JWUC

Things quickly went from isolation to craziness.

The George Floyd riots across the United States are impacting a lot of innocent stores, bystanders and police officers.

Grand Princess back in SF for supplies.

Thrak - how you doing?

I don't understand the hoarding of toilet paper. I guess I would understand it more if I ever ran out.

PSA - don't flush wipes down the toilet. They plug the sewer.

Greetings from the San Francisco Bay Area.

We have been under shelter in place orders locally for a week.

Tha Grand Princess is anchored in the bay.

The local passengers who were at Travis Air Force base are being released as their 14 day stay ends.

Air quality and traffic are much improved.

We sailed on the Diamond in an OV last year. From what I recall, if the bed is in a queen configuration, the window is above the bed. However, if the beds are in twin configuration, the window would probably be above the night stands.

You can order Challah bread. Much better than the rolls served with dinner. They will have it on your table for dinner every night.

I wasn't able to sign up. I think the cost was $5-10. It was held in the chapel. There was a small blurb in the patter.

I should point out that this happened when Matt O was still CD aboard the Royal.  New CD may not be into escape rooms.

The Royal Princess does an escape room in the chapel. There is a charge. You sign up early in the cruise and it sells out quickly.

There was a planetarium show in the Princess Theater. Also on a sign up basis.

Medallions are fantastic. Fastest check-in for ANY cruise. There is also a treasure hunt game that is played on the medallion screens throughout the ship. You can locate others in your party.

Of course the other Princess secrets. I don't care for the rolls in the MDR, so I order the Jewish bread and bread sticks. Also the kid's desserts - volcano.

They used to flambe desserts in the MDR. Cherries Jubilee and bananas foster.

We were on the Royal at the beginning of November. One quirk we noticed - if the door is locking after someone walks into the stateroom, it briefly locks out the medallion from opening the door.

We were on the September 9-18, 2019 Circle Japan Cruise. We had a wonderful time. Unlike Landsnark1, we loved the sushi at Kai Sushi. My DW and her 90 year old aunt are Japanese American. DW is a little bit of a sushi snob - the rice needs to be flavored - and just so. Kai Sushi did an excellent job in our opinion. The build your own sushi in the buffet does not have flavored rice - so it was bland. The ramen bar and availability of green tea soft serve at Swirls was also a plus. I had a tonkatsu burger from the grill and enjoyed it.

Last year we were on the Celebrity Constellation from Singapore to Abu Dhabi. We thought the food and service were similiar.

We aren't huge fans of the new beds. They make the beds pretty tall and we didn't sleep any better on the new beds.

The CD staff was largely bi-lingual. Unfortunately, the two CDs - Brian Sato and Kenta - got off the boat with us since their contract was up. They did an excellent job.

Knowing some of the dining room tips made our cruise more enjoyable. We don't care for the Princess dinner rolls. We asked for Jewish bread and bread sticks. They were excellent. Also, a volcano is a wonderful way to finish off a dinner.

A couple final notes about cruising Japan.

1) Japanese Immigration at the ports is pretty bad. We had to go through immigration at Maizuru - since we would be leaving Japan for S. Korea. There was a long slow line at the port. Also, in Hiroshima after S. Korea - it took over 4 hours before we cleared immigration. Certainly not Princess Cruise Lines fault, but something to be aware of. I missed a shore excursion in Hiroshima since I thought 3 hours would be plenty to clear immigration.

2) Weather in Japan can be iffy. Our cruise started out being affected by a typhoon. We skipped a port due to it. They following cruise was also impacted by a typhoon.

Bottom line - we loved Japan and would recommend the Diamond Princess.

Lisa, we were on the cruise with you. I finally got around to reading your live from the Diamond Princess. We sailed her in Alaska about 8 years ago. I really enjoyed the Japanese upgrades. We also ate in Kai Sushi during the scenic cruising, We really enjoyed it. We also were entertained by the dual cruise directors: Brian and Ken. They got off the ship in Yokohama. "Frenchie" was the entertainment director. She was Brian and Ken's boss. She was telling me about the new cruise directors that were coming on in Yokohama.

We did a walk off in Yokohama and took a cab to Keio Plaza Hotel. We wanted to get to Tokyo Disney at a reasonable hour. It was dry when we left at 7 AM. We had a couple wonderful days in Keio Plaza/Tokyo Disney. We flew home on Friday. Managed to catch a 100+ MPH tailwind and the flight was just a little over 8 hours between Haneda and SFO,.

