the water’s surface where the wind was whipping across it occasionally and kept repeating to yourself that the additional blubber that had formed over the preceding fortnight was protecting you like a manatee.

We ended up swimming for about 75 minutes which was about three times as long as we’d initially planned. In the first instance this was because I got talking to a Canadian man as we swam lengths and we swapped cruise experiences as you do with everyone you meet on one of these trips at sea. After he gave in to the need to warm up, my wife and I found ourselves in a quandary. The ice carving demonstration had just started beside the pool. In itself not a problem but it was right beside where we’d put down our clothes and bags. This meant we’d need to walk in front of a gathered crowd and – worse – the ship’s videographers recording the event in order to dry ourselves, grab our clothes, and go. Our sense of propriety forbade the possibility that our near-naked masses might make the final cut of the highlights DVD so we extended our swim until the coast was clear. We grabbed burgers and fries as we tried to get feeling back into our extremities.

We wouldn’t have been allowed to stay in the water much longer anyway as the next activity on this sea day was due to start and it involved the pool we’d been swimming in. This was Scrapheap Challenge “The Boat Float”. Earlier in the cruise there had been the opportunity for passengers to sign up to the challenge of constructing a vessel that could float and be towed around the perimeter of the swimming pool, carrying cans of drink. As with all the group activities on Diamond Princess this was something that the Japanese passengers signed up for in their droves. When it comes to participation we’ve never met a group with a more go-for-it attitude than the people of Japan.

We grabbed a decent viewing location – in the sun for still-needed warmth and good light for photographs but more exposed to the wind to keep us from burning – and took a great deal of enjoyment in seeing the Boat Float challenge proceed.

It was a well-attended event as you can see from the many photos I took. It was also a lot of fun and interesting to see those who were there just to take part and those who really wanted to win. There were two prizes up for grabs, those being for the fastest lap of the pool and for the best design.

Boats came in a variety of styles from those constructed just from inflatables that had been brought along or bought on the ship to those getting more in the spirit of the game made with balloons or cardboard or anything else really.

Mishaps did occur. String untied itself in one instance almost causing the vessel being towed to drift into the centre of the pool out of reach. In a few cases the boats either weren’t quite up to the task of carrying the cans they had been loaded with or the person towing their vessel had tugged too hard and upended it all. In either event the result was the same and the cans sank to the bottom of the pool which led to calls for a brave person – an Australian gentleman as it turned out – to dive in and retrieve the cargo. As we knew how cold the water was we can only salute him.

Winners were eventually crowned and their prizes ended up being the cans of drinks they’d been ferrying around the pool for everyone’s entertainment. Some high intensity boat float action can be seen in the highlights video at the bottom of this post.

Taking advantage of having my big camera with me out on deck and lovely weather conditions I had to have a quick stroll around to see if anything jumped out at me and wanted to be photographed. You’d be surprised how much does, over and over. My wife wouldn’t. We noticed that the pool we’d wanted to swim in was still netted off.

A very casual activity for a sea day for us is wildlife-spotting. We’re not experts by any stretch of the imagination and we certainly don’t go out of our way to look for creatures of any sort when we’re travelling but it’s sometimes hard not to be captivated by what you see crossing your path so if there are reports of pods of dolphins then you look even if you’ve seen them a dozen times before. Similarly, when we spot birds we try to pay attention to them especially when we’re cruising far from home because it’s likely we’ll have never seen them before and life is about experiences and gaining knowledge and a continual quest for one-upmanship. Thus, when we spotted some black and white birds keeping pace with Diamond Princess, sometimes circling around it, more often gently flying alongside, we made our way to the promenade deck for a closer look. We probably watched the birds for a good fifteen minutes and a little research once we got back says they were probably Brown Boobies of the subspecies Sula leucogaster plotus. Knowledge!

Of course, there’s a sea day activity that we always engage in and that’s drinking. After all our outdoors entertainment we grabbed our reading materials (I like physical books, my wife has her Kindle) and a set of playing cards (in case the desire to challenge one another at ten-card brag overwhelmed us) and hit our favourite place to drink on a Princess Cruises ship, Crooners.

Situated at the top of the piazza it’s easy to tell when there’s some activity taking place in it that might be of interest. A typical day will often see some music being played but you might find group dances taking place too (as there had been earlier in the day) and some traditional ship games such as the bean bag toss that started not long after we’d grabbed our seats. Yet again, as with every participation activity on Diamond Princess this was something attended by the Japanese passengers aboard in large numbers again and although the photos don’t show it the number of people waiting to play was probably several dozen. The video at the end of this post contains a little bit of footage of this activity and a rather unusual throwing technique deployed by a frustrated competitor.

