DaKahuna

7 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Last night I didn't see any in Luminae but did see some at various staircases --- as well as the green screen in front of the Casino.

 

There was a green screen set up just out side of Luminae at the photo shop area on Millennium.  They were breaking it down when we went to the theater for the Taiko Drum performance around 0845.   Otherwise, have not seen a lot of photographers or sets up so far this cruise. 

 

3 hours ago, Norwaylady said:

The party girls (not)🥳😂🥳 had to visit the rooftop terrace🤩 

What a view 🤩😁👍🏻 

 

 Greetings from Japan -   That view certainly is spectacular.  Already enjoying your adventures and you have not even set sail yet.  

 

More Taiko Drums 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

43 minutes ago, Pushka said:

Can I just check about the procedures in Hiroshima? Does this mean you arrive into Hiroshima earlier in the day and proceed to port tours as normal, then face exit immigration on return to the ship? Or do you not arrive into Hiroshima until lunchtime and can't do any touring until after 2.30pm plus, and then tour Hisroshima but then what time do you need to be back onboard?   I'm trying to sort our day there. 

we arrive in Hiroshima at 1:00 pm.  As soon as we are cleared passengers can start leaving the ship but all passengers must be off the ship by 2:30 pm.  We have a shore excursion scheduled for 2 pm so we will clear immigration when we return from our tour.

 

the ship is scheduled to depart at 10 pm.

 

Grits are ground hominy and are a staple in the southern US.  It’s similar to farina but oh so much more delicious.

 

Got an invitation and a very information letter this evening.  

 

We’ve been invited to the Helipad for tomorrow’s sail away from Osaka.  

 

 

And a very comprehensive and detailed letter explaining the immigration process that we will be undergoing in Hiroshima.  

 

 

 

 

 

16 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Really enjoying all of your photos!  I was just sitting here with my morning coffee, as per usual, discussing your itin with my DH.  I asked if he would consider cruising Japan.  He initially turned up his nose at the prospect, largely due to the flight it would take to pull it off.  Question...and please forgive me if you have already addressed it, what was your original embarkation point and also what was the total flight time to get there?

 

 Thank you. 

 

 We embarked in Yokohama and will disembark there at the end of the cruise. 

 

 Our flight was non-stop Washington Dulles to Haneda and was about 13 and a half hours flight time.   Going home will be a little faster as I believe the winds are more favorable going west to east.  

 

 

We decided we wanted to see the Takio performance in the main theater this evening so after dinner we proceeded to the Retreat lounge.  My wife had a small glass of hot sake and I had a spicy margarita in honor of cinco de mayo.  

 

We then proceeded to the theater about 15 minutes before the performance started.  I took a lot of short video segments and a few pictures of the group.  They were fantastic for having only been together for 1 year.  Let’s hope some of the video’s will upload. 

 

 

 

 

I’ll post more video’s later —

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This afternoon was totally uneventful,  I took a nice nap and when I woke up it was time to get ready for dinner.  

 

The amuse-busche tonight was what we affectionately called “baby food” - a split pea purée with some crab meat  — it’s my least favorite one of all. 

 

For her appetizer, she went with her favorite dish - French Onion Soup

 

 

And I started with the Caesar salad 

 

 

For her main course she chose the grilled guinea hen

 

 

and I ordered the Roasted Lamb Loin — I experienced a first.  When my food was delivered, I took a bite of the lamb and with was cold — I had the waiter take it back and they brought me a second plate which was much better.  Everyone was very apologetic about the temperature of the dish being wrong. 

 

 

Our sommelier paired the lamb with a very nice wine.  I have had the 2018 version of this wine before and enjoyed this one as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, elaine5 said:

But, if you're flying out the next day from HND, the airport bus might stop at W. For S, you do need to walk thru the interior of the train station (with your luggage) to get the YCAT direct bus.

