chubbypiggy

I did look for your video of Otaru for 2007, obviously I didn't find it. ☺️ Tomorrow I will find the video on your 2018 trip. That is a good suggestion, we will do Google map before calling taxi. Thanks.

Thank you. I read Uber is commonly use in Tokyo. How about outside of Tokyo? For example, in Otaru and Sapporo?

@ROCruiser You mentioned there were 8 of you, so took 2 taxis. Four people in a taxi was just right or it is possible or allowable to have 5 people in a taxi? There will be 9 of us (one family of 4, one family of 3, and a family of 2). Just wonder if we must take 3 taxis every time or can get by with 2 taxis. When coming back from town to ship (at various ports), some times it might not be easy to find 3 taxis at around the same time.

Thank you!! Hopefully you don't mind to answer a few more questions. Is Sapporo station the last stop or we need to pay attention for the announcement to get off at Sapporo station? There will be 9 of us (all in age mid-60s). This will be our first time visiting the Otaru port. Ship will be at port from 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. (I think similar to your port time). Do you recommend we visit both Sapporo and Otaru or just stay at Otaru? If just staying at Otaru, enough things/places to do/see for the whole day?

Thank you. Your answers very clear and useful.

Thank you.

@ROCruiser I just finished viewing your video on Otaru/Sapporo. Would appreciate it if you can answer some questions. 1. How long did you stay in Sapporo? 2. How often trains run from Otaru to Sapporo? 3. Train direct from Otaru to Sapporo or stops in between? 4. I noticed some people in your group bought dried scallops, is it okay to bring back to U.S.? 5. After you got back to the Otaru station, how long it took to walk from the station to Otaru Canal? 6. How long it took to walk from Otaru Canal to your last stop, Sakaimachi Hondori St.? 7. How long the ride and how much the cost of the taxi from your last stop back to ship? 8. Were there a lot of taxis available by the port? Instead of walking 25 minutes to the station to take the train to Sapporo, we might consider taking the taxi from terminal to the train station. Thank you for your time!

@ROCruiser I just watched your video on Kagoshima. Very nice, thank you! I know your trip was 4 months ago, hopefully you still remember some details to assist me with some questions. 1. Do you remember the arrival and departure time of your Kagoshima port? 2. How long did you spend at the Sengan-en garden? 3. How long after ship arrival before you were allowed to get off the ship? 4. From the video, you got on the City View bus at stop #3, Tenmonkan. Did you buy the one-day pass on the bus or you bought it ahead of time at the Information Center? Were you able to buy the pass with credit card or you paid cash? 5. Did you buy the "Cute" pass? If so, where did you buy it? If not, you bought your ferry ticket at the ferry terminal? Thank you in advance for your assistance!

@cr8tiv1 For Kagoshima, do you remember how long was the walk from Princess shuttle drop off point to Tenmonkan (main shopping district)? @4bande For Kagoshima, do you remember how long was the walk from the ferry terminal to Tenmonkan? TIA.

Thank you. For Osaka, the Patter indicates arrival at 7 a.m. So about 30 minutes after arrival to allow passengers to go on shore.

Very nice pictures, thank you for sharing. Just curious, for your 2 cruises, on the average, how much time after ship arrival at the port before passengers were allowed to go ashore?

Your guess is probably right.

Thank you. My wild guess for the Environmental restrictions for laundromat was maybe because of the ship staying in port overnight. Since there is no overnight, my guess is wrong. ☺️

Just want to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The ship will be "overnight" at Kobe-Osaka port?

Thank you so much for the information and the laundromat pictures. When I get on board, I will check with GS if there will be any laundromat closure days for our 1st and 2nd cruise. I emailed Intercontinental Yokohama Grand this morning asking if they have self-serve laundromat, and I just received their reply. They do not have self-serve laundromat. They only have the professional service laundry, price range is very expensive.