Evening Activities

As you can see from the Princess Patter at the top of the page this penultimate cruise day aboard Diamond Princess was a formal night. We don’t mind formal nights, we most often dress up for them, but on this particular day we just weren’t feeling it, even though the last formal night on a cruise is the big one: the one where the champagne fountain at the farewell cocktail party in the piazza takes place, the one where lobster tends to be on the menu. We’d already decided that we were going to do things completely different for a change and order room service, drink the two bottles of champagne we’d won in a couple of trivia games during the cruise, and watch a few movies from the very large selection available.

But this didn’t mean we couldn’t head up to the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers and take advantage of one of the cheaper drinks there and enjoy what was sure to be another spectacularly beautiful sunset at sea. As our drinks arrived we were pleased to see people already there in formal wear and because Diamond Princess caters about 50/50 for Japanese and Western passengers it was especially pleasing to see some people in formal Japanese clothing.

The two films we ended up watching were Table 19 and The Shape of Water, the former (which was okay) because it had been recommended by the Canadian swimmer earlier in the day and the latter (which was fantastic) because it had been a film we’d meant to watch when it came out at the cinema.

That concludes our sea day activities aboard Diamond Princess. We would have one more day on the ocean before this utterly fantastic cruise would come to an end. The video below (temporarily removed) contains edited highlights of some of this day’s activities as explained during this post.

It was nice to be able to see Keelung under better weather conditions than either we’d experienced in the morning or on our previous visit ten years earlier.

Keelung From The Top Deck

Until this point our visual experience of the port of Keelung had been all facing roughly eastwards as that was the direction our balcony looked out on. Heading up to the top deck gave us a chance to see the western side of the port which included some small passenger ship terminals, a ship alongside us, and a view of the hill in that direction on which there was a landmark sign reminding us which city we were in.

We became quite distracted looking down in the port basin alongside Diamond Princess as we noticed birds skimming slowly over the water’s surface then soaring around and repeating the task. They were clearly after food just below or on the surface but what really caught our attention was that they were raptors rather than seabirds and this was behaviour we hadn’t expected to see in birds of this type. It’s probably a very common act for them but I don’t know much about birds. A little investigation says that they’re most likely to be a Taiwan-specific family of black kites.

Following the top deck of the cruise ship around I took more photos of the more-familiar views of Keelung that we’d been able to see from our balcony. My excuse for taking as many photos as I do – not that I need one or that you care – is that the higher elevation of the shots and constantly changing light makes every shot different even if there’s little to immediately distinguish one from the other. I’m also immensely drawn to architecture and as much so whether that’s the ancient sort such as the prominent Zhupu Altar or modern buildings with their patterns of windows and repetitive structures creating geometric interest, both types of which we could see in this direction.

We continued our circuit of the top deck, snapping more photos of Keelung’s buildings. As we made our way forwards the most noticeable sight on the landscape surrounding the ship was the statue of Guanyin (the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion) in Zhongzheng Park. The statue is over twenty metres in height.

We started back down around midships and passed a very serene-looking main swimming pool devoid of anyone in or around it.

Our reason for heading down was to catch the afternoon trivia, something of a rarity for us on a port day as we’re most often ashore on a cruise excursion. I’m pleased to say that we won a bottle of fizz for the second time in three days. We would end up skipping the last formal night of the cruise in favour of room service, a few movies on demand, and our two alcoholic prizes a few days later.

Departure From Keelung

With everyone aboard Diamond Princess it was time to cast off and we spent this time out on our balcony. The sun dipping towards the horizon completely transformed the views of Keelung we had, casting warm light and long shadows across the buildings along the waterfront and the landmarks on the hills.

As our cruise ship started to make its slow northbound exit out of Keelung we passed a fair number of Taiwanese naval ships – American-design frigates for the most part – with some having been built specifically for Taiwan under licence and others being modified former US Navy vessels. We were reminded of our overnight cruise into Portsmouth of only one month earlier and passing by all the naval ships in our city as we arrived home.

The local pilot boat kept up the slow pace with us as we left the residential area of Keelung behind and passed the commercial outskirts lined with warehouses, cargo vessels, and large cranes for loading and unloading containers.

As the harbour entrance opened up we were treated to some lovely pastel colours in the evening sky with the sun having just dipped below the horizon on the port side of the ship. On one of the nearest bits of land there was an interesting tower with offsetting circular levels and beyond it, out to sea, we could see the pyramidal and clearly volcanic form of Keelung Islet, these days a tourist destination but formerly a military training spot and historically sacred, said to be haunted by a female ghost.

The final connection to the main island of Taiwan that we passed on the starboard side was a green navigation marker with which I spent far too long trying to time photos with its flash.

The wind had picked up quite a bit as we left the shelter of Keelung and the heat of the day had very quickly become a very cold wind of the post-sunset evening. There was just enough light left in the sky to make our parting rear view of Taiwan a very attractive one and we shivered ourselves back into our room to plan our evening’s entertainment.