 

We are not flying out until Saturday the 18th but the deciding factor for us was that we can catch the bus to HND right at the hotel.  I looked at the Sheraton and booking for our dates with points did not appear to be available.  Wife had decided that getting from the Westin to Yokohama station is not an issue so it looks like we are going to stay in the Westin.  

 

 Our plan is to go from the ship to the hotel, see if early check in is available and if not, no big deal, we’ll leave our bags with the bell service and then head to China Town for the day.  

 

 

21 hours ago, rinshin said:

Losing concierge first day lunch which was not important for us. Pay for higher gratuities based on sky suite.  

 

But you gain lunch in Luminae on embarkation day, which in our opinion is a better meal. 

 

21 hours ago, rinshin said:

How about laundry?  We can’t find it now but thought we get one free bag on our original cabin.  But, perhaps that comes with being elite?  Does that still stay the same? 

 

Yes, you get your one bag of laundry each as part of your Elite benefit.  Free laundry only comes with the top level suites. 

 

21 hours ago, rinshin said:

Do we get free room service?

 

 Yes, there is no change for room service in a suite.  I believe there is still a charge if you order after midnight or before 6 am but not 100% sure as we have never done that. 

 

@mahdnc Thanks for taking us along on your wonderful journey.  It brought back so many great memories.  Wishing you a safe and uneventful trip home. 

 

1 hour ago, Ketut said:

Can anyone tell me are there water stations where you can fill personal water bottles 

 

 We are onboard Millennium now and it is exactly as @cruisestitch says.  Additionally, you can fill your bottle from the faucet in your bathroom.  

 

On 5/4/2024 at 8:36 AM, Jim_Iain said:

Photographers may be back---

Noticed that on Chic night they had roaming photographers back on Solstice.   They even were back roaming around Luminae offering to take pictures.

 

Wonder if this is being seen on other ships?

 

Jim,  we’ve seen the lights set up but have not noticed any photographers but will keep a closer eye out.  Last night was our first evening chic night and no photographer in Luminae while we were in there. 

 

8 hours ago, zitsky said:

When is typhoon season in Japan / S. Korea?  I have googled but I’m getting just a rough idea.  Is cruising in Apr/May better than Sep/Oct for weather?

 Summer and early fall are typhoon season.  We are having beautiful weather on our cruise.  We had rain pre-cruise but it has been wonderful since then.  Just avoid Golden Week — the locations have all been so crowded.  Fortunately today is the last day and people will be headed back home.  

10 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I was looking to avoid South Korea ...

 

 You do not have to go ashore !

 As mentioned earlier, Japan law requires ships to visit a non-Japanese port.  This is pretty much like the law in the US that requires a distant port visit for ships sailing between US ports. 

 

 

 

@Norwaylady  Looking forward to following along with you and the Queen’s journey.  We are still enjoying our time on Millennium but I am always eager to hear others adventures. 

 

We had breakfast in Luminae this morning.

 

My DW had the ham and cheese omellete 

 

 

Being adventurous I decided to give the grits a try.  There were actually very good, of course I ordered them without cheese.  Just give me some thick grits.  I had them with my eggs over easy, corned beef hash, and English back bacon. 

 

 

 

It was delicious. 

 

After breakfast we made ready and went ashore to the facility here at the Osaka dock. LeIt was strange to see so many American fast food outlets - Subway, Wendy’s, KFC, etc.  According to my wife the Japanese are turning more and more to fast food restaurants over traditional restaurants.  After shopping for an hour or so in various stores, we walked down the street a couple of block and stopped for lunch in a small restaurant on the Main Street.  We both had tempura soba. 

 

 

After lunch we came back aboard, stopped in the Retreat Lounge for  a quick drink, and now have been relaxing in the room and catching up with yesteday’s activites on here as the 10 hour toor took it’s toll on us. 

