After three incredible and unforgettable days in China we gathered our belongings from the hotel, boarded our coach, and started off on the journey towards Tianjin where we would be starting the cruise portion of our honeymoon on Princess Cruises‘ ship Diamond Princess. What should have been a straightforward trip to the port, however, involved a few diversions as some of the roads were suddenly closed due to the arrival of a dignitary of some sort. Nevertheless, our driver knew what he was doing and found another route that got us to the port in plenty of time and we even had time for a rest stop in the middle of nowhere at some toilets which was handy (Peking duck may not have agreed with me) and an experience to try to overlook (cubicles but just a shared trough running along the floor through all of them to squat over and no toilet paper (luckily we had some tissues)).

Inside Cabin

It was our honeymoon and we were spending a lot of money (for us at the time) on the cruise so we were making savings where we thought they wouldn’t matter. For that reason we had chosen an inside cabin as we’d been told (and we’d assumed anyway) that we wouldn’t really spend a lot of time in it. Our later cruise experiences indicate this is not really true; if you get an inside cabin you may not spend much time there unless you’re a fan of four walls and lots of mirrors but if you have a balcony and decent views then it’s somewhere great to sit so our preference is not for inside rooms these days.

Not too easy to get any decent photos of the inside room on the Diamond Princess because of all the mirrors and our aversion to seeing ourselves or having anyone else see us either. Anyway, double bed, side cabinets, lots of desk space, lots of room to hang up and store clothing, and a perfectly fine toilet with shower.

Atrium

The central point of the cruise ship covering decks five through seven was the atrium. The lower two decks both served dining rooms and shops and customer services while the upper deck of the atrium was the place to filter out to find the bars and lounges.

The Plaza deck (deck five) of the atrium often hosted events such as music or food demonstrations or the champagne waterfall. We’d seen a talk by a magician in one of the lounges on one of the days (history of Houdini although I can’t remember the magician’s name) and attended his close-up sleight-of-hand demonstration in the atrium a couple of days later. We arrived early and picked a chair at the back but were immediately singled out, dragged to his table, and took part in the show. Mortifying, but fascinating.

Crooners Bar

Along one side of the top of the atrium was Crooners, a piano and Martinis bar, home to Sammy Goldstein. We had many very enjoyable evenings listening to his music and trying the various cocktails from the extensive list, and we bought a deck of playing cards with recipes on them that we still take on board every ship we cruise on. Crooners was also a good place to sit and read during the day while at sea on the cruise, something you can’t really do these days on the larger Royal-class ships as the noise from the atrium destroys the peaceful atmosphere.

Wheelhouse Bar

The bar in which we spent the most amount of our time was probably the Wheelhouse Bar, also on deck seven. The lighting and seating was very cosy, they occasionally had trivia challenges, sometimes had musicians performing, and at other times it was quieter than elsewhere so provided a welcoming place to sit and talk with friends we’d made on the trip.

Club Fusion

Still on the same deck at the aft of the ship (and the very first location I took a photograph of while on board the Diamond Princess) was Club Fusion, a large area not typically used as a club as such on our trip but more for dancing lessons (we watched but didn’t take part), exercising (likewise), some musical performances (nope), and bingo (not our thing either).

One of the funniest memories of our Far East honeymoon cruise was entering Club Fusion late one evening and seeing a mad rush of waiting staff trying to run without actually running in our general direction to be the first to take a drinks order; the reason for this was that we were possibly the youngest people on board and by 21:00 most nights almost the only people not in their cabins. We were told that on the longer cruises to more exotic locations it was typically older, retired people who took them and they apparently needed lots of sleep. Almost every evening we would take a stroll from lounge to lounge and bar to bar and have our pick of music, drinks, and seating location.

One of the great places to visit once we realised it was there was the intimate Wake View Bar, accessed by a spiral staircase near the stage in Club Fusion then heading down.