Evening Aboard Diamond Princess

Our evening on Diamond Princess after leaving Taiwan turned out to be quite interesting. When we’d got into our room after our excursion in Jiufen there was a letter awaiting us in our room. On one of the previous days we’d noticed that somewhere around the promenade deck there had been a bit of a pong. It wasn’t nice but it was fleeting and we didn’t pay it too much attention until a few days after that when someone else mentioned that they knew people on the same deck as us, forward like us, but on the port side, who’d had the smell near their cabin for a few days. Again, we shrugged, said it was an occasional issue you could get from the vacuum toilet systems on cruise ships, and paid it no mind again. The letter, though, brought it all back because Princess admitted the smell was unacceptable and as a goodwill gesture was refunding cabins in the affected area $250 per person plus offering a 10% discount on any already-booked future cruise or any cruise booked within a couple of years. So, for something that hadn’t bothered us in the slightest we ended up with a hefty onboard credit plus the knowledge that we’d be getting a bargain on our next cruise too. The credit lasted right up until the Effy shop opened once the ship was out to sea and my wife spent it all on a black and white diamond necklace. Well, it was money we weren’t expecting.

Photos from a very acceptable dinner in the main dining room that evening.

We finished the night in Skywalkers, as is our way. On our arrival at the base of the escalator leading up to the club we were shocked to hear the sounds of lots of voices of people enjoying themselves, this being a completely unexpected thing on the ship. A typical night would involve maybe half a dozen of us sitting around, enjoying the music, enjoying the drinks, enjoying the occasional wander outside to stare at the night view from the aft of the ship, enjoying the exclusivity of the venue. In addition to the strange people there were plenty of decorations up and as we looked confused and concerned that we’d stumbled upon something we shouldn’t have a steward explained that this was the staff’s halloween party, mostly for the benefit of the show dancers as it turned out, but that it would be finishing right then so we’d be fine to take our normal seats and get drinks. We did so.

There then followed a battle between us and the DJ. He saw us and worriedly said he hadn’t realised that was the time and that he would stop. We then insisted he didn’t and that he let everyone carry on enjoying themselves because we were enjoying watching them. Oh no, I can’t do that. Oh yes, yes you can, we’re the passengers – the only passengers in this entire place – and you’re supposed to do what makes us happy. Thus it was that we managed to wring an additional half an hour’s entertainment out for the staff and for ourselves, fending off numerous attempts to get us (barely able to walk straight most of the time) to join them (professional dancers) on the floor. The video below (temporarily removed) shows off some of the synchronised fun we avoided taking part in, although my phone struggled to record the video very well in the venue.

That concluded our day in Taiwan. The following day would see us in Okinawa ahead of two sea days to bring this Asian cruise aboard Diamond Princess to an end.

The time for us to leave came and went and still we didn’t move. And then came those dreaded announcements asking if certain passengers were aboard and if so could they make themselves known. You hope in those situations that it’s simply a computer foul-up failing to record the passengers returning to the ship but after repeated requests for this we then had an announcement that there would be a delay departing; we really did have some people who were still someone on the mainland.

The Elite Lounge was open by this time so we headed up for a drink while we waited. One drink turned into two and the light started to fade from the sky.

We resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn’t get to see those spectacular islets as we left Ha Long Bay after all and returned to our room briefly. With darkness now fully descended we then discovered that the big wheel and cable car towers that made up the Dragon Park theme park as well as the Bãi Cháy bridge were all lit up at night in rotating patterns of colours. The near-silence of our surroundings and the probing, pulsing light show combined to totally relax us (not that we really needed it).

We headed down to Deck 7 to see what was going on in any of the lounges and to grab another pre-dinner drink. While we were there we heard an announcement that the last tender boat was finally on its way back with the late passengers. Whether they ran into traffic problems in Vietnam or got their times confused or just figured the ship would wait for them we don’t know but we do know that this wasn’t the only time we were late leaving a port on this cruise because of late passengers and we also know the ones who were late this time were the same ones who were late at another port because on the second occasion there were loud groans from everyone who recognised the names being called out.

We headed out onto the promenade deck to watch the last boat arrive. There were some jeers from some passengers but we did the British thing and merely tutted quietly to one another.

In the video below (temporarily removed) you will be able to see some of the peaceful light show shot from our balcony as well as the tender boat being raised into position after letting the final passengers aboard. If you look in the background during the boat-raising you’ll be able to see an illuminated cable car gliding over the channel between East and West Ha Long.

And so Diamond Princess eventually got away and cruised through Ha Long Bay in the dark leaving us with no final view of those limestone islands.

We’d booked specialty dining for that night. We usually always dine once at the Crown Grill on Princess ships but Diamond didn’t have one of those, instead having the very similar (in fact, so similar you wonder why it has a different name at all) Sterling Steakhouse experience. The food was very good but the venue wasn’t. Rather than a special location the Sterling Steakhouse is instead simply a set-aside area of the buffet. I understand the logistical reasoning behind that but it suffered from a lack of atmosphere created mainly by having no dimmed lights. The specialness of the specialty dining was disappointingly reduced but, again, the food was very good.

