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Day 2 reaching the ship It took a little to fully understand the luggage logistics from our guide - in the end our luggage did come on the coach with us and although most of us had not had tags included in our pre cruise material it was absolutely no problem at the pier. The sightseeing today involved a lot more walking than maybe we had anticipated and the guide didn’t make it clear at each stop. I learned (painfully) a few minutes can be over 10 minutes and as we were in crowds at the temple many of whom have no spatial awareness re their umbrellas it wasn’t a pleasant experience. We did see the Imperial Palace the crowded Sensoji Temple and surrounding streets The high spot was a tea ceremony for the 8 of us with the most delightful informative guide who spoke perfect English. What we did discover is Japanese inflexibility today. First let’s be positive the tempura lunch was lovely At lunch seats were very low style something my non functional knee can’t do. This was a showstopper met by initial indifference by the guide. Then a solution that DH and I ate at a different part of the restaurant alone was proposed which we declined. We couldn’t get them to understand all I needed was a “ normal” chair and I could easily lean down to the food. Eventually we achieved this but it was awkward. We’ve since discovered talking to Land Discoveries on other things that the found tour operators have little sensitivity to “adapting” especially for less mobile guests even simple things are difficult. We will be watching to see how this develops during the cruise. I have a non functioning knee and spine/balance issues. Some days I’m a racing snake others a limping tortoise with no warning. I’m now using a cane far more than I like. We reached the terminal at 1430 virtually the last to board so it was a very quick and easy embarkation - safely home to the mother ship. The two day pre cruise served its purpose quite well- with a different guide it would have been so much better

Day 1 tour The previous evening we met the other six guests whom we would travel with over dinner. It was a weird dinner - set menu no choice all low quality western food in a restaurant that focused on local cuisine. Whoever signed off that included dinner should be shot but everyone was jet lagged tired and were keen just to eat and get to sleep so the firing party is stood down. We met our guide in the morning and headed to the station to experience a Shinkansen trip of 30 minutes to Odawara. Short but we got to experience it. From there, we had a larger bus to spread out in for the day where we visited the Open Air Sculpture park We had a pretty mediocre cafe lunch there but starting to get Japanese food! We then headed to the ropeway to the volcanic area And were treated to a view of Mount Fuji. We arrived back in Tokyo late afternoon. Our guide was so so - very accented but also not communicative other than to constantly thank us - it got quite annoying eg when the coach was in a little traffic jam we were thanked for sitting on the coach during the jam! Unfortunately over the two days with her, we learned nothing about the history of Japan or Tokyo or anything meaningful about the country which for first time visitors was a big let down. We asked the guide about seeing cherry tree illuminations but she didn’t know but fortunately the hotel concierge did and we jumped in a taxi - easy they all take cards - and headed to Chogi park. The blossom season is late so not everything was out but lots of work groups were having parties sitting or standing on plastic sheets or newspaper on hard ground. Shoeless off course!! Tokyo is certainly a spotless city and we felt very safe walking about and finding a taxi back. The taxi fares were quite reasonable for the distance travelled

I have so enjoyed @debcip comments on their cruise I’m going to pick up the baton prompted by some who wanted another of my sort of live journals. This time I’m going to focus more on the off ship experience as Japan is quite a challenge for many guests so as much I hope this can also be useful to future cruisers as we are doing some different excursions to Debbie. Japan excited and terrified us so we opted to use ship excursions more and also added the Azamara provided pre cruise 2 day tour. This add on did carry quite a premium to diy but it did make our two days much calmer logistically and enabled us to combine elements of sightseeing we wanted. We arrived at HND at 7 am. We had followed all the instructions and got QR codes before leaving home. I had also screenshot them in case I couldn’t get onto the airport WiFi. In the end the WiFi was so easy and quick to connect to that we didn’t need the pictures but it gave peace of mind. HND is huge and British Airways was parked a 15 minute walk to immigration! After a long flight overnight I’d recommend a wheelchair assisted arrival (easy to set up) if that bothers you. No one asked anything about whether we were carrying medications it was a case of two checks of our passports and codes one at immigration and one at customs and through we went. Azamara provided our transfer to the hotel - the New Otani - and a white gloved driver with large car, WiFi hotspot and plenty water greeted us. I wouldn’t recommend that hotel to independent travelers. It’s a conference type hotel and though it has beautiful gardens its not very individual in the service it gives. It certainly works from the tour perspective with plenty space for buses etc but it’s very inflexible. We arrived before 10am and whilst we did not expect our room to be ready we asked could we be called when it was. No was the answer, your room will be released to you at 3pm. We’ve noticed quite a bit of inflexibility since arriving (more on that in later posts) though a rules based system does mean a clean, tidy running to time experience

Currently on Journey we’ve 680 guests from 30 nationalities- the ship has quite a buzz!

