kwokpot

While not recent, my July Apex 12 nights cruise had far better MDR food than my February Solstice 7 nights cruise.

Day 21 Typhoon Koinu Avoided! Our captain has done a great job avoiding the typhoon and actually the rocking and rolling subsided overnight to provide a smooth nights sleep. The day greeted us with smooth seas and sunny skies if not a bit humid. I did a little bit of sunning in the morning and napping in the afternoon before a late afternoon workout. Tonight was Elegant Night and lots of people dressed up a little nicer. Today is my birthday (62) so we had dinner reservations at the steakhouse. It was our second meal at the steakhouse so far on this cruise and the food was excellent as was the first time. My ribeye was tender, flavorful and perfectly charred. My husband arranged for a birthday cake and to made for a great ending to my birthday dinner! photos from our steakhouse dinner.

Correct. There's reciprocal status, but only up to a certain level. Additionally, they are still 2 separate loyalty programs and a matched tier status doesn't confer any points, so if you're new to one or the other cruiseline you start with zero points even if you matched status level, which means you will need all the total required cruise points to move from the matched tier status to the next level.

Avoiding Typhoon Koinu update As you all know by now Typhoon Koinu is in our direct path going Southwest towards our previously scheduled Port stop of Puerto Princesa, The Philippines, necessitating the cancellation of that Port stop and proceeding directly to Bitung, Indonesia, our last Port stop before disembarking in Brisbane, Australia. We still need to go South to continue our journey so the captain has tried to get us around the Typhoon by taking us southeast so we skirt the typhoon's eastern edges. Still the nighttime after leaving Okinawa was quite rough with rocking and rolling all night long. Today, Day 20 the seas are still rough. The pools are drained but hot tubs still open, and the sun came out midday today and it was hot, humid and rocking. It's 9:41pm and a still rocking and rolling. The Captain did inform us today that the situation is under constant monitoring and rough seas can be expected today and tomorrow. Currently there are no expected delays for our arrival to Bitung, Indonesia on October 8th. https://www.nytimes.com/article/typhoon-koinu-taiwan.html?unlocked_article_code=l6E36qxQJzlo-0nwW6CKGTnP30xihUVt-o-nzvIrujl3fEU5K5ya7-vZQIeQhgAsBn7HzAsmANy9f5KNkuAI2NAZ6sN5Iz4KjfIyv_-KD5_5IveCAz0hxLXn6TBTFIEQErPHLgH5W7i3GCtug62UVwOlS7ltcBEI2GcQgq_MrA6C5ePUpGK2i8UNmr-VgiwW4fRdcwVAOKfxugwVW7ebEsbQwruO4CHhJA4TD5mW6Xz8WtO-F969QtAyUZEzj7SovJAIOfJWsZTlT-NxP1WBOt9B34H3lhv_B9Og0ru1B8zej7iYgJ62Jo3_4Kiqd6AUBma6&smid=url-share

I find this extremely hard to believe and you're the first person to report this. If that happened to me I would have called over the Matre D' immediately and asked for a full explanation for this.