@Ken the cruiser I noticed on the Patter, it says "Due to environmental restrictions, the self-serve Laundromat will not be in operation..." for almost 3 days. Will open up again only after 12 noon on the last day. 1. Did you know for your 1st cruise, the self-serve Laundromat was also closed for a few days? 2. During the time period the self-serve laundromat was closed, can you still send clothes to Princess' professional cleaning service? 3. If you are Elite, did you use the free Princess' professional cleaning service? If so, how many days for turnaround? In Sept., we have a 7-day cruise, follows by 5 days on land (DIY), then back on for a 9-day cruise. We are Elite, but for such a short cruise, we don't plan to use the free service. Our plan for the 1st cruise, is to do self-serve laundry on the 4th day and the last day of the cruise. Then no laundry on land. And for the 2nd cruise, do self-serve on the 1st day and 5th day. If closing the self-serve laundromat in the middle of the cruise through almost to the end of the cruise, we definitely will have a problem. Would be nice to know if closing the self-serve laundromat for a few days during each cruise is the norm for Japan cruises? If so, then we definitely need to plan differently. Thank you.

Monterey Park.

Thank you. BTW, I am also from L.A. ☺️

On my last Japan cruise in 2018, we stayed in Yokohama nearby Chinatown, which was nice. That hotel was only about 10 minutes walk to the Osanbashi Pier. This time, I want to try out the Minato Mirai area. So we booked the Yokohama Grand IHG hotel for 1 night pre-cruise and 5 nights between the 2 cruises. From Haneda airport, there is airport bus that have a stop directly in front of the hotel, so that is nice.

I really enjoyed your video on Nagasaki, so I looked at posts by you, and found the link to your video and blog. The last 2 days, I watched a lot of your videos; truly enjoyed all of them. I even "bookmark bar" your link so I can watch more videos whenever I have time. The hot pot you had in HK is very interesting. I will be going there for 4 days in Dec., will try to find a restaurant that offers that kind of hot pot. I can read Chinese and can understand some Mandarin, which makes watching your video more enjoyable. I love to travel, and have visited 70+ countries. I really envy of your retirement life. One day, I plan to travel like you. But at this point, I don't want to be away from home more than 3 weeks at a time because my mom is age 95. Our 7 days cruise in Sept., we will have a port stop in Kagoshima. There will only be 2 of us, so I plan to take the taxi to Kagoshima Chuo station, which is stop #1, for the City View bus. We plan to do a complete loop, then get off at the last stop, Tenmonkan, and do shopping there. Then take taxi from there back to ship. After that cruise, we will be staying at the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand hotel for 5 nights. Seven friends from L.A. will arrive and join us there. After that 5 days, all 9 of us will board Diamond Princess again for their 9-day Hokkaido cruise. Kagoshima is also on the itinerary. Since it will be the first time for the other 7 people, we will probably do the City View bus again.

Prior to our Majestic 27 days cruise in April from Sydney to Los Angeles, we also received Princess email telling us "SILK" will be a show on our cruise. I watched the show every day, and SILK was never shown.

Thank you all for the valuable information!!

Thank you for taking the time to check for me. My 2 cruises are not B2B. My 1st cruise is 7 days (only 2 of us), then get off ship for 5 days, then back on ship for 9 days (9 of us this time).

Really enjoyed your video on Nagasaki. Have you visited Kagoshima? If so, did you do a video of it? In Sept., we will be doing an 7-day Kyushu cruise and an 9-day Hokkaido cruise on the Diamond Princess. Between those 2 cruises, we will spend 5 days on land. Will be staying at the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand hotel. Hopefully not too far to get to the Yokohama station; really enjoyed your video of the underground shopping in the Yokohama station.

Within the last few months, anyone visited the Kagoshima port and bought the Kagoshima one-day pass or the "Cute" one-day pass? If so, did you buy the pass at the cruise terminal? There was a recent CC post that I read, saying maybe those passes can not be bought at the cruise terminal, and must be bought at the Tourist Info Center in town. We want to do the Kagoshima City View bus. If we can't buy the pass at the terminal, that mean we must take the Princess shuttle to town (I think drop off by Dolphin port), then have to walk from drop off point to Tenmonkan's tourist center to buy the pass before we can get on the bus