Dan stayed on the ship 5 more days. He said that over 2000 Japanese boarded in Yokohama after we got off. Probably made for a very different feel aboard ship.

Thanks for your post. Glad you also enjoyed the cruise.

I guess you didn't eat at Kai Sushi, Sabattini's, or Sterling Steakhouse?

Curious - did you have a meet and greet/mingle? If so, how many folks?

We will be on the upcoming cruise with LAFFNVEGAS. Our M&M list is growing with folks from USA, Aussies, Kiwis and Brits. We should have a nice English speaking mix. I guess we won't have any ideas of the ratio/mix and queues until we board.

My wife and I love green tea ice cream. We are Asian American. It may be an acquired taste. Hagen Daaz has spoiled us. I currently have some generic green tea ice cream in the freezer that is meh.

Thanks for the posting. I can deal with a 5:30 dinner. 5 is too early. I guess it is luck of the draw which dining room you are assigned to? From my recollection of the Sapphire Princess, the main dining room is aft and secondary dining room(s) are midship. 

Thank you for the post. Any comments about the food onboard? 

Great thread!

We have made several friends we have me through cruising. Sometimes table mates. More often trivia team members.

That said, there are many on this forum that I have never met, but look forward to meeting one of these days: Pam in CA, Tony, Thrack, etc. I read so many of your posts, you almost feel like family.

As I have made friends aboard a cruise, sometimes I we get to talking about Cruise Critics. I have discovered that I already "know" some of them from conversations on Cruise Critic.

We took busses from our hotel to the cruise ship. We stay at a hotel near Tivoli. We had to transfer mid trip. The trick was figuring out which way to go to catch the second bus. We managed to figure it out okay and everything went fine.

A couple years ago aboard the CB, there was a couple that partnered with princess to conduct Christian services.

We  have frequently (more so than not) been aboard ship where Protestant services were listed in the platter.

Recently, aboard another cruise line - they had a priest that would conduct Catholic services. We got together with our tablemates who were Pastors. We asked if we could conduct Protestant services. Initially, we were given permission.

Things go a little dicey when the priest insisted on being involved. We went ahead with a service with the priest having to approve everything involved. We were pleasantly surprised at the turnout - even some crew members and assistant CD staff attended.

18 hours ago, Aulanis said:

Sorry for the double post  by the time I got back into my cruise personaliser

I missed the Edit cut off.

We are on the Diamond in Japan in May 19  - the following from the personaliser.  Not that there seems anything Personal about it as I cannot really change it to what we want.    As regards  being wait list #3 on one line and waitlist #19 on another line that may as well be in Japanese.

Please can anyone translate it for me ? 

We are on the April 11, 2018 cruise. According to the cruise personalizer (and confirmed by TA), dining times on the Diamond Princess are 5 PM and 7:15 PM. No ATD.

Be careful about a rental car. There have been a lot of car break-ins in the San Francisco area. If you do rent a car, make sure that nothing is left in plain sight. Also, you probably want to keep your wallets/purses and passports on your person. Also be very mindful of your environment. There has also been a lot of stolen cell phones.

San Francisco is a beautiful city, but you need to be a little street smart.

Another option is to drop the bags off at the cruise terminal before returning the car. If you return the car at the airport (either SFO or OAK), you can easily take BART to the Embarcadero station and either walk, take a cab or muni to the pier.

Or you can bring a six pack of soda aboard and put it in the fridge.

My last cruise was aboard Celebrity. The bathroom had the usual rough TP. Then by chance, I noticed that one of the public restrooms had much nicer TP. Later in the cruise, the same public restroom reverted back to the rough TP.

Speaking of toiletries - question about toilet paper: is all the toilet paper aboard the same? I found the TP in a balcony cabin a bit on the rough side. Wondering if Suites get better TP?

If there is a concert, it may be very crowded. We visited twice - once before the cruise and once after. There was a concert going on the second time and the place was packed. We did a quick walk around, rode the HC Anderson ride (there is a switch in the car to hear it in English) and left. It is very beautiful at night and the park has decent food.

We have done both. Initially, we booked all our tours via the cruise line. As we became older and wiser - we would either join private tours our fellow CC members booked and invited others on the roll call, or did our research about tour operators/companies.

When we were in St. Petersburg, we booked the Princess excursion. It costs a lot more. However, we had less issues getting off the ship and through Russian immigration, lunches were provided and also - we got to tour the Hermitage on a day it was closed.

Another Princess excursion in Turkey allowed us to visit the Hagia Sophia when it was closed.

Yes. Tradeoffs. Do your research and pick what best works for you.