Day 19 Naha, Okinawa Port stop continued I was quite curious about what Naha was going to be like. One always hears about this island in conjunction with WW2 but not being a war history buff I wasn't planning on going to see any war memorials. As with our Hiroshima Port stop we decided to tour a garden but this time it will be a Chinese Garden. Then it will be lunch out and some shopping/browsing. The dock turned out to be an industrial port (we will later see that Naha does have a proper cruiseship dock closer to the city center but it was occupied by a Costa ship) and there will be free bus shuttles right to the city center. Early morning weather was not good. It was rainy and intensely humid. Think New Orleans in the summertime. As we were about to get off the ship for our sightseeing it began to downpour, so we waited a little bit for the rain to subside. Stepping outside our glasses immediately fogged up. The ride to the shuttle drop-off point was about 15-20 minutes. As I surveyed the scenery Naha immediately reminded me of Honolulu, Hawaii. The drop-off point was right by City Hall, and straight ahead was the main shopping and restaurant area. The Chinese Gardens was in the opposite direction so off we went. While it was only a 15 minutes walk the heat and humidity made it extremely uncomfortable. It wasn't that hot, about 88 degrees, but the humidity was about the same so the heat index was about 100 degrees. Walking around the Chinese style garden it was immediately apparent that it pales in comparison to the Japanese garden in Hiroshima we visited two days earlier. The main reason being the lack of maintenance of the structures and attention to details in the landscaping. It made one appreciate the amount of resources that Hiroshima must invest in the upkeep of its wonderful garden. We still enjoyed seeing the Koi ponds and they even had a fish food dispenser where for 100 yen you can get a fist full of fish food to feed the Koi. Wow, to watch all the fish swarm around where we dropped the food was pretty wild! With the humidity we had enough of the garden and wanted to find somewhere indoors with AC to cool off and find somewhere for lunch. We proceeded back to the main shopping street which by 11:30am was already crowded with tourists. We sucked in and out of tourist stores to cool off and tried to find a restaurant that suited our lunch needs. While there were tons of restaurants many if not most either served steak or seafood, and we weren't in the mood for either. I'll have to Google why Naha is famous for steak. It was a bit strange. Also strange was how drugstores along the street were all mobbed with shoppers, as if they were giving away stuff for free. We persevered to find the right place for lunch which also had good AC. It took a good 40 minutes before we found a place, this funky looking restaurant that had American memorabilia decorations inside, and most importantly excellent AC. SOLD! We sat down and we were brought menus with some English but also a QR code to order remotely in English. Robert chose a Tonkastsu set meal and I chose a Okinawan set meal. Using our mobile phone to place the order it took only a few minutes for Robert to get his ice cold Coke and about 10 minutes later our food arrived. Both of our meals were delicious. It included a soba noodle soup with pork and Okinawan fried rice. Robert had the deep fried pork cutlet and what I had was a stir fry of chopped bitter melon, scrambled egg, tofu, and pork. We both enjoyed our lunches and the good AC made it all the more comfortable to eat hot food. After lunch we did some more shopping/browsing. Off the main shopping street were these covered alleyways/arcades lined with shops and eateries that went on for blocks. We are running low on toothpaste so I bought one for .65 cents! We were ready for some sweets so we found an ice cream stand and had some yummy Okinawan ice cream. We then made our way back to the shuttle bus stop where there was a line of passengers and crew waiting for the shuttle bus. Everyone was relieved when the shuttle buses arrived and they were nicely air conditioned. It was back to the ship for a rest before dinner. Photos from our Port stop in Naha, Okinawa.

I'm glad this was taken care of for you but I'm a bit surprised it was resolved by your cabin attendant. Shouldn't this have been an issue that maintenance took care of?

I'm currently on the Carnival Luminosa, an old Costa ship from 2009 that Carnival took over, for a 30 day TP from Seattle to Brisbane. The food has been very good and superior to the Solstice cruise from this past March. We're a little more than halfway through the cruise and the menu hasn't repeated yet, lobster has been served twice already ( actually 3x if you count lobster thermador!) And we also had filet mignon on the MDR menu with no surcharges. Some photos of our MDR entrees.

I was on the Odyssey of the Seas this July from Civitavecchia and the MDR food and service, for a group of 9 people, was far superior every single night for 7 nights than our experience on the Solstice Mexican Riviera cruise this past February.

Unacceptable. DEMAND that it be replaced.

Day 19 Naha, Okinawa Port Stop The day has just started so I haven't started today's touring but wanted to inform everyone that we have ANOTHER CRUISE PORT CHANGE DUE TO WEATHER. Tropical storm Koinu has been upgraded to a typhoon which impacts our getting to the next port of call, Puerto Princesa, The Philippines on October 6th. We are no longer going to that Port of Call and it will be replaced by a seaday. This means our next and final Port of Call before disembarking in Brisbane will be October 8th at Bitung, Indonesia. I'll report back later what we did here in Okinawa.

Day 17 Hiroshima Port Stop - photos Having some WiFi problems. Correction: My previous TP and Hiroshima visit was 8 years ago. Hopefully I can get the photos uploaded.