This concludes our stops at Vietnam on this cruise. The next day would be spent at sea as the ship made its way towards Hong Kong.

Our body clocks were still not fully adjusted to the timezone difference from the UK which meant waking at ridiculous o’clock was still the norm so breakfast was eaten nice and early and we followed that – as we’d gotten into the habit of doing so on sea days aboard Diamond Princess – with a quick walk around the top deck to see if there was anything of interest happening aboard or visible out to sea and to take part in the Radio Taiso exercises that were displayed daily on the large movie screen on the cruise ship. The overcast conditions were the visual clue to the increasing humidity.

After that it was inside and down to the piazza to pick up the daily puzzles from the library before picking an activity (or not, depending on the mood and offerings) to occupy our minds and bodies. The source of information for choosing what to do around the ship with Princess Cruises is the Princess Patter and here are scans of this particular sea day’s programme:

We are creatures of habit for the most part, typically limiting ourselves to trivia and seeing if we can get some swimming in around reading, drinking, and relaxing. Prior to this cruise we’ve also tended to pop along to art auctions but over the first few days on Diamond Princess we’d had a nasty run-in with the people of Park West Gallery who manage the art on Princess ships (and many others). I’ve alluded to this in previous posts and do intend to fully write up just what happened at some point but to drop a rather massive hint as to what that might entail our eyes lit up when looking at the Princess Patter and spotting a lecture on the psychology of scammers and scam victims. This lecture didn’t just appeal because it had a direct bearing on what we’d experienced but also because I’ve been a long-time member and supporter (and for a while, organiser) of sceptical organisations in the UK and I wanted to see what a police officer might bring to bear on a subject I knew a little about anyway.

It was a good lecture and a good one for a cruise line to put on where there are a lot of elderly people who tend to be far more vulnerable to scams. We did find the slides describing how scam artists work to be most amusing when comparing how the Park West Gallery salespeople had behaved towards us and mentioned as much when we filed our post-cruise complaint to Princess.

The rest of the day went pretty much as expected, though: a long swim in the Sanctuary Pool led to the pair of us burning various bits we’d missed when applying our Factor 50; burgers and fries were eaten by the pool at lunch; trivia contests were entered and lost in crushing style; the odd drink or two might have passed our lips while reading or playing cards.

As we got ready for dinner in the early evening we had a lovely view of the setting sun on the South China Sea from our stateroom balcony.

Dinner was perfectly fine again with fabulously quick service from our waiter, Alexander. Skywalkers at the end of the evening was practically empty and we ended up back in our cabin earlier than we’d expected, looking forward to the first of two new ports in Vietnam for us in the morning.

We don’t normally get up super early when it’s a sea day, preferring instead to lay in a bit then grab a late breakfast and hunt down various activities on board (usually trivia if we’re on a Princess ship). However, the thing about flying halfway around the world and not being able to sleep on planes is that your body clock can get severely screwed around and despite trying to force ourselves to stay up until a sensible time of night the day before we still found ourselves awake much earlier than we’d planned on the back of only a few hours asleep. In fact, the sun hadn’t quite crawled above the horizon by the time we decided we couldn’t stay in bed any longer.

Breakfast took place early. Very early. Six o’clock in the morning to be precise. And it was surprisingly busy, we discovered, though the excuse of jet lag couldn’t apply to our fellow passengers, most of whom were Japanese. We would discover on this cruise that the Japanese as a general rule went to bed reasonably early, got up early, and took part in a lot of onboard activities.

As we’d hoped and expected breakfast options in the buffet were set out to cater for the mix of cultures on the ship with the more usual options enhanced by the presence of rice, pasta, and potato dishes. Breakfast done, we took an early morning stroll around the top deck because you can never get bored of the sea views when you’re on a cruise ship, starting at the aft.

A very distinctive feature on the aft of Diamond Princess, different from all the other ships in the Princess Cruises fleet, is the Japanese spa area including its gorgeous-looking whirpool. You have to book time to use the baths inside and the whirlpool outside and to get access to the more comfortable recliners in this area and I think we only saw one person using it for the entire duration of the cruise, although that’s obviously based on when we would pass by this photographically-appealing spot. The reason we didn’t try it out was because the spa area is gender-segregated (which we could deal with) and requires mandatory nakedness inside (which we could not). We don’t even like looking at our own bodies unclothed and the thought of inflicting that trauma on the Princess staff and fellow passengers was not something we could countenance. Still, with the wake of the ship behind it and the great design of the whirlpool this proved to be a very popular spot to take pictures from.