Explorers Lounge

Situated about halfway between Club Fusion and the top of the atrium was Explorers which served as the location for most daily trivia quizzes (of which we won quite a few, brag, brag) as well as some smaller shows, some live music, and art auctions. We got to see comedian Kelly Monteith one evening who was good but who clearly found the somewhat elderly and quiet room a tough crowd.

Art Gallery

We like art so enjoyed the art auctions and walking through the art gallery regularly on the lowest deck. Sadly, we couldn’t afford any pieces at the time but we would rectify that in later years and on later cruises.

Skywalkers Nightlcub

Every night without fail we ended up in Skywalkers Nightclub, sometimes the only people there and only once with anything even remotely close to a crowd being present. The DJ would sometimes leave his booth to come ask us for music choices and seemed put out that we mostly left it up to him to decide. My regular late night of Jack Daniels and Coke became well-known with the crew very quickly and I would sometimes only have to enter a bar or the nightclub and give the nod for them to be able to bring my drink and to have memorised my card number, much to the annoyance of some other people we had befriended at the time who were elite level, in a suite, yet still had to produce their cards and were never remembered; just another of those little memorable things for us about the cruise.

One the best memories of the cruise, or any bit of travelling, was leaving Singapore and sitting up in Skywalkers Nightclub. As we looked back across a mostly black sea and sky with distant lights of the country just visible a storm started up that lit up the horizon; drinking, listening to music, and watching flashes arc across the sky and huge clouds become lit from behind was mesmerising.

Other Interior Locations

On the landings of every stairwell and in many hallways there were artworks displayed and there were self-service laundromats on every deck with significant numbers of cabins. Some of the other places inside the Diamond Princess cruise ship were the casino, theatre, and smokers/sports lounge, all on deck six, and the dining rooms on decks five and six. We only visited the theatre as part of our muster drill and for one show, not really enjoying it enough to consider trying to arrange dining around it from that point on. We’re not gamblers so the casino held no interest but we did use the slot machines once and we did drop some coins in the machine that pushes money on shelves until something drops off, winning some dice in the process.

The big draw about cruising is that you get to see different sights every day even if you never leave the ship you’re on. For most cruise ships the two main outside spaces from which to gaze out at the always changing view (assuming you don’t have a balcony cabin or room with a sea view, of course) are the promenade deck and the top deck with its pools and loungers.

Promenade Deck

With Diamond Princess being a Grand-class cruise ship the promenade deck was deck seven, accessed from several locations along each side and circling the entire ship. We tried to make a point of walking the promenade deck once a day after dinner and we spotted a lot of people using it as a walking track, completing multiple circuits to build up their miles. We’re not quite that crazy.

It was interesting to contrast the different conditions when walking the promenade deck on Diamond Princess during our honeymoon cruise in the Far East. We found that at the start it was quite windy and could be chilly as you walked around (hence us buying hoodies from the stores on board) but as we got towards Vietnam and Singapore near the end of the cruise the conditions changed to nearly flat seas and high humidity making stepping out from the air conditioned ship to the deck like stepping into a sauna.

Swimming Pools

The swimming pools always look lovely even if it seems strange at some level to be swimming many metres above the sea level when you’re surrounded by sea as far as you can see. They weren’t utilised a huge amount by other passengers or us on the cruise although I can’t remember why exactly; certainly, as mentioned before, it was quite windy on the South China Sea, especially at the start of the cruise, but there was still a measure of protection from the wind and there was an inside pool as well. However, it did get a little rough on the seas so that might have scared people off and they did sometimes put netting over the ship’s swimming pools to prevent their use altogether.

The swimming pool areas were also used to house some ice sculptures on one of the sea days during the cruise.

The Sanctuary pool towards the front of the ship was the closest pool to our inside cabin. We didn’t know at the time (we would discover this five years later when on the Crown Princess cruise ship) but there was a means to generate a current against which to swim when in the Sanctuary pool so despite its small size it could have provided a reasonable means of exercise if desired.