Day 17 Hiroshima Port Stop Before discussing what we did for the day I wanted to mention that coincidentally exactly eight years ago to this week we were also on A transpacific cruise on the Celebrity Millennium which went from Vancouver and ended in Shanghai, China. Having recently been to China just the previous year we had decided to disembark the cruise early at the last port stop in Japan and then do a seven day land tour of Japan via bullet train. So we disembarked in Kobe, Japan and promptly took the bullet train to Hiroshima, where we stayed overnight and visited all the important sights. This would include the Peace Memorial Park, Atomic Bomb done and Museum, Hiroshima Castle, and Miyajima & Itsukushima Shine/Tori Gate. I mention this since we will not revisit these sights but instead see things we didn't have time for. Although we docked early at 7:00am we had no intention of going out that early, especially on a Sunday. We were docked in an industrial port West of Hiroshima City Center about 20 minutes away by the closest train station. Carnival did provide a shuttle bus from the ship which would have been a 25 minutes walk away, so that really helped with touring on our own. We decided to check out a historic garden called Shukkeien Garden and a museum that was literally attached to the garden. Shukkeien Garden is a 400 year old marvel and I can honestly say it was one of the most enjoyable garden walks we've ever been on anywhere in the world. What made it unique was the elaborate landscaping to create miniature environments all within the space of less than 4 city blocks. The meandering paths weaves you in and out, up and down elaborately different garden scenes all perfect Instagram backgrounds (remember the garden was started 400 years ago). It was the perfect way to start our Sunday morning. It was peaceful and tranquil. Our next stop was the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum which was adjacent to the garden and even had pathways leading to the museum entrance. It has a highly focused collection of modern Western art but also Japanese artists that were contemporaries. Although most of the artwork couldn't be photographed a large piece by Salvador Dali was one of the few pieces allowed photos. I thought the museum was the perfect size to enjoy some time admiring both Western and Eastern artwork and thought it was an excellent curation of it's holdings. After the museum we were ready for another Japanese lunch experience. Having had ramen a couple of times we wanted to try something else. My husband Robert lives Japanese Tonkastsu, which is battered and deep fried pork cutlets. A quick Google search on my phone came up with a nice looking restaurant inside a fancy department store, so off we went. The restaurant, Wako, was at the top floor of the department store where a collection of restaurants were located. The was a self reporting waiting list so we put our names down and waited about 20 minutes. Robert had the traditional pork Tonkastsu which also includes rice, shredded cabbage, miso soup. I chose an Autumn seafood special which included shrimp, oyster, pork, and a special croquette of salmon and mushroom. Everything was fresh, crunchy and so very good! Afterwards we walked around a bit more and then headed back to the ship (both ways via train). It was a great day in Hiroshima and the weather was less hot than our time in Tokyo. Photos of our day in Hiroshima.

That will NEVER, EVER happen. It's all a inside space. What you proposing is impossible. In order to do what you're asking is to create a standard balcony cabin. An IV cabin is not, was never meant to be, and can never be, a cabin with real outdoor space.

Yes. It's on the 1st floor(which is actually the ground flr but the mall calls it 1st flr)arcade of shops and restaurants. There are multiple floors filled with other places to shop and eat including a food court and a food hall sort of setup. The mall is called Tokyo Solamachi and it's integrated/attached to the Skytree tower. Warning, if you're a shopper you can spend hours in this place!

I had originally tried to use this 3rd party booking app called klook which implied they had a discount code but the code didn't work and the price was the same as booking through Skytree's own website so I just ended up booking directly.

Day 15 Tokyo Port stop The sail in was without issues and it was going to be a warm day, high 70s. Having been to Tokyo before we wanted to visit a couple of places we didn't get to see 8 years ago. All aboard isn't until 9:30pm but we have no intention of staying out that late. We are docked at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal which has train connections to the rest of the city. Today's main attraction is the Tokyo Skytree, a TV antenna and observation tower, currently the third tallest freestanding structure in the world. We had purchased advanced tickets which gave a slight discount to see the observation decks at two levels: 350 meters and 450 meters. I have to say Google maps is an indispensable tool for traveling. With this one resource you can *find things to see in the city you're going to,*find out how to get to you destination,*find out information about what you're going to see,*find places to shop, eat, drink with reviews, photos, menus. Google maps gave us the exact way to get to the observation tower and it's estimated ETA was right on point! We had about an hour to kill before our reservation time so we browsed the huge mall that was attached to the observation tower. We found a ramen and dumplings restaurant we knew we wanted to have lunch at after the Skytree visit. The observation tower was worth the $16 admission. Although busy with tourists the queues were properly managed and being Japan everyone was polite and we were always able to get right in front of the windows to admire the views. It is pretty amazing and you understand how big Tokyo is once you see the whole city laid out in front of you. The views were 360 degrees and at 1,148 ft high and 1,476 ft high you appreciate the design and engineering that went into the making of this tower. I'm glad we went to the Skytree! Afterwards we went back to the ramen and dumplings restaurant for lunch. We ordered the extra large dumplings and they were excellent, so tasty and perfectly pan fried. Afterwards we went to the next two stops for the day; Ushijima Shrine and Senso-Ji Buddhist Temple. They were both walking distance from the Skytree so no need for the subway. Despite the good Google reviews the Ushijima Shrine was a disappointment. The whole shrine was in quite disrepair and there was loud construction noise right outside from a new park being created. The Shrine was anything but serine but it was on the way to the temple so we didn't go out of our way for the Shrine. The Senso-Ji Buddhist Temple is one of the most visited tourist sights in Tokyo and indeed there were thousands of people all over the place. The temple and surrounding gates and structures were impressive but the crowds make it hard to enjoy. There's a road lined with shops and food stalls that lead to the main gate of the temple and that too was packed with people. With the warm weather and crowds it became a bit too much so I quickly Googled for a coffee shop for an iced coffee and dessert. I found a highly rated coffee shop right around the corner from the main shopping street so we quickly made a dash for it. Wow, it was located on this small side street and it was exactly what we needed. An boutique coffee and dessert place with AC! We both had an iced latte and Affogato Japanese style, which included espresso jelly. It was yummy! Afterwards we wandered the streets some more before using Google maps to get us back to the ship via subway and train. Although early that day we had a brief thought about staying out for dinner we had already been out touring almost 6 hours and we were too tired to stay out another 3 hours before being hungry for dinner off the ship. So it was back onboard at 4:00 for a nap before dinner. Pictures of our day in Tokyo.