Heading forward took us to the middle of the ship’s top deck with a view over the main outdoor swimming pool set beneath the large TV screen used for movies under the stars and various other broadcasts during the day. An important point about the swimming pools on Diamond Princess is that they were not heated at all on this cruise. At the southernmost point of our cruise, off Vietnam and in the shallower Sanctuary pool near the front of the ship, this was okay, but off the coast of Japan as we were on this day and in the deeper main pool this most definitely was not. We took a swim in the early afternoon that consisted of about three minutes trying to catch our breath as the crushingly cold water contracted every muscle on our bodies before giving up. It felt dangerously cold.

This was when we discovered something else on Diamond Princess that we’d not encountered on any of the other Princess ships on which we’d cruised: early morning, gentle, stretching exercises. Now, this isn’t to say that it doesn’t take place on other ships but this was new to us. This was Radio Taiso and consisted of two short routines of a few minutes in length each being played back-to-back for a few hours on the movie screen. There were always people taking part alongside it, mostly Japanese as you’d expect, but as the cruise went on we saw more western passengers joining in. I’m happy to say that we took part on almost every sea day including this first one.

The short video below (temporarily removed) includes some of the Radio Taiso exercise routines on the Diamond Princess on this first sea day.

The indoor pool was no warmer than the outside pool we discovered as we wandered through and shot some photos. “Come on in!” shouted an Australian to us. “It’s bloody freezing!” he smiled through clenched and chattering teeth. We declined.

The Sanctuary at the front of the ship is an area we’ve never paid to make use of and have never seen it highly utilised on any cruise. That was no different on this cruise either.

However, the Sanctuary Pool has been the pool we most use typically as it’s adults only, less likely to have people in it, and more sheltered from sea breezes. As I’ve already mentioned we tried swimming in the main pool on this sea day simply because it was unexpectedly empty; that obviously turned out to be because nobody in their right mind was risking hypothermia. We therefore ended up reverting back to using the Sanctuary Pool on most other days which while it also wasn’t heated benefitted from a shallower depth that better retained the miniscule warmth it picked up under the sunshine. By the time we were off Vietnam this pool was actually very pleasant and quite popular as other passengers realised they could have a dip without fearing a heart attack. Clearly, it’s not ideal for swimming laps because of its small size and we were disappointed to see that the current machine that had been present before had been removed at some point in the last decade but we still enjoyed making use of it.

That covered the outside areas of the ship so we had a wander into the piazza, the hub of the ship, in order to pick up the daily crossword, quizzes, and sudoku puzzles, take part in the morning trivia (we did woefully bad), and see if there was anything else of interest taking place. It was still very early so very empty as you can see.

We had hoped to make use of the Wake View Bar accessed from Club Fusion for a spot of quiet reading, a favourite haunt of ours from our first cruise on Diamond Princess, but this was an area roped off from passengers throughout the trip. A shame, although we had got to see its equivalent space on Diamond’s sister ship, Sapphire, earlier in the year so it wasn’t too big a deal.

There’s clearly something about Diamond Princess that sends us to the Princess Theater to attend lectures. We simply haven’t attended lectures on any other ship we’ve cruised on. It happened on our first cruise in 2008 because of the talks given about the history of magic, Houdini, and similar subjects by a guest entertainer on the ship. It also happened on this cruise as the guest speaker was a former Australian detective and his talks interested us too. On this first sea day morning it was the history of forensics.

One of the other lectures on board proved to be very interesting and relevant to a situation that developed during the cruise indeed (and the serious blot on this whole cruise, although not directly the fault of Princess Cruises) but that can wait for another post for an explanation. I’m such a tease.

We’d known before coming aboard Diamond Princess that it was one of two ships in the fleet with a specialty sushi restaurant. Sushi was not something we’d had before and while we knew we’d have a few stops in Japan it seemed more sensible to try out sushi in an environment where we could more easily explain we had absolutely no idea what to order. Wandering past the Kai Sushi restaurant on deck 7 around lunchtime we saw it had only a couple of people eating inside so we ventured in and were seated immediately by the window looking out onto the promenade deck. After a quick discussion with our kimono-clad waitress in the light and airy surroundings we both went for the Nigiri Menu at $17 per person and two sakes, one of which was the Drunken Whale and the other I can’t remember. The drinks were served slightly chilled but were surprisingly pleasant when compared to the last time we’d had the drink many years prior.

The food was prepared expertly by the chef in full view of us just a couple of metres away while a steady stream of bowls and side dishes were brought up. Soups, salad, and a constant supply of green tea were soon joined by the fresh cuts of fish and rice. The quality of the ingredients cannot be faulted, it all looked absolutely fantastic, and it is definitely worth the cover charge if you’re a fan of sushi or just want to try something a little different. Did we like it? No, not really, but that’s a matter of personal taste and don’t let that be a guide for you. The reason we didn’t like it was all down to one magic word: wasabi. We hate wasabi. We hadn’t realised that apparently sushi dishes like to disguise the flavour of whatever it is you’re eating with a horrible burning sensation that sears your taste buds. Well, each to their own and now we know. We also weren’t particularly keen on the soups but at least we gave it all a go. Macha ice cream, though: now you’re talking. That’s gloriously lovely.