Top Deck Areas

Around the main swimming pool were a number of food locations and a bar; the pizzas, hot dogs, and burgers prepared by the pool on a Princess Cruises cruise ship are outstanding.

In addition to a sports section there was a small golf putting area. Just like the onboard gymnasium that you’ll notice hasn’t featured in any photographs on the interior post about the Diamond Princess we don’t really do sporting activities so we didn’t engage in these parts of the ship.

The rest of the upper, exterior decks was lounging space or walkway spaces affording fabulous views of the sea from a high vantage point.

On one of the sea days while my wife was recovering from a little sea sickness I went for a wander up top and watched a large, dark stormcloud come in. People stayed out for as long as possible while the darkness enveloped the cruise ship but eventually the rain came down and drove everyone inside.

I don’t know whether we arrived a day early or left a day late but on the day we turned up we were docked in the commercial dock area of the city – at Kwai Chung Container Terminal III by my reckoning of landmarks – which meant our first view of Hong Kong was somewhat industrial. Cranes and containers surrounded us and only the more distant sights were of the skyscrapers we’d been expecting to see. Still, the weather was gorgeous and there’s a type of beauty even in these commercial ports, especially when you’re on the other side of the world and experiencing them for the first time. I suspect that’s a minority view but it suits my contrarian nature.

The video below was shot from the top deck of Diamond Princess looking first eastwards then crossing over and looking westwards to show the views from this part of Hong Kong. What’s of slight interest (very slight; like so slight you might not even spot there’s any interest at all; we’re talking a sliver of slightness that practically disappears if you look at it edge on) is that you’ll be able to see that the Stonecutters Bridge wasn’t quite complete when we visited; there’s a gap in the centre of the award-winning bridge’s span over the Rambler Channel.

We’d booked a Hong Kong Island highlights excursion for our day in the city so it was just a case of waiting until we were due to head off – that usual gathering in the theatre with your tickets and assigned tour group number while watching people try to sit at the ends of the rows, causing chaos, or leaving before their row is due, out of some utter desperation to get on the bus first and mark them out to their fellow passengers as selfish tits – then trundling off the ship and to our designated means of transportation.

Victoria Peak

Our bus took us from the Hong Kong mainland onto the island and dropped us off at the station ready for a funicular train ride to the viewing platforms on Victoria Peak. It was incredibly crowded and quite chaotic waiting to board and I’m not convinced that everyone in our tour group managed to get onto the same train going up, but I’m sure we all made it eventually because there was no panicked stare in the ship’s representative’s eyes when taking head-counts during the remainder of the excursion’s activities.

A sculpture of local legend Jackie Chan caught our eye and it wouldn’t be the only time he would appear in some form on our two days in Hong Kong, with our tour guide pointing out his house as we drove past it later in the day, and with us seeing his star on the walk of fame the day after.

 The view from Victoria Peak was the classic one that everyone knows from looking for pictures of Hong Kong online, even if the haze from heat or pollution made the skyline photography a lot less than ideal. Some skyscraper landmarks we had pointed out to us included the Bank of China Tower (designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei) and Central Plaza, but you can also see in the photos and video from Victoria Peak below that there was a building under construction across the water, on the mainland, and that was the International Commerce Centre, the tallest building in Hong Kong.

Stanley Market

The next stop on our Hong Kong excursion was to the southern side of the island and a shopping trip at Stanley Market. We were assured that this was a great place to get good quality, cheap souvenirs and clothing, and that actually turned out to be true. We’re not shoppers when we travel but we did have some local currency on us – we like to spend when we’re ashore, helping the local economy in some small way, and we’ll judge you if you don’t do the same – so ducked into a side alley and were encouraged into a shop selling silk shirts by the owner there. He looked me up and down then reached back into a pile of shirts and pulled out a short-sleeved, dark blue, silk number, threw it into a bag, and asked for a very reasonable sum of money. We took a chance on not being handed something polyester, nine sizes too small, and I’m glad we did. It fit me like a glove, it felt divine, and I still have it now, even if it’s a little snugger around the waist these days.