We too were at the shrine precruise yesterday and it was madness not helped by a less than ideal guide. So hoping for a little more calm on the upcoming ports!

they stop there already and the new CEO is already appointed so my guess is an overhyped announcement about itineraries for 2025/26 my hope is it’s that mythical new ship

Thanks and thanks for all your great updates safe travels

Yes a lot of bookings in veranda and above get the premium package as a booking benefit when that offer is running. However there isn’t an automatic package for suites as such

No. I suspect you’ve a website error there! It will sort itself in due course I’m sure

Our preferred spirits are on the Ultimate eg Botanist Gin and of course the wine and champagne so $8 a day minus loyalty discount is a good move for us

No package included for suites I’m afraid. If you want proper sparkling water you also need the ultimate package or pay as you go

You need the Ultimate Package for the Atlas special cocktails

Interesting that in Antarctica the onboard team were taking the credit for the selection and organisation of the enrichment. Maybe you got caught in the transition

Sometimes they discount premium wines etc by 20% if you buy a bottle for that night.Never done it as it’s not the kindest environment for fine wines.

Ironically the cruise before had three Antarctic speakers all covering nature topics, a 4th speaker from a different organisation who also covered nature type issues and wasn’t aware the other 3 would also be overlapping his area until he boarded and a former concord first officer. Thank goodness for the concord diversion as we were in nature overload (but all good speakers just too much natural duplication). We too had nothing on ports and I would have liked more on the history of the region. Engaging the right speakers used to be the responsibility of the cruise director - not sure if that’s the case now but whoever is doing it needs to up their thought processes re variety etc.

The dry docks are the routine ones required at regular intervals for certification etc. They will deal with faults then where appropriate plus the routine mechanical replacements. I think the one significant difference as I reflect on how Azamara delivers post Covid and with new owners is unlike in the past you cannot rely on the experience in one vessel being the same as another. Historically the executive team ashore made many comments about the only difference between the ships was the art, if you swapped between ships the product and experience was identical. Now the product is inconsistent as highlighted in this thread. It’s more obvious with social media - I give one example- the brunches. The frequency and array of products offered. Maybe some chefs have bigger budgets, some may be less talented (not an issue when it was Fabio Iwan and Monica) who knows but if the new owners are encouraging individualism it’s often appearing to guests as inconsistency

The UK site is still showing the higher price.

I am pleased to say that as of last night our amazing travel agent finally got resolution with Explora. It shouldn’t have been that difficult and this is an area of Explora really need to look at when they are making changes. How does it look to the customer? It’s surprised us, but they seem to think there was no problem in moving our booked rooms without our agreement, and our agent was very much left with the impression that she was the problem not Explora. For us, we could not get original room back someone else had it and despite the fact, it was previously sold to us five months ago, Explora felt unable to ask that second booker to move however, they did come up with a room on a higher up deck midships. It is an OT2, but after a lot of negotiation Explora agreed that we could have it at the same price as our original OT1. I do feel that negotiation was unnecessary and that Explora should have just waived the £180 difference right from the get go once that issue came to light. Especially as we already had problems with them, curtailing the cruise by two days. We are happy with the overall resolution from Explora, but we do feel if we have not had an agent who was robustly challenging them at every step of the way and spending a lot of time trying to negotiate we would not have had such a good outcome for something that was completely beyond our control. Explora need to look at that because I think if I asked our agent to book us another cruise with them, her eyes withdrawal and she might even ask me to go elsewhere!!!

Grace is delightful an excellent post Covid addition to the team.

Tony told us last month his procedures project was due to move to Onward soon so good timing

I think everyone understands that. The problem arises when the reasons given are incorrect and inconsistent. It’s the same as answers on wines in packages- discontinued, not available, still in the stockroom, will be here tomorrow- had all of these within 4 hours on the same cruise!

And there will be others using the floor who may not despite what is being played pre dinner will not be ballroom dancing so if you’re such a purist this is not the venue for you. This can on some voyages include young children. I believe the Cunard Queens are often chosen by dancers for their cruises. Meant to say Cruise Director will have no impact on dancing and they like the bands are rotating all the time so impossible to say

Honestly the difference in size is marginal. I’ve never heard anyone complain that the type of floor is not good to dance on. It’s usually that they don’t like the music or the timing or that the ship is rocking too much as the Living Room does experience movement. It’s not like it’s competition dancing. If it was me I would concentrate on the itinerary not other things when making my choice.

Onward must be on a different food budget to the other three ships. That’s an amazing spread of food - enjoy!

Thanks we go to that port before Busan but have noted that we might experience delays in Kitaykashu (sp)