So, our first sea day back aboard Diamond Princess after a gap of a decade saw us exploring, trying sushi, going to a lecture, having a (brief) swim, taking part in a few trivia challenges, doing the various daily quizzes, reading, having the odd drink or two and getting to know some of the waiters, and even trying to slip in an afternoon nap in the cabin in an attempt to shift our body clocks into the right timezone (limited success). In short: wonderfully relaxing with just a smidge of education and brainteasing. This is how we like to take it easy at sea inbetween port stops and after a long flight to get out to Asia having a first day at sea on a cruise ship is hard to beat.

The first evening was a formal night so the usual dressing up in tuxedo for me and fancy dress for the wife, some wine and a glass of fizz before dinner, and dinner itself.

If we have one big criticism about formal nights on Princess cruise ships it’s that the fanciness seems to be limited to just one of the formal nights in a two-week cruise. That’s the night where lobster is offered. That’s the night where the champagne fountain is poured. Neither of those two things really matter a great deal to me but it does mean that the other formal nights, such as this first one, don’t really have anything to set them apart from any other night on the menu or going on around the ship. Of course, we know that the main reason for the nights as far as the line is concerned is to sell the photos but it would be nice if there was some kind of incentive or reward to passengers for making an effort.

We finished with some people-watching and cocktail-drinking in Skywalkers then retired for the night, looking forward to waking at our first stop on the cruise, Kagoshima.

Getting To Japan

Whereas our first cruise had started in China and finished in Thailand, this one would be starting and ending in Japan; Yokohama to be specific. With a late morning flight from Heathrow scheduled we elected to travel up closer to the airport and stay in a hotel overnight to dispense with that stress of an early morning drive. We stayed at the Holiday Inn just off junction 4 of the M4, the main reason being its proximity to a couple of pubs so that we wouldn’t be trapped into dining and drinking at the hotel. The hotel was perfectly fine, the pubs were perfectly fine, the distance from the airport was great; it’s how we’d do it again in all likelihood.

We had the usual problem at Heathrow airport in that the boarding pass printers refused to work for us. We’ve never once got them to work but when we were coming back from this cruise and yet again my passport failed to get me through the automated check-in system I got talking to one of the border guards who explained that my name was flagged on their system so I’d probably always need a manual check in the airport. Someone with my name has been a naughty boy. So, an inconvenience I’ll have to live through whenever we travel. That done, though, it was to the airport pub for breakfast and a pre-flight drink and in hardly any time we were off to Japan. I never sleep on flights so for a trip like this that comes in at around eleven hours or so it does give me a chance to read quite a bit of whatever books I’ve carried on and watch some recent films I’d missed. Between this flight and the one coming back I saw Ready Player One, Solo, Mission Impossible: Fallout, and Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Tokyo Haneda Airport

There are two airports serving Tokyo: Narita and Haneda. Haneda is by far the most convenient airport. It’s closer to Tokyo if that’s somewhere you’re planning to go and is roughly equidistant between Tokyo and the port city of Yokohama. By contrast, Narita is about five times that distance away.

We had two small problems at the airport, both of which, sadly, could have been avoided with some pre-cruise information supplied by Princess.

Firstly, there was immigration. As we would discover on this cruise, the Japanese take immigration really, really seriously. Stupidly seriously. The Chinese and the Russians have a more trusting and open policy than Japan in our experience and that’s just all types of wrong. You get a card to fill in on the plane (side note to British Airways here: one per person in future, please; not one per couple as the Japanese don’t like that). What you don’t get is any idea what to fill in for the bits like where you’re staying, name of your contact, phone number of local representative, etc. Once you’re on the ship and about to hit a Japanese port or disembark at the end this information is supplied in your cabin but none of it is before you get to Japan. You can probably get through that if your border security person speaks English. Mine did not. Cue fifteen minutes of fun trying to play charades to explain what a cruise ship was, why I didn’t have an address or hotel in Japan, and pointing at various emails with numbers and addresses in an attempt to satisfy whatever security system was in place.

The second issue was our transfer to Yokohama from the airport. You can, of course, do your own thing when you reach the airport and make your own way to Yokohama cruise port but we looked into it and there wasn’t a direct way of doing so without spending an awful lot of money. On top of that we’d be in a country where the western alphabet wouldn’t be prominent if used at all. It’s one thing to try to work out names of places or foreign words written in an alphabet you understand; it’s another thing to look at characters like those used in Japan and hope you or your phone gets things right. We elected instead to use the Princess Cruises shared transfer as we’ve done it before and found it to be reasonable value for money and with less chance of getting lost. This did not go quite as well as we’d hoped.