 

 

Oh, I missed posting this for the first two tours — 

 

This is the information pamphlet that we were given for Ryoanji Temple

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this was our ‘ticket’ to get into Kiyomizu Temple 

 

 

Our third and final tour stop is probably the one most recognized by non-Japanese of the three we visited. This is the Shinto Shrine Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine, the shrine of 1000 Tori Gates.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the pictures I took 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our second tour stop was at the Kiyomizudera Temple, another World Heritage site.  This temple is famous for the three “water falls” that are said to bring one luck in three different areas depending on which of the waterfalls you drink from.   The line was too long so we did not try any of the waters.  From comments of others who at least went to see, they are more springs flowing from the rocks rather than ‘waterfalls.’ 

 

As much as I could I have removed people from my photographs but as you will see in a couple that I am going to post, it was almost impossible to do.  This location was extremely crowded despite the fact that it is a long uphill walk from the parking area to the temple and then there are a whole lot of steps to visit the various levels of the temple.  

 

Here are some of the photo’s I took. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we were walking back down the crowded street going back to the bus, we stopped in a couple of stores.  In one I noticed these two young ladies taking selfies and thought might as well —- 

 

 

The kimono rental shops were doing a bang up business this week.  Lots of ladies, and some men as well, in kimono;s. 

 

Our next stope was at a restaurant for the included  clunch.  The lunch was a “traditional Japanese style lunch” according to the tour description.  It was very good and consisted, as you can see of a number of small items including a clear soup, rice, sashimi, pickled vegetables, tempura, etc.. 

 

 

 

Yesterday was a very full day as I alluded to earlier. Now I am going to try and catch up. 

 

We visited three locations yesterday.  I am going to do a separate post for each so it’s not quite as confusing. 

 

As @scorfman said it is about and hour and a half or more of a bus ride from Kobe to Kyoto.  We also made a short stop for calls of nature and to purchase drinks from vending machines if people wanted to.  

 

Our fist stop was at the Ryoanji Temple, a World Heritage site famous for the rock garden.  The rock garden consist of a white gravel field with 15 rocks please in a 5-3-2-2-3 pattern.  The history of why the rocks were placed with way they were was lost in a fire many years ago and no one is quite sure as to the origina.  The interesting face is that there is no location from which one can view all 15 stones without moving.  

 

Here are a few of the pictures I took of

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a miniature of the rock garden 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@scorfman Wonderful post and pictures, thank you for sharing.  Our tour guide yesterday was saying they were doing another of the same tour you did today, but from Osaka instead of Kobe but we passed. 

 

 

2 hours ago, elaine5 said:

One suggestion, if you can swap hotels, I’d recommend Sheraton Yokohama vs. Westin.

 

Thank you for the recommendation.  We made the reservation at the Westin using Marriott points but I’ll talk with my wife and see if she wants to do that. 

You might have noticed my absence yesterday — well, we arrived at 0800 and docked in Kobe.  Our shore excursion meet up time was 0900 in the Main Theater and our bus left only two minutes late at 0917.  We visited three sites, two temples and one shrine.  It is interesting that Buddhist sites are called temples while the Shinto sites are called shrines. 

 

I have over 200 pictures that I took so I am going to just ‘cherry pick’ a few for each site. 

 

We did not return until after 1900 and quickly dropped our stuff off in the room and went to dinner.  After dinner my DW was very tired so she decided to take a long hot shower and then went to bed.  

 

For dinner my wife had the crispy kale salad 

 

And I had the classic Caesar salad from the MDR

 

 

We both chose the Cod Basquaise for our entree

 

 

and our waiter gifted us with the veal cannelloni to share -  This was better than the cod, and I am not saying the cod was bad just that this was better … 

 

 

I had a a Pinot noir to go with my meal.

 

 

I went down to the Retreat Lounge and had a long conversation with Clifford, the bartender about food and drink.  He makes a very good Sidecar so I had one of those and headed to the Martini Bar for my first martini of the cruise, not counting the sidecars I have had.  I had a cucumber martini, made with Hendricks gin, and nursed that while talking with a few fellow passengers.  The effects of a very long day and 12,000 steps caught up with me so I went back to the room.