Day 13 Aomori, Japan Port Stop We had a nice sail in and it was going to be a nice warm day. The cruise pier is walking distance to the City Center and the city's iconic Tourism Information Building is a huge triangle that will forever be associated with Aomori (We actually didn't go in the building,lol). Our main destination today is the Nebuta Museum. A museum devoted to the annual Japanese Nebuta Festival, the most famous being the one celebrated in Aomori, Japan. ABOUT Nebuta Festival The epitome of Aomori's summer, the Nebuta Festival is one of the most famous festivals in Japan, attracting thousands of visitors. The main attraction is large, colorful and dramatic human-shaped floats called Nebuta, 9 meters wide, 7 meters deep and 5 meters high, most of them resembling ancient warlords, historical characters and kabuki characters in early days. These floats parade through the streets of Aomori, with Haneto dancers bouncing down the streets to the exciting music of Nebuta bayashi bands. This museum is fascinating and my most favorite attraction we have seen of the three Japanese cities we've visited so far. You'll see later on in the attached photos why I felt this way. Afterwards we walked into the Main city center and browsed the various shops. We found a perfect place for lunch and apparently many from the ship thought as well since we saw many other tables of Luminosa guests and crew. The restaurant was a chain and could be likened to a mid priced American chain restaurant with many choices. An English menu with photos helped with choosing many of the set complete menus of Japanese and Chinese food choices. The food was tasty and reasonably priced. After lunch we went to a small local shrine and enjoyed the peaceful ponds with koi fish, ducks, and turtles. We capped off the afternoon with coffee and some pastries from a simple and plain shop. Check out the amazing photos!

Day 12 Hakodate, Japan Port stop Our second Port stop in Japan will be much easier without having to do immigration and passport control. The weather was quite overcast and it did start to drizzle and rain in the morning, but it was warm with temps in the high 60s so the magrodome over the Lido pool was open. We were planning on disembarking around 10am but it started to rain a bit more steady so we decided to wait it out a little, and by 11am it stopped and we ventured out. We walked over to the waterfront warehouse area where historic red brick warehouses were renovated into shops and restaurants. It's very nice if not a bit touristy but there were nice things and hey, aren't we tourists? After a bit of browsing we had decided to venture out to a more local area for lunch. I had found a funky ramen shop that looked like a cool retro bar and we headed about 15 minutes away from the waterfront and tourist areas. The city streets seemed deserted! We got to the ramen shop and it was exactly as pictured on Google. The owner spoke a little English and although the menus weren't in English we used Google translate and it was perfect. It has a feature where you can either take a photo or live image and it will translate on the fly whatever text it sees. We decided to order A soy pork ramen and a clear salt pork ramen. Both were EXCELLENT with different types of noodles and different broths, but both having sliced pork. We enjoyed the local ramen immensely. After we left the sky cleared up and it was brilliant sunshine. We went to checkout some local historic buildings and walked around some more before heading back to the ship. There are others on the ship who took the cable car ride to the top of the mountain and others who went to another area where a historic fort was turned into a huge, beautiful park with a tall observation tower and everyone said that with the rain gone the views were great! Below are photos from our day in Hakodate.