When we’ve had Princess transfers in the past we’ve arrived at the airport, got our luggage, wandered through security, found our Princess representative, headed off to a coach, and been on our way in – at most – 20 minutes. Now, it turns out that the reason that happened that way before for us was because we’d either been on flights packed with fellow cruise passengers or there had been a few flights arrive close to one another with enough passengers on to allow us to get out of the airport quickly. But for this cruise we’d landed a little after 7 in the morning. We were told by our representative that the coach would not arrive until about 11 as there were more flights due to come in over the following hours. This was disappointing solely because we weren’t prepared for it. I really wish Princess had communicated that the transfer might involve a wait of three hours but it is what it is. We got talking to an American couple who’d been in the terminal since just after 4 in the morning so it could have been worse.

Yokohama Cruise Port

Once the coaches arrived we were on our way to Yokohama Cruise Port, a journey of around 45 minutes. The outskirts of Yokohama that we passed through looked compact and quite industrialised but as we crossed the bridge over the city’s harbour (where we caught our first glimpse of the Diamond Princess) we passed into a greener, cleaner district on our approach to Osanbashi terminal, the modern, international cruise terminal in the city and probably the nicest cruise terminal we’ve been through with lots of glass, lots of curving, dark wood, lots of open space.

As Platinum level Princess cruisers we then got to walk past the several hundred people waiting in seats in two large sections of the terminal building to join the priority queue and within 5 minutes we were boarding the ship. This is a fabulous way to start any cruise.

Diamond Princess

We’ve got more than a passing familiarity with Grand-class cruise ships now so even though we hadn’t been on this particular one for a month shy of ten years we knew our way around and headed straight to our cabin. We tend to book a room in roughly the same location every time, Caribe deck on Princess ships if we can because of the extra large balconies, towards the front to get some decent motion from the ship as it hits swells, on the starboard side so that we know the direction of our room is to the right whenever we exit an elevator (except for the ones around the atrium).

Our cabin was C235 for this cruise. This was quite different from our last cruise on Diamond Princess where we had an inside room but otherwise exactly what we’ve come to expect from more frequent cruising over the past few years.

Even though we’d come through the cruise port just minutes earlier we had to step out onto our balcony and take a look at the view. The top of Osanbashi is covered in grass and you can see the wave-form, undulating lines of the building. Docked alongside us in Yokohama was the Holland America cruise ship Amsterdam.

Two features in the room were quite distinctive and both due to the fact that Diamond Princess cruises target both the Japanese and Western markets. We’re not fans of kettles in state room because to us that feels like something you’d get in a hotel and a cruise is so much more than that. However, the Japanese like their tea and so you’ll find kettles and green tea are in every room. The second feature is a special bonus for UK passengers because, in case you didn’t know, Japan uses the same plug socket as us. For this reason a universal plug socket is in each cabin. We would love to see this on all cruise ships.

The television in the room carried six TV channels for most of the cruise, only one of which was of interest to us, that being the Australian feed of ESPN. This meant we could watch some live American Football on a few sea days early in the morning. A decent selection of movies, all free to view, are also available and we watched The Shape of Water in our room one day while we tried and failed to get through A Wrinkle in Time on another.

Room checked out and with quite a while before our luggage would turn up we set off for a quick wander around the ship.

A place we thought we might end up spending a lot of time was the Wheelhouse Bar. We had fond memories of this space on our first cruise on Diamond Princess where it quite often had traditional Chinese musicians entertaining us. However, we ended up visiting here far less than expected partly because we weren’t massively keen on the music which was your more typical cruise ship performer covering tracks with a bit of a latin leaning. That said, we would have one drink at least in here on most sea days and we got very friendly with the staff. While we didn’t have any major staff service issues on this cruise at all it was the staff in the Wheelhouse who still managed to stand out with their general friendliness and willingness to chat and memory for names and drinks ordered.

We were on the ship early so it was still mostly empty. Nevertheless, there was some music welcoming people aboard at the bottom of the ship’s atrium (piazza on Princess ships).

The next venue you encounter as you continue along deck seven towards the aft of the ship is the Explorers Lounge. As near as we could tell this was identical to any other Explorers Lounge on a Princess ship and may well have been unchanged from our first visit.

The main difference between Diamond Princess and most of the rest of the Princess Cruises fleet (with the exception of Sun Princess) is the presence of a sushi and sashimi specialty restaurant called Kai Sushi. Being used to seeing Princess ships over the last few years we know the look and feel of their venues on board but Kai Sushi was notably brighter, airier, fresher-feeling, and we liked the look of it very much. We’d already decided we were going to try the place out one day because you’ve got to take advantage of experiences when they present themselves (we’ve never eaten sushi before) and this sealed the deal.

Club Fusion and Crooners completed the drinking locations on this deck and we had to have our first drink on board in Crooners while we were there. It’s the law. One thing we didn’t like were the nibbles that often accompanied drinks. On other ships these tend to be quite tasty but on Diamond everything had wasabi in it. Wasabi is just all types of horrible.

