Rare Norwaylady Posted July 23, 2023 #351 Share Posted July 23, 2023 7 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said: @Norwaylady and @Jim_Iain just making sure you knew we were cruising around Japan these past few weeks. Usually you tag along on my Live From threads, and I just wanted to extend an invite as we are on a Princess cruise rather than a Celebrity or NCL one this time around. 😁 Thank you Ken! I have been occupied both on work and private. So my days needed to be at least 30h. So I need to catch up😅 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #352 Share Posted July 23, 2023 33 minutes ago, Norwaylady said: Thank you Ken! I have been occupied both on work and private. So my days needed to be at least 30h. So I need to catch up😅 Hi there! Glad to hear all is good and you’ve just been super busy! I forget sometimes some folks still have to work for a living! 😂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SimplyMarvie Posted July 23, 2023 #353 Share Posted July 23, 2023 Also curious about how the immigration process works. We'll be doing it in Akita for our sailing, and have a taxi booked for a tour starting 2 hours after arrival in port. It will be interesting to see if we're able to either make the trip and/or explain to the driver that we'll be late, or if we have to pivot to our B plan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #354 Share Posted July 23, 2023 Had a great time after a tasty surf and turf Formal Night dinner tonight! After watching the sunset We watched the production show Bravo. Then we watched two game shows tonight in the Explorers Lounge. The first one was the hilarious Marriage Match Game Show Followed by the Pick Your Pony Game Show, which we had never seen before. Fun times tonight! 😂 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #355 Share Posted July 23, 2023 Day 15 - July 24 - Kobe, Japan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #356 Share Posted July 23, 2023 55 minutes ago, SimplyMarvie said: Also curious about how the immigration process works. We'll be doing it in Akita for our sailing, and have a taxi booked for a tour starting 2 hours after arrival in port. It will be interesting to see if we're able to either make the trip and/or explain to the driver that we'll be late, or if we have to pivot to our B plan! It will be interesting to see how they handle folks getting off the ship in Kobe tomorrow. On the last leg when the Immigration Inspection port was Osaka, they used a ticket system, pre-announced the evening before in the Patter, which help people get off in an orderly fashion based on their group number. The same applied if you were on an excursion. The Patter we received this evening for tomorrow made no mention of issuing any tickets to folks going ashore on their own. However, we’ll be on an early excursion, so all we need to do is go to the theater and wait for our excursion number to be called. But if I subsequently hear anything regarding independent travelers, I’ll let you know. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #357 Share Posted July 23, 2023 At least it hopefully won’t be as hot tomorrow morning in Kobe as it was when we were in Osaka last week when it was 93 degrees with a 83 degree dew point! 😁 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Kellyansapansa Posted July 23, 2023 #358 Share Posted July 23, 2023 12 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said: And now for the good news we got today. If you remember, we were on the Waitlist for an Osaka excursion that would take us, among other places, to see the Sika deer freely roaming around a temple in Nara. Fast forward to this morning when we went to the Kobe port talk. Early on in her presentation, she mentioned a tour that went from Kobe to Nara. That triggered my DW to see if there were any excursions still available that went to the Todaiji Temple with the Sika deer freely roaming around the premises. Lo and behold, there was and it wasn’t sold out yet! 😁 So off we went to the excursion desk to see if we could exchange our current Kobe excursion for this Nara one, hoping the 48-hour rule only applied to cancellations. Turns out they had no issues exchanging the excursions. In fact we saved some $$ and this excursion was 30 minutes longer than the one we originally had. 😁 That's great news, Todaiji is a lovely place to visit and meet the gorgeous deer. Make sure you have plenty of small change in local currency to buy approved wafers from the vendors around the temple. This is the only food you are allowed to feed the deer who will bow to you as they ask for food. They can get a bit aggressive when they know you have food for them, so keep the food held high. 😊 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KLM3164 Posted July 23, 2023 #359 Share Posted July 23, 2023 @Ken the cruiserWhile I love seeing your elusive pigeon photos and flower photos, I’m really looking forward to seeing your deer photos! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbypiggy Posted July 23, 2023 #360 Share Posted July 23, 2023 17 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said: When we first saw this in the Patter last night, we immediately texted our son to make sure they saw it, as they have been using the laundromat the entire cruise. For us we brought enough clothes to avoid having to use it. However, even though we are not Elite yet, we did use the professional cleaning service once to have our initial travel clothes cleaned with the turnaround time being 2 days. This did not happen on the first leg though. We’ve asked a few crew members and they confirmed this was the first time the entire laundry service, both the self-service laundry facilities as well as the ship’s laundry service for towels, linens, etc. has been shutdown for this long that they can remember. My purely unofficial guess as to the Why from over here in the peanut gallery is that we will be docked in both Kobe and Osaka, which are very close together, from 6 am tomorrow morning, July 24, until around 11 pm the following day, July 25. If you add in the time we originally entered the Osaka Bay until we leave it the morning of July 26, that’s about the same time the environmental restrictions are in effect. We’re guessing Japan doesn’t want the DP to be dumping their “purified” gray water in their bay for this extended period of time where their fisherman also catch a lot of fish. Like I said this is purely a guess from someone over here in the peanut gallery. 😁 Just want to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The ship will be "overnight" at Kobe-Osaka port? