Donald

All of these ships / itineraries are just “shopping trips” for the Chinese.

It is the easiest way for them to get into Japan, buy Japanese goods and foods, and transport them back to China.

You may be shocked at the quantity of stuff the Chinese will be transporting back to China on your cruise. Just re-boarding the ship in Japanese ports will be a new experience for you.

4 hours ago, ldubs said:

 

Interesting that you and a handful of others need to continuously compare larger ships to Walmart and amusement parks.  Some do in fact have amusement park vibes, many do not.  None that I have experienced in somewhere around 50 cruises resemble a Walmart.  But then, I don't really know what meant by those of you who comment about floating Walmarts.   Bottom line, and a good dose of tit for tat, I suppose I might prefer the vibe on larger ships over a floating convalescent home.   

Go to www.peopleofwalmart.com to get a better idea of the comparisons.

No Mass Market for me.

If I wanted to spend a week at Walmart, there are easier ways to do that.

The new Ritz-Carlton ship is very special. 300 guests; 300 crew.

Easy answer. The Captain (overall in command and completely responsible), and the Hotel Manager (responsible for evacuating all crew and pax) wait until all crew and pax are accounted for and evacuated.

Then they can leave the ship on one of the final boats or rafts.

On the Costa Concordia, three officers received prison sentences. The Hotel Manager received the longest sentence.

Only the Captain - or someone designated by him - can signal Abandon Ship. Under International Law, nobody can abandon ship until the Captain makes that command. On Concordia, everyone was waiting for the Captain to make the Command - but he was not onboard. The Hotel Manager was managing the evacuation, but could not send pax to the boats without the Masters Command.

When pax tried to go to the boats, the Hotel Manager sent them back to their cabins to wait for the Abandon Ship Command that never came. Those pax died in their cabins.

I would never again eat American Fast (Junk) Food.

Tried it a few times and got sick every time.

It is just plain unhealthy.

The cruise industry changes very, very slowly.

Many of the traditional things we did 50 years ago are still in place today.

Cruise passengers are also incredibly predictable.

You do not like changes very much. The cruise lines know that very well.

Cruise companies could splendid big money and lots of time and effort to change the industry completely. But most of you would not be very happy with that.

It is much easier and far more profitable to keep things more or less the way they are.

Far more cruisers watch “The Love Boat” than the “Jetsons”.

There are no leftovers on a cruise ship.

USPH Regulations require that any prepared food must be consumed or discarded within 4 hours.

Since all protein food items must be frozen until they are prepared (USPH Regulation), it is not easy to make a quick menu change or handle a quick request.

Mass market ships follow a corporate menu. All the protein items must be requisitioned a day or two in advance to receive them and thaw them out before preparation. Most big ship chefs are too busy to take time for one special request.

On much smaller ships (Read higher standards, better quality, and more expensive) it is far easier for the Chef to run to the freezer, grab whatever is needed, thaw it out, and prepare it for you. This sort of thing happens all the time on the better cruise lines.

20 minutes ago, monkey@cruise said:

Three cruise terminals in City of Yokohama: Osanbashi, Daikoku and Shinko.

Three cruise terminals in City of Tokyo:  Tokyo International, Harumi and Oi.

Shinko terminal is rarely used for cruise ships anymore.

Harumi cruise terminal has been demolished and the pier is no longer used for cruise ships.

Tokyo also has Hinode Cruise Terminal. But Oi and Hinode are used primarily for river and bay cruises.

There are several wonderful Onsen in the Shimizu area.

Google is your friend.

Note that if you have any tattoos, most Onsen will not allow you to use the facilities. 

On 3/24/2024 at 5:48 AM, Meioidumlao said:

Confusion:  Which Yokohama port location does Celebrity Millenium use for embarkation?

                   Which Yokohama port location does Celebrity Millenium use for deparkation?

 

                    Why are there two ports to use???

There are actually 4 different cruise piers used by international cruise ships calling at Tokyo / Yokohama.

1. Harumi Terminal. Located at the Olympic Village in downtown Tokyo. This is the most convenient pier, but can only handle ships small enough to fit under the Rainbow Bridge.

2. New Tokyo International Cruise Terminal. Located next to Haneda Airport, just North of Yokohama. This is the largest and newest Terminal in the Tokyo area. It handles cruise ships too large to fit under the Rainbow Bridge into Tokyo Bay.

3. Daikoku Cargo Pier. This is the least convenient cruise pier, located on an artificial island in Yokohama Bay. It is used by ships that are too large to fit under the Yokohama Bay Bridge, or when Osanbashi Terminal in Yokohama is full.

4. Osanbashi Terminal in Yokohama. The main downtown terminal in Yokohama.

Why so many terminals? Japan is an island nation, with frequent ship visits.

Plugging a heating pad into a 110v outlet on a cruise ship will nearly guarantee a blackout for your cabin and the cabins around you.

A 220v heating pad might work, but since it is a dangerous heat source, the cruise lines will not allow it. Hot water bottle is the way to go.

You may also be interested to know that the majority of the Asian crew on cruise ships is not very interested in most of the foods that Western Passengers eat. Meat, potatoes, bread, and dairy are not very appealing to us. The crew and Officer Messroom menus are far better in our opinion.

You may be interested to know that the better cruise lines budget more money to feed their crew than many of the mass market lines budget to feed you.

