OzKiwiJJ

Coral is a very special Princess ship with a wonderful ambience that is unique to that ship. We also enjoy Grand Class ships (we cruised on Grand in March) but the newer Royal Class ships are just too big for us. We had a similar problem with wine on Royal Princess during a Mediterranean cruise in 2017. It was late in the season and I think Royal was close to ending its European season. At least 25% of the wine list was out of stock. Since we enjoy speciality coffees during the day and a cocktail or two before dinner for our future cruises we're using the Plus fare for internet and some drinks but have budgeted to buy some wines by the bottle (at 25% discount) for dinner. That seems to be the most cost effective way for us that allows us to enjoy decent quality wines. However if we have trouble getting the wines we like on our upcoming Japan cruise then look out for some serious grumbles on my "Live(ish)" thread!

The previous Princess cruise had finished with, I believe, apparently no signs of Covid so it was quite understandable that Princess did not choose to cancel the ill-fated cruise. Plus an influenza outbreak was starting up as well. It would not have been easy for Princess to deal with both viruses, especially when passengers were ignoring symptoms and circulating freely through the ship,

It all started when our friend, Stickman1990, tempted us with a very good value Regent Seven Seas Explorer cruise from Tokyo to Bangkok. We love visiting Japan but have only spent a rushed day in Bangkok. After a bit of number crunching we decided to book it. Then our FCCs, from having Covid on the Round Australia cruise last year, landed in our Princess account. There were no Australian cruises that tempted us so I looked at Japan cruises and found a great cruise that fitted perfectly before our Regent cruise with no overlap of ports and finished two days before the Regent cruise embarked. So we booked it. We depart for Haneda on Saturday via Singapore, arriving Sunday morning. We're staying two nights in Yokohama before boarding Diamond Princess for a 9 night cruise. This cruise goes north from Yokohama with one sea day before visiting Aomori, Sakata, Kanazawa, Sakaiminato, Busan (South Korea) and Nagasaki, before a final sea day takes us back to Yokohama. From Yokohama we transfer to Tokyo, staying two nights in the Shimbashi area where we stayed in 2018 at the end of a repositioning cruise. Then we head to the Tokyo Cruise Terminal to board Regent Seven Seas Explorer for a 14 night cruise. This time we head south to Shimizu, Kobe, Kochi, Okinawa, then to Taipei (Taiwan), and on to Vietnam with a stop at Nha Trang and and an overnight stop in Ho Chi Minh City. After that it's straight to Thailand where we dock at Laem Chabang. We have one more night onboard before transferring to Bangkok for a three night post cruise package - morning sightseeing tours and free time (pool time) in the afternoons. The post-cruise package includes transfers to the airport on our last day. I think this will be a very different trip for us. From what I've heard the Diamond Princess cruise will be a mix of mostly local Japanese, Australians, and Americans. The pre-cruise info from Princess hints at a more Japanese experience onboard than is usual on Princess ships. We've been on Diamond before so are familiar with the ship. It was modified for the Japanese market prior to our previous cruise. I'm excited to experience the formal nights on this cruise as I think the Japanese cruisers will dress beautifully on those nights. We've done one luxury cruise in the past, on Crystal, and it will be interesting to see how Regent compares. Crystal Symphony was an older ship, Regent Explorer is fairly new. The cruise is fully inclusive although there were some excursions that cost extra if you wished to do those - we're doing a couple of those but had sufficient onboard credit to cover the costs. Tomorrow is the Battle of the Suitcases. As usual we're probably packing far too much but it's tricky predicting the weather during the first part of our trip. So far the Japan weather is staying a bit warmer than I expected but we need to be prepared in case it does turn cold. And the downside of this warmer Autumn weather is that the Autumn foliage may not be as spectacular as we'd hoped. Then by the time we get to Vietnam and Thailand it will be hot and humid so lots of cool clothing will be needed. We have free laundry on both cruises, thank goodness. I'll be posting about our experiences, hopefully with some photos as well, as often as I can. I'll be happy to answer any questions as well.

Yes, we did a land trip there in 2015. About two weeks but Rolf was working for about four days. We did some great tours - the best was bus from Tokyo to Mt Fuji, Hakone, then train to Takayama, them bus to Kanazawa via tge Shirakawa-go area, then train to Kyoto. We based ourselves in Kyoto for four days then went down to Hiroshima and Miyajima overnight, then back to Narita to fly home. Then in 2018 we did a repositioning cruise up to Yokohama and stayed in Tokyo for a few days. Hmmm, maybe it's time to start the Live(ish) thread!