Aberdeen

Our penultimate stop on this guided tour was Aberdeen, named for the 4th Earl of Aberdeen and former mid-nineteenth century Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon. The original name of Aberdeen was actually Hong Kong but foreigners mistook it for the whole island and by the time this was realised the misunderstanding had stuck. The locals now call Aberdeen Hong Kong Tsai which can be translated as Son of Hong Kong.

Aberdeen is famous for its floating village and restaurants and it was to a famous one of the latter that we had a quick bite for lunch. The floating village houses many boats and is home to the Tanka people, historically associated with fishing in Hong Kong harbour and with prostitution, though that is partly ethnic stereotyping of people seen as low caste across much of Asia.

Once our short stop for food was complete we then boarded boats for a ride around the Aberdeen waterfront.

The final stop was to see some artistic workmanship in a jeweller’s workshop. As always with these kinds of stops on these cruise ship-organised excursions there’s a push to buy merchandise too, and while we didn’t there were some in our tour group who did, which was good to see. It always helps when you’ve got plenty of wealthy Americans in your group.

Even though Diamond Princess would be in Hong Kong for another day, everyone had to be back on board by early evening as the cruise ship needed to move to an anchoring spot in Junk Bay. The timing of the ship’s repositioning to its new location in Hong Kong Harbour would mean we’d get to watch the famous Hong Kong Harbour Light Show from the water.

You don’t fly half way around the world to then skip out on a nighttime exploration of Hong Kong in favour of on board entertainment so we had some food early then headed down to the tender boats. A large group of people were waiting which was what we’d expected but they suddenly turned and parted as one to let us through; it turned out that everyone there was a member of the crew and passengers had priority. It also turned out that hardly any passengers from the ship got off at all. So much for not passing up the opportunity to explore Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Night Adventure

We took the boat across to Hong Kong Island, then jumped on a ferry to head across to the mainland where, after a bit of a wander around, we headed to the Temple Street night market. It was here that I was looking to get a new lens for my camera. At the time I wasn’t that experienced with photography and all I had was a kit lens on a Canon 350D. We entered an open-fronted store and sat down with a group of Chinese men who initially laughed at my lens, told me not to get the EF-S wide angle lens I was after, then recommended a wide angle EF-mount by Tokina instead as it would be compatible with a better camera body if I upgraded. To be honest we were starting to feel intimidated but the lens was tested and worked nicely and the price was right so we bought it and left. Outside, we had planned to walk through the market a bit more but my wife suddenly became aware that one of the men from the shop was behind us. Because he’d seen where I was keeping my wallet me wife placed herself in the way and mentioned it to me; we became worried and decided to “throw off our tail” by turning left three times. This worked – probably because there was a totally innocent explanation and the guy was simply heading the same way as us – but we decided we’d had enough and wanted to get back to the cruise ship.

We headed down to where the Hong Kong ferry had dropped us off… only to discover they stopped running after midnight. Nobody had mentioned that to us. We needed to get back to the tender boats on the island and were considering having to get a taxi to take us through the tunnel when we bumped into a Dutch family who could obviously see we looked worried. They handed us one of their maps and told us to follow them because there was a last train running shortly. Thus it was that my wife and I ended up running through the streets of Hong Kong in the early hours of the morning, following a Dutch family, heading to the train station. We worked out how to use the ticket machine just in time for the train, boarded, took it to the island, walked down to the tender boat point, then gradually tried to return to a normal temperature as we waited for the boat. Back on board we had to shower and took advantage of room service to get some bourbon, coke, and sandwiches. A stressful night, but an experience I’m glad we had.

Day 2

I started the day by trying out the new lens with pictures of Hong Kong harbour from the ship.

This was my first time using a wide angle lens and I think I couldn’t have had a more lovely day or fascinating place in which to try it out.

My wife and I decided to take the tender boat to the island and the Hong Kong ferry across to the mainland for the second time in not many hours.