Some background information on us. Before I post some more trip information I wanted just to give a quick background on us so you can read my reports with some context. I'm Anthony and I'm traveling with my husband Robert. We're both 62 (actually my birthday is next week on the ship!) And originally from NYC but we now live in Philadelphia. We're retired so traveling, especially on cruise holidays, is how we spend the bulk of our free time. This current cruise is our 106th cruise overall, 27th with Carnival. We've sailed on many interesting itineraries and this is our third Transpacific to Australia. Our traveling style can coined as less is more. We don't feel we have to get off the ship the moment the ship is cleared and come back at the very last moment. We enjoy casual walks on our own to see the local sights and experience the local stores and food. That's not to say we won't do private tours if the situation warrants it. Our most ambitious was planning three separate private group tours for a Vietnam cruise. The biggest group had 25 participants and I felt I owned a tour company! On this trip though we're only going to do walks and touring all on our own. This philosophy also extends to shipboard activities. Robert is a gambler so he enjoys the casino, but we generally don't go to the comedy shows or karaoke but we do enjoy the ship production shows. We also don't go to any of the organized ship activities such as trivia. So unfortunately you'll won't see any reviews about too much of the shipboard activities and entertainment. And no, even on a 30 day sailing such as this one, we aren't bored in the least with all the sea days but not attending any ship activities. So with that, on to more trip reporting!

Carnival seems to have totally different alcohol rules for the Europe sailings, although the official ship policies are technically in place. It does cause confusion. We specifically asked the security team as we disembarked since we knew we were going to buy Sake as gifts and what was told to us as we disembarked was what was actually done when we got back on board.

Day 11 Otaru, Japan Port stop Our first Port stop in Japan necessitated a complex Immigration and Passport control procedure. Forms were handed out a couple of days earlier one which had to be handed in the other day. Japanese immigration officials came on board complete with retinal and fingerprint scanners, after which a tourist sticker was placed inside your passport. The procedure took place in the theater and it was done deck by deck. It took a bit longer than anyone had anticipated but we were lucky to be on deck 8 and it took just under an hour for us and we were off just about 10am. The good thing is it's a one time procedure for our 6 stops in Japan. Some people opted to go to Sapporo but we decided to stay in the town of Otaru itself. The main sights were in walking distance but it was a long day and our feet were hurting by the time we got back onboard. The town is known throughout Japan for their seafood especially shellfish and Salmon roe. Every restaurant was some kind of seafood restaurant. We opted instead for cheesecake and coffee from a well known Otaru bakery called LeTao. The main store has sales on the ground floor and a cafe in the 2nd floor. We queued up using a ticket machine and a phone app that alerted you when your reservation was ready. The desserts were worth the wait. The cheesecake was light and airy and the strawberry shortcake was wonderful! The main street in town had all these wonderful little buildings with restaurants and gift items. The town is known for their glassware and there were many shops selling beautiful handmade glassware. One of the supposed attractions was a bit of a letdown, quite honestly. There's a canal running through the main town and supposedly warehouses with shops and restaurants. Unfortunately the setup was disappointing; a pedestrian walkway without shops or restaurants ran along one side of the canal and on the opposite side were the warehouses that occasionally had exposed windows along the canal. In other words there was no shopping and dining esplanade walkway which one would have thought was the setup after reading about this attraction. The city's main street was far more interesting! Oh I forgot to mention our first few stops. We checked out the fresh market which sold produce and seafood. Then we went to a Sake Brewery. It was a local working Sake brewery and you were able to tour the facility and see how Sake was made and then buy direct from the brewery. We bought three bottles which we had gift wrapped as presents ( These were taken from use when we went back on board and will be returned at the end of the cruise). Finally it was the middle of the afternoon and we had wanted to have some ramen 🍜 at a local shop but as I said earlier all the restaurants served seafood. The one tiny ramen shop we saw was full so we opted to have some food back on the ship. Lunch in the buffet was being served until 3:30 so we lucked out with that! We were so tired that we took a nap and actually skipped dinner! Photos of our day in Otaru.

Quick Recaps:Day 10 sailing the Japanese waters Just some quick thoughts. On Sunday, Sept. 24th we saw land for the 1st time since leaving Seattle. Japan is in our sights! The most interesting part of the day was sailing the Japanese Strait which is the body of water in-between the Japanese archipelago that forms the 'head' of the Japanese Dragon(if you look at Japan on a map you'll see the country is in the form of a dragon!)and the main island that forms the 'body'. The waters were calm and protected from the winds and everyone was out sunning at the Serenity area. It was a day that was sorely needed after all the rocking and rolling and cloudy and rainy weather. Everyone was outdoors.

We have been having varied weather here in the Pacific. The weather didn't calm down until Sunday when we arrived by the Japanese Islands. Yesterday was great, today is raining. I'll do a quick recap.

It's not the gym, it's the spa deck on Deck 14. You would need a thermal suite pass in order to access that outdoor deck since the door it within the thermal suite area.