We had a quick nose at what was off the piazza staircase on the two decks below. Again, nothing we weren’t already completely familiar with and already described elsewhere on this site and linked in this post. We did pop our heads into Churchill’s which is promoted as a sports and cigar bar. We don’t smoke but we could stand a little bit of cigar smoke if we were watching a game as it’s often quite sweet and can enhance an atmosphere. Sadly, Churchill’s smells exactly like what it really is which is an inside haunt for every chain-smoker of cigarettes on board. The smell for a non-smoker is beyond repulsive which is a shame as it’s a lovely-looking lounge.

A need to clear the smell from our nostrils and potentially in all our clothes sent us scurrying to the top deck for a quick nose around there too.

Forward and to the starboard side of the ship we had plenty of views of the city of Yokohama. As is pretty common when you’re cruising around the world these days a large and colourful ferris wheel was present along the water’s edge.

Alongside us on the starboard side, as we’d already seen from our balcony, was the cruise port terminal. It was interesting to see how many local people were walking around it, almost treating the place like a public park. Obviously, the ships were a big draw for people here too with many taking photos of us or the HAL ship nearby and even a few making sketches.

From the port side we spotted an interesting and obviously old-looking ship not too far from where the Diamond Princess was berthed. This turned out to be the Hikawa Maru, a museum ship these days and a vessel that was launched in 1929.

We returned to our room where we didn’t have to wait too long before our suitcases arrived and we were able to unpack everything. That’s still one of the big plus points for cruising as far as we’re concerned: you unpack just once at the start of the cruise and you pack just once at the end while your hotel accommodation takes you around the world and brings its wonderful sights to your eyes.

Yokohama Departure

Muster on Princess Cruises is always a good opportunity to see who’s not read the instructions or been on a Princess ship in a while as despite you no longer needing to bring your life jacket with you (which means you don’t have to lug the thing back to your room after) a lot of people still do.

With muster done we set ourselves up on our balcony to watch the sailaway from Yokohama as the light started to fade from the overcast but mild day. More local people started to pack out the dockside area, glowsticks started to make an appearance, and tannoy announcements from the port in Japanese started to gee the crowd up.

As Diamond Princess began to push itself away from the port to start our Asian cruise for real the clouds on the horizon thinned enough for the setting sun to ignite the sky in an orange glow. I’d like to think Princess timed it just so. At the cruise terminal the Japanese crowd waved and cheered and we could hear people from balconies all around us and on the deck obviously cheering and waving back at them in the brief moments of relative quiet when the ship’s horn wasn’t blasting out its departure roar. As sailaways go this was by far the most fun and engaging group we’ve ever left a port to and as the cruise would go on we’d come to suspect this was just something in the Japanese nature; a tendency to simply take part.

In order to get out to sea from Yokohama it’s necessary to cruise under the Yokohama Bay Bridge. This was the second time on a cruise we’d been awake and outside as our ship slipped under a bridge, the first time occurring in 2017 aboard Crown Princess when we got up close and personal with the Great Belt Bridge.

The short video below (temporarily removed) covers the view from our balcony of Yokohama, the sailaway from the cruise terminal along with its ebullient crowd, and the ship’s cruise under the bridge.

Obviously, drinks were imbibed that evening and we went to Skywalkers to listen to music and maybe have a little dance because these things are constants for us on any Princess cruise although we tried to be a little bit sensible because our body clocks were very much out of sync with the local time.

Main Dining Room

The only thing that was different for us for this first day was the evening dining arrangements. Because Diamond Princess has a mix of passengers with a mix of language needs it wasn’t possible for us to book the Any Time dining that we normally go for as not every member of staff would be bilingual. To cater for that it was necessary for us to go Fixed Dining for the first time which we initially weren’t too pleased about so we made sure to request the late sitting (we’re more European in our dining preferences and always eat late) and a table for two so we wouldn’t be stuck with the same people for two weeks. As it turned out we had a fantastic dining experience on Diamond, mostly down to some incredibly good service from our waiter Alexander from Macedonia (I know). Friendly, funny, and fast, this was arguably the best main dining room experience we’ve had on any ship and we’d certainly not have any qualms with fixed dining in the future based on this although we still like the idea of wandering in when we like.

In terms of food variety over the course of the cruise this was a little bit disappointing but only slightly so and it is understandable. The kitchens need to cater for two very different palates with the western and eastern passengers aboard. Things repeated fairly often with only slight differences and even if you’re prepared to try “the other culture”‘s dishes you’d probably run out of different meals reasonably quickly. We had no real complaints here and the quality of the food couldn’t be faulted. We did hear some people moan about the portion sizes which in fairness were a little smaller than we’ve become accustomed to but, again, is something that’s easily explainable because of the dual-culture nature of this cruise and, let’s be honest, doesn’t really do anyone any harm.

To finish off this first post describing our Asian cruise aboard Diamond Princess starting in Yokohama here’s what we ate that first night while the ship headed roughly southwest on its way to our first port of call, Kagoshima.