skurvish

Thanks Bruce. The procedure to submit the documentation is quite complicated and seems a lot of work. Fingers crossed then.

I have been reading about the requirement to submit a "Yunyu Kakunin-sho" for approval prior to arrival in Japan. I happened upon it in our roll call, but this is the first and only time I have seen it. I have to imagine that the vast majority of folks will have never heard of it and hence show up without it. What happens in these cases? Is Japan really strict about this or is it hit or miss? Anyone have any experience? Thanks.

Due to the rules the ships must visit a foreign port before returning to Japan. Our Westerdam cruise this coming April has substituted Busan South Korea. I suspect that will be yours as well.

Try toursbylocals.com

Ditto what Cajuntraveler said. I bring my own extension cord.

Try toursbylocals and also post in your roll call to see if others have arranged anything.

Does anyone have any experience with how the turnaround day in Yokohama is handled for in-transit guests? I am looking at booking a tour through Tours By Locals and need to know how easy and quickly we can get off the ship in Yokohama, and how late we can re-board. Thanks in advance.

Another benefit of booking B2Bs as separate legs is that each leg is priced separately and one leg may go down in price before final payment and you can have it refared. If you book the B2B as one cruise then you only get to refare if that combined cruise drops in price. We have a B2B2B of 3 14-day cruises starting in March in Japan. Since booking 2 of them have had price drops.

It is always possible Japan will table that requirement for the short term as the US did with the PVSA so Alaska cruises could bypass Canada. They did that for last years alaska season.

I am with a group of 22 working through an Australian tour company that books this cruise for 100's of passengers every year. They said we MUST have a PAPER visa for entry into Cambodia on the mekong river cruise. They have been doing this for years so I believe them. Do otherwise at your own risk and wallet.

That is my understanding. When they scan your passport or Nexus card the ArriveCan info displays.

Not as such as far as I have seen. They generally put aside time each day somewhere for bridge players to get together. On the Zaandam 2 years ago (just before Covid) they did have about 10 duplicate card caddies. What you will find these days is anyone's guess. if they had a director on board it would likely only be on the world cruise. What I have seen in the past though is you may get lucky and find a bridge group on board. They hold their own lessons and games. (In the past I have introduced myself to the person in charge and offered to fill in if they needed someone to make a full table. This has worked well and I would be I got to play about 50% of their games, often with their director. On one cruise there were 3 of us standing by so we rotated as space was available. It never hurts to ask and you may be helping them quite a bit. I was not charged for any of these games.