We’d elected to explore the place on our own rather than taking up the offer of an organised excursion. We found out that a lot of people had chosen to hit the market but, of course, we’d done that overnight. Instead we headed down to the Hong Kong Space Museum (cheap entry, lots of fun things to examine and even play with; we enjoyed this a lot) and then walked along the Avenue of Stars, which included stars of people we’d heard of – Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Sammo Hung, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan – and a large number of ones we hadn’t.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time in Hong Kong because of our late night adventure and subsequent late (for us) getting up so we wandered around a bit more on foot, enjoying the gloriously clear skies before making our way back to the Diamond Princess in plenty of time for its departure.

The very first thing we noticed about Nha Trang before we’d even got off the ship and boarded the tender boat to take us quite a distance to shore was the humidity. We’d noticed it the night before where our usual evening behaviour would be to shower, get changed, then go for a walk along the promenade before having dinner and finding some entertainment to see us into the early hours; the difference between an air conditioned ship and the outside climate was like walking from a fridge into a sauna and that was in the evening at sea. In the daytime it was worse and we were sweating buckets in seconds. Eventually you just learned to try to accept that everyone was the same sticky, wet mess.

The first place we visited on dry land in Vietnam was an embroidery and tea house. The quality of the embroidery was fantastic and it was incredible how long some of the pieces took to make compared to how much they went for but we simply couldn’t afford any of it at the time. The tea was prepared from a central, raised platform in a courtyard area of the building and was both fascinating to watch and gorgeous to drink. Naturally, some Americans asked for coffee because that’s what they do. I don’t recall if coffee was available but I’d like to think it wasn’t.

We then had a photo stop down by the shoreline giving us lovely views over the somewhat muddied waters around Nha Trang. A small shelter held a tiled whale motif but the reason for its presence escapes me.

From the shore we headed to Po Nagar, a Cham temple tower rising high over Nha Trang. The tower complex was dotted with sculptures of various forms and with musicians entertaining the visitors as well as trying to earn some money, naturally.

From Po Nagar we could see across the water to the marketplace where we would next be heading.

We walked along the bridge over the Cai River towards a marketplace area for a little bit of shopping. It was here that I engaged in some actual haggling and bought a bottle of some bizarre alcohol with a scorpion in it for my brother. The bottle leaked a little bit on the journey home with us but he still went ahead and drank it, didn’t go blind, and still lives to this day.

Our penultimate stop was at the Long Son Pagoda which sat at the base of a 152 step climb to the Hai Duc Pagoda and its impressive, white, concrete Buddha. As I recall only about ten of us from the full coach made the walk to the top to take in the view not only of the statue and its reclining version halfway up but also of Nha Trang. I appreciate that 152 steps in high humidity is a challenge for some people but more than ten should have attempted it especially if you’re going to travel around the world to visit a place.

We finished our day in Nha Trang with a meal in a restaurant accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music.

The first thing to note about that cruise itinerary is that it actually operated differently to planned. Just prior to our cruise there had been a norovirus outbreak on the ship so the Japanese refused to allow the ship to stop at Nagasaki. Thankfully, this announcement was made in plenty of time to allow the itinerary to be altered, skipping out that port and spending an extra day in Hong Kong instead.

Another thing that was sent to us for that cruise were Princess Cruises luggage address tags, seen below attached to the cases we bought especially for this trip. Those tags have stayed on our luggage on every subsequent cruise or flight abroad we’ve taken and they’ll be transferred to the new luggage we’ve had to buy as the easy-to-spot yellow ones have finally started to get dangerously cracked. They’ve served us well.

China

We were put up for three days in the The Great Wall Sheraton Hotel, Beijing (here are some photos and video we took there: Beijing Hotel) and for some reason I never handed back my hotel room key card.