The Crew Feeding Buget on my ship (sorry, secret) is far higher than the Passenger Feeding Budget on Carnival, NCL, HAL, and Princess ships.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that the fares on my ship are far higher than those other lines as well.

22 hours ago, wowzz said:

But that has nothing to do with Covid.

Not washing your hands in a public toilet has EVERYTHING to do with COVID.

The fact that you did not know that tells us how dangerous public toilets can be.

All of the Walmart-style cruise lines sell you water and snacks for your cabin.

4 hours ago, sanger727 said:

No amount of convenience is worth being pounds wise and penny foolish. Cruisers that can afford to cruise without a strict budget also tend to be people who don't pay $1,000 extra for an all included package when all they really want is coffee in the morning and a glass of wine at dinner. 

That is your opinion and you are entitled to it.

However, if you managed cruise ships like I have done for several decades, you would be quite surprised at the very high number of passengers who seem to think that convenience is worth quite a bit of money.

This also explains why many Americans are quite happy to pay $32 per gallon for Starbucks coffee, which is not particularly good, definitely not a good value, but certainly convenient.

Many of today's mass market cruisers are always looking for bargains.

The cruisers on the better lines tend to look for convenience.

Most of these packages offered by cruise lines were never intended to be bargains.

They were designed as a hybrid version of an all-inclusive cruise package.

Instead of paying for everything up front, the packages allow you to pay up front for a limited number of items that you may want, without having to go through the nickel and diming that has become so popular with discount cruisers.

These packages are convenience - nothing more.

"Viable" to the discount cruisers means "can I drink my money's worth?"

"Viable" to the serious cruisers means "will the package make my cruise more hassle-free?"

I never dress like I am going to clean the garage.

I never wear baseball caps to cover the bald spot.

I never try to eat or drink my money's worth.

I never treat the service staff like servants.

I always speak in complete English sentences.

I never stand in a line.

I never try to be the first to board the ship, nor the first off the ship.

I do not walk around with food or drinks in my hands and mouth.

On 3/21/2023 at 12:55 PM, Markanddonna said:

One captain changed the times at noon. He felt it gave his crew more sleeping time and that they weren't constantly sleep-deprived.

If the ship is heading East, changing the clock at noon gives the crew more sleep at night - but less sleep on their afternoon break, and less time on their afternoon coffee time. It also saves food cost as many pax are not very hungry at the earlier dinner time.

If the ship is heading West, changing the clock at night still gives everyone plenty of sleep, without shortening or lengthening the time between lunch and dinner.

My colleagues at the United States Public Health Service (USPH) have a theory that on every medium sized cruise ship (2500-3000 pax) departing a US Port, there are at least 60 passengers who have just boarded with either COVID or NLV.

Some of these people know they are sick, and are hiding it to avoid quarantine or being denied boarding. Some of them are unaware that they have the illness, as they just picked it up in a hotel or on a flight. The symptoms will start in a day or so.

Either way, these 60 passengers will be trying (perhaps unintentionally) to give their illness to you in all the public areas. They are also exposing the crew who clean their cabins and serve their food.

On a high density occupied ship, the odds of you getting in some sort of contact with one of these infected pax are quite good.

On a smaller cruise ship, with, say 100 pax, the number of infected pax boarding the ship might be 4 or 5. Smaller ships generally have more space per person, reducing crowding and unintentional close contacts. Those 4 or 5 people are still trying to get you sick, but you may never get close enough to them to become infected.

If you go to the Vessel Sanitation Website of the USPH, you can research the history of all cruise ships that have recorded Viral Outbreaks onboard over the past several years. The one trend that is very clear is the size of the ships - nearly every one of them is large.

One can argue that there are many different factors that can affect spreading illnesses on a cruise ship - but one cannot deny that smaller ships (with fewer pax and less crowding) rarely have viral outbreaks, while bigger ships (with more pax and more density) usually have the outbreaks.

Time zone changes are really done for the crew's benefit - but not in the way you might think.

Going westbound, the clock changes usually changes at night, giving everyone an extra hour of sleep.

This rarely causes much drama for guests or crew.

Going eastbound, losing one hour of sleep at night quickly gets passengers very grumpy. After 4 or 5 changes, they are all in a foul mood and complaining about nearly everything. The crew have a much more difficult time with them.

On Eastbound trips, changing the clock at 2pm does not interfere with Breakfast or Lunch timing. The only downsides are: The hotel crew have a shorter afternoon break, and the passengers are not so hungry at dinner time. The ship actually saves money on food cost as people tend to eat less.

Exiting an airplane in any US airport and getting hit with that blast of stale McDonalds grease smell at 9am.

Absolutely disgusting.

14 hours ago, silkismom said:

After working and screaming most of the day on the K-eta website, I FINALLY figured out how to resize the photos so they are "acceptable"--I got "timed out" several times. One less thing to do. Haven't heard anything about returning to Japan after SK. If this darn trip hadn't been paid for in Mar 2020 and rebooked 3X, I'd say--stay home, too much hassle.  I'm afraid I use this forum to Vent too many times.

 

Apologies

Now you have a good idea what it is like for a non-US citizen to try to visit the USA.

This seaweed problem is not even near the top of the very long list of reasons why one should not ever cruise in Florida or in the Caribbean.

You didn't tell us which Hong Kong Cruise Terminal you are sailing from.

The older terminal is at the point of Kowloon, next to the Star Ferry Terminal, and next to the Train Station for the train to and from the airport.

The newer Cruise Terminal is a bit further away, at the old airport.