But that's the thing! Princess does do everything it possibly can to keep passengers safe and healthy. It's other passengers who are the problem. The ones who decide "it's only a cold" and "I'm not going to let it spoil my cruise" and who wander around the ship coughing and sneezing over everyone.🤬

They are usually at 7:30pm and 9:30pm.

Last season they started a new ferry service across to Tauranga. It leaves from a wharf right next to the cruise dock.

For Dunedin I suggest a tour that goes to the Albatross Sanctuary, the Penguin Place, Larnach Castle, the Dunedin Railway Station and Baldwin St (steepest street in the world). The other option is to do the Taieri Gorge train trip. Lyttelton - Christchurch and visit the Antarctic Centre. Napier is famous for its Art Deco architecture throughout the town. You can pick up a self-tour map at the Information Centre where the shuttle buses stop. There are two major attractions from Tauranga. One is Rotorua for Maori culture and geothermal sights. The other is Hobbiton but it seems to be hard to find excursions there at the moment.

On Princess if you have a drinks package you don't get charged the gratuities on drinks, it's built into the package. Ditto on HAL and Celebrity.

Thanks Marion. I'll look out for that one. We're using our upcoming Japan trip to try to idea of what quantity of consumables ( ie skin care products, shampoo etc) we'll need to take with us. We're away for a month on that trip so we should be able to get a very good idea of what we'll need for the world cruise. Sometimes it's hard to find the products you like when travelling, especially when you don't have many opportunites for shopping for essentials.

It's crazy, isn't it. Not everyone wants to go into Christchurch. I'd actually like to take the ferry across to Diamond Harbour if we stop in Lyttelton again.

If a Cradle Mountain excursion is offered from Burnie then I recommend it. The Cradle Mountain National Park is beautiful, plus you'll get to see a fair bit of the Tasmanian countryside as well. It's a long day trip though.

Sorry to hear that, Les. Take care. 😘

Two cruise ship wharves? I thought there was only the new one.

Unlike Port Chalmers, the Lyttelton wharf is a working wharf ie the whole area services freight vessels as well as cruise ships, which is why you can't walk off it.

That's just crazy and may result in people who do want to spend the day in and around Lyttelton clogging up the public buses still. Most people who used the public buses did so because they didn't want to pay the shuttle bus fee but if the shuttle to Christchurch is free that issue goes away. And if Lyttelton doesn't want cruisers shopping, or having coffee or lunch in their town then stuff them, I'll stay on the ship. Akaroa may be happy to have a few cruise ships back there.

Meh!

I haven't created it yet. I'll start it later this week. We fly to Japan on Saturday.

Apparently that's quite common on USD cruises where the gratuities aren't included in the fare. I think it goes back to before they started charging daily gratuities.

They ask for your cabin number and write it on the envelope. Then the envelopes are checked against your booking to see whether you've removed the daily gratuities or not. If not the crew member gets the envelope back.

Shhhh! Don't tell anyone that it isn't part of the Sanctuary! 🤣 Those pools are really nice. We had one cruise where it was almost bath temperature one day. They did cool it off a bit after I mentioned it to our Sanctuary steward who was also in charge of doing the daily water checks in that pool. Most of the Princess pools aren't heated, they warm up from sun but cool off if air temps are cold.

Coral is the only ship that has a dedicated Sanctuary pool. The Sanctuary is aft on Coral instead of forward like on Emerald.

Ditto. Sometimes there is an option to prepay the gratuities. If the offer is in AUD check how it compares with the current exchange rate. For our upcoming 9 night Japan cruise we saved about $20pp by prepaying the gratuities.

Yes, that is true, a fee to cover service glasses etc, but $30 per bottle is more than excessive! Princess needs to take a reality check on things like that. Just converting the US price to AUD doesn't take into account local charges for such things. There might be the odd three hat restaurant that might deign to allow someone to bring a special bottle of wine to that restaurant and charge them $30 corkage but Princess is a long way from a three hat restaurant. If they're going to charge me $30 corkage I expect to get the correct Riedal wine glasses for the wine I'm drinking and that doesn't happen on Princess. They do have decent wine glasses if you can get your hands on them but they aren't specific to the type of wine. No, there is no requirement for soft drinks and water to be in cans on Princess. This is a myth perpetuated by P&O cruisers.

I only swam in the Sanctuary pool. It had a very shallow section with a ledge around the edge to sit on, then a deeper section which I think was posted as 5ft 2ins deep, which I think is around 1.5 metres, in the middle but a bit less around the edges. It was the perfect depth IMHO.