While we were out on tours and fed during the day in Beijing the evenings were our own to sort out. As this was our first trip abroad and we were less adventurous than our more experienced older selves are we didn’t stray too far from the hotel but this wasn’t a terrible thing as right around the corner was a fabulous and fabulously cheap restaurant that also brewed its own beer on the premises.

One of the first tours we did was of the Olympics area, the 2008 Beijing Olympics having taken place only a few months earlier in the Chinese capital. You can see posts of where we visited here: The Water Cube, The Bird’s Nest Stadium, and the Olympic Stadium Area. At some point during this visit we were obviously handed some bookmarks to commemorate the sporting event although I can’t remember where or when exactly.

Something else we managed to return from China with was a store guide despite not recalling ever visiting one. The location of the store appears to be about halfway between the Olympic village and our hotel so I suppose it’s possible that this was a rest stop for people on our trip on the way back although it clearly didn’t leave a lasting impression on me.

There were a few things we did buy – mass-produced for tourists, sold by street vendors looking to find strangers eager to part with precious dollars – while we out exploring such wonderful sights as Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, the Forbidden City, etc. The first of these was a set of ancient coins and information about them. I imagine this might have set us back a whole dollar.

The one thing my wife really wanted to buy, though, was a Chinese fur hat. Obviously, it’s not genuine – we would probably have had to wander far away from our tour guide and the tourist attractions to find those – but it’s still something that not a lot of people back home will have. Having worn it a few times we can confirm that real or not, it really keeps your head warm.

We visited a couple of silk factories when we were exploring China over the few days either in Beijing or Shanghai (see: Chinese Silk Factories). At one my wife succumbed to the temptation and picked up a silk top.

Diamond Princess Cruise Ship

With our three days in Beijing complete we boarded the Diamond Princess at Tianjin to start our love affair with cruising. We’ve got better at keeping the various bits of literature that accrue in your staterooms with subsequent cruises. On this occasion I think we binned the Princess Patter daily (the ship’s guide for the following day delivered to your stateroom every evening) which is an immense shame looking back now. It would be great to see just how different or similar the activities on the ship were a decade ago, although I seem to think that they haven’t really changed very much at all. One thing we did keep, though, was our first ever Princess Cruises cruise card. Blue to symbolise Princess virgins.

Japan

As already mentioned, the Japanese didn’t want anyone getting off the ship if there was any risk of spreading the virus they feared we were harbouring. Nagasaki was cancelled but they grudgingly allowed us the chance to get off and explore Okinawa so long as we were not showing any signs of a temperature. Fingerprint scanners and thermal cameras were set up and those who had the former and not too much of the latter were given a pass card that allowed them to get off at the port.

Naha City, Okinawa was the only port on our cruise where we didn’t take an organised excursion as nothing interesting really seemed to jump out at us. We therefore chose to take advantage of the Princess Cruises shuttle bus into the city and explored at our leisure (see: Naha City, Okinawa, Japan). On the bus we were handed free city maps and guides as well as a printout explaining exactly where the shuttle bus would be when we wanted to return to the ship.

Taiwan

In Taiwan we took a fantastic excursion up into the hills to visit a temple and explore the old mining town of Jiufen (historically written Chiufen; for details of our trip see: Taiwan Coast, Fushan Temple, Jiufen) where we stopped in a tea house.

This trip was so good that when we return to Taiwan later this year, again on the Diamond Princess to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, we’ve already booked to undertake pretty much exactly the same trip again. We were given a map of the town:

And our visit to the tea house where we enjoyed some fantastic tea and views over the misty hills towards the Taiwan coastline allowed us to take a card of the location too.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is another place where our cruise memorabilia barely extends beyond a map of the city. We had actually taken a tour of the impressive city’s highlights on the first day in port (see: Hong Kong, Victoria Peak, Aberdeen) but following an overnight adventure where we thought we might have no way back to the cruise ship and ran through the streets (recounted at the start of this post: Hong Kong) we did our own thing on our unexpected second day there with the help of a handy guide and map that we’d been given by the friendly Dutch family.