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #361 Share Posted July 23, 2023 2 hours ago, chubbypiggy said: Just want to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The ship will be "overnight" at Kobe-Osaka port? Actually we will be in port at Kobe until around 4 am tomorrow morning when we will then make a short cruise over to the Osaka port for a scheduled arrival around 7 am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbypiggy Posted July 23, 2023 #362 Share Posted July 23, 2023 2 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said: Actually we will be in port at Kobe until around 4 am tomorrow morning when we will then make a short cruise over to the Osaka port for a scheduled arrival around 7 am. 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. ☺️ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #363 Share Posted July 23, 2023 25 minutes ago, chubbypiggy said: 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. ☺️ But we are staying in the Osaka Bay area for about the same timeframe as the restriction, so that might have something to do with it. You can see how close the two cities are in today’s weather map. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #364 Share Posted July 23, 2023 We have arrived in Kobe, Japan! Since we won’t be leaving for Osaka until early tomorrow morning, it will be interesting to see what Kobe looks like after the sun goes down. The same will be for Osaka tomorrow night. 😁 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 23, 2023 Author #365 Share Posted July 23, 2023 6 hours ago, KLM3164 said: @Ken the cruiserWhile I love seeing your elusive pigeon photos and flower photos, I’m really looking forward to seeing your deer photos! Maybe I’ll get lucky today and we’ll see both! 😂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbypiggy Posted July 23, 2023 #366 Share Posted July 23, 2023 8 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said: But we are staying in the Osaka Bay area for about the same timeframe as the restriction, so that might have something to do with it. You can see how close the two cities are in today’s weather map. Your guess is probably right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 24, 2023 Author #367 Share Posted July 24, 2023 What a fun day seeing the deer and three different temples plus stopping at a local Nara restaurant for another Japanese lunch. Our first stop in Nara was at the Yakushiji Temple. But first we had to get through Customs which flowed very smoothly and we were on our tour bus right on time at 8:00 am. And then shortly after we were on the road. Believe it or not there were only 18 guests on our tour! More rice paddies! 😂 Then we were at our first stop, the Yakushiji Temple. There were a lot of paths we were able to walk along. Then we came across this interesting ground cover. Then we headed towards Toshodaiji Temple. These are the vending machines you will see at every stop. So don’t expect them to have water for you when you get on the tour bus. 😁 These plugs were on the bus at every seat. Afterwards we headed to lunch at a local restaurant in Nara where we had a variety of Japanese dishes. Then it was time to go to the Todai-Ji Temple and see the big Buddha and visit the 1300 deer! 😁 This yellow stripe we saw everywhere we stopped in Japan. It’s there to help the blind! And there it was, a beautiful and very elusive Nara pigeon amongst all the Sika deer ! 😂 The medical buddy! Downtown Osaka These were the sound partitions that kept us from seeing the various scenic points when driving through the city. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 24, 2023 Author #368 Share Posted July 24, 2023 (edited) Tonight after another tasty dinner in the Santa Fe RCDR, we headed to the theater to watch a classical pianist, Tomono Kawamura. Then we headed as usual to the Explorers Lounge to watch an hilarious game show called Survey It! Afterwards we headed up to the Skywalkers Nightclub on Deck 17 Aft. We took the elevator to 15, then the escalator up to the Nightclub. It was pretty quite up there, maybe 10 people there around 9:30 pm. Then we walked around the ship to admire the sights on such a pretty evening. First we looked out the aft to see what Kobe looked like from there. This is the outdoor Izumi Japanese Bath pool on the aft. Then we headed towards the bow to check out the nightlights of Kobe. Edited July 24, 2023 by Ken the cruiser 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 24, 2023 Author #369 Share Posted July 24, 2023 Day 16 - July 25 - Osaka, Japan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbypiggy Posted July 24, 2023 #370 Share Posted July 24, 2023 3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said: Day 16 - July 25 - Osaka, Japan 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steelers36 Posted July 24, 2023 #371 Share Posted July 24, 2023 4 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said: Then we headed as usual to the Explorers Lounge to watch an hilarious game show called Survey It! Is that like Family Feud? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steelers36 Posted July 24, 2023 #372 Share Posted July 24, 2023 5 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said: Tonight after another tasty dinner in the Santa Fe RCDR, we headed to the theater to watch a classical pianist, Tomono Kawamura. I wanted to say something about tickling the ivories. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Ken the cruiser Posted July 24, 2023 Author #373 Share Posted July 24, 2023 5 hours ago, chubbypiggy said: 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? That I couldn’t tell you, but it usually didn’t take too long. But then we were on an excursion every port day, so we really weren’t paying that close of attention. For example, today in Osaka passengers were allowed to leave around 7:30 am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chubbypiggy Posted July 24, 2023 #374 Share Posted July 24, 2023 2 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said: That I couldn’t tell you, but it usually didn’t take too long. But then we were on an excursion every port day, so we really weren’t paying that close of attention. For example, today in Osaka passengers were allowed to leave around 7:30 am. 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhaemerson Posted July 24, 2023 #375 Share Posted July 24, 2023 Do you know if Princess serves Japanese draft beer on the ship? TIA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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