Vietnam

We had two stops in Vietnam (when we visit Vietnam later this year on Diamond Princess we’ll have two stops again but both in different ports). At the first of those stops we mostly picked up things for other people, acutely aware that we were running out of stops to buy souvenirs. One exception for me, though, was this fake Rolex watch for a few dollars. I absolutely love this thing and wear it on formal nights on cruises to this day.

On our second stop we took a trip to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, historically used in the Vietnam War. I think we lost about half our bodyweight through sweat on this trip into the jungle and our shuffling underground in the pitch black (those of us who actually did that, that is; see: Cu Chi Tunnels And Ben Nay Restaurant) but we gained… another guide to the area.

Singapore

The main thing we wanted to do in Singapore was visit Raffles Hotel and drink a Singapore Sling and there was only one cruise-organised excursion doing that so we chose it (see: Singapore, Raffles Hotel, Chinatown). In addition to the aforementioned Singapore Sling (no, we didn’t bring any home as a memento) we also ate plenty of peanuts and were given coasters and boxes of matches to take away as well as a recipe card explaining how to make the famous cocktail and one other (which we’ve bizarrely never tried; must remedy that).

There was a second part of the excursion that took us to the Royal Selangor pewter store. We’d assumed this was just one of those shopping opportunities that are tacked onto every trip you take when you’re on a cruise but this wasn’t the case at all. Instead, we got to take part in something called the Royal Selangor School Of Hard Knocks which saw us all getting a company history lesson then fashioning our own pewter bowls. At the end we got to keep the bowls, an apron, a pewter coin, and received a certificate too, making this particular day in Asia one of our most favourite memories. We’d looked at doing an anniversary cruise that would stop at Singapore again just to see if we could do this same excursion but the dates were wrong for the cruise and it appears that the pewter bowl-making is no longer done. We’re so glad that we got to do this and that we have all the memorabilia to remind us just how good this cruise excursion was.

Thailand

The last country we visited on our Diamond Princess cruise was Thailand where we took an excursion that included a river boat ride (see: Chao Phraya River Ride) and also a visit to Wat Ratchanatdaram and Wat Phra Kaew (see: Bangkok Temples). As we had free time to explore the latter of those temple complexes we were handed guides with maps so that we’d all make it safely back to the coach on time.

Log Of The Cruise

The final piece of Diamond Princess cruise memorabilia I’d like to share here is the log of the cruise delivered to our stateroom on the last night aboard the ship. For fans of statistics and historical weather and sea conditions these are always fascinating reading and a nice, final memento to take back home with you.

In a few months we’ll be back aboard the Diamond Princess in Asia again. We’re revisiting Hong Kong, Okinawa, and Taiwan and in the lattermost stop we’re trying to recreate our original excursion as much as possible. For the other two we’ll be doing our own things but trying to pick up as many physical, future memory-aids of the trips as possible nevertheless. We’ll also be visiting Kagoshima in Japan, Xiamen in China, and a couple of different locations in Vietnam so our next pile of Diamond Princess cruise memorabilia should be a nice mix of the familiar and the brand new to us.

The video starts with a few shots from the three-day pre-cruise excursion we took in Beijing where we explored some of the obvious tourist destinations such as The Great Wall and The Forbidden City. The remainder of the video covers each of the port stops in turn interspersed with footage from sea days aboard the cruise ship. For the most part these shots are from the top deck showing off the pools and how they behaved under the rocking and rolling conditions of the South China Sea simply because I didn’t really carry the video camera around with me that much in the inside venues of the ship. On one of the last days at sea on the Diamond Princess we were treated to a fabulous bank of black rainclouds sweeping in from the horizon and sending everyone running for cover. There’s more rain to be seen when we explored Jiufen in Taiwan and it’s one of the places we’ll be returning to on our cruise in a few months’ time; if we get better weather then that will be great but as you can see from the video of that excursion it’s a place that thrives under the atmosphere of a downpour just fine.

Video temporarily removed.

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.

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.