chubbypiggy

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. ☺️

Just want to make sure I interpreted it correctly. The ship will be "overnight" at Kobe-Osaka port?

Thank you so much for the information and the laundromat pictures. When I get on board, I will check with GS if there will be any laundromat closure days for our 1st and 2nd cruise. I emailed Intercontinental Yokohama Grand this morning asking if they have self-serve laundromat, and I just received their reply. They do not have self-serve laundromat. They only have the professional service laundry, price range is very expensive.

@Ken the cruiser I noticed on the Patter, it says "Due to environmental restrictions, the self-serve Laundromat will not be in operation..." for almost 3 days. Will open up again only after 12 noon on the last day. 1. Did you know for your 1st cruise, the self-serve Laundromat was also closed for a few days? 2. During the time period the self-serve laundromat was closed, can you still send clothes to Princess' professional cleaning service? 3. If you are Elite, did you use the free Princess' professional cleaning service? If so, how many days for turnaround? In Sept., we have a 7-day cruise, follows by 5 days on land (DIY), then back on for a 9-day cruise. We are Elite, but for such a short cruise, we don't plan to use the free service. Our plan for the 1st cruise, is to do self-serve laundry on the 4th day and the last day of the cruise. Then no laundry on land. And for the 2nd cruise, do self-serve on the 1st day and 5th day. If closing the self-serve laundromat in the middle of the cruise through almost to the end of the cruise, we definitely will have a problem. Would be nice to know if closing the self-serve laundromat for a few days during each cruise is the norm for Japan cruises? If so, then we definitely need to plan differently. Thank you.

Monterey Park.

Thank you. BTW, I am also from L.A. ☺️

On my last Japan cruise in 2018, we stayed in Yokohama nearby Chinatown, which was nice. That hotel was only about 10 minutes walk to the Osanbashi Pier. This time, I want to try out the Minato Mirai area. So we booked the Yokohama Grand IHG hotel for 1 night pre-cruise and 5 nights between the 2 cruises. From Haneda airport, there is airport bus that have a stop directly in front of the hotel, so that is nice.

I really enjoyed your video on Nagasaki, so I looked at posts by you, and found the link to your video and blog. The last 2 days, I watched a lot of your videos; truly enjoyed all of them. I even "bookmark bar" your link so I can watch more videos whenever I have time. The hot pot you had in HK is very interesting. I will be going there for 4 days in Dec., will try to find a restaurant that offers that kind of hot pot. I can read Chinese and can understand some Mandarin, which makes watching your video more enjoyable. I love to travel, and have visited 70+ countries. I really envy of your retirement life. One day, I plan to travel like you. But at this point, I don't want to be away from home more than 3 weeks at a time because my mom is age 95. Our 7 days cruise in Sept., we will have a port stop in Kagoshima. There will only be 2 of us, so I plan to take the taxi to Kagoshima Chuo station, which is stop #1, for the City View bus. We plan to do a complete loop, then get off at the last stop, Tenmonkan, and do shopping there. Then take taxi from there back to ship. After that cruise, we will be staying at the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand hotel for 5 nights. Seven friends from L.A. will arrive and join us there. After that 5 days, all 9 of us will board Diamond Princess again for their 9-day Hokkaido cruise. Kagoshima is also on the itinerary. Since it will be the first time for the other 7 people, we will probably do the City View bus again.

Prior to our Majestic 27 days cruise in April from Sydney to Los Angeles, we also received Princess email telling us "SILK" will be a show on our cruise. I watched the show every day, and SILK was never shown.

Thank you all for the valuable information!!

Thank you for taking the time to check for me. My 2 cruises are not B2B. My 1st cruise is 7 days (only 2 of us), then get off ship for 5 days, then back on ship for 9 days (9 of us this time).

Really enjoyed your video on Nagasaki. Have you visited Kagoshima? If so, did you do a video of it? In Sept., we will be doing an 7-day Kyushu cruise and an 9-day Hokkaido cruise on the Diamond Princess. Between those 2 cruises, we will spend 5 days on land. Will be staying at the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand hotel. Hopefully not too far to get to the Yokohama station; really enjoyed your video of the underground shopping in the Yokohama station.

Within the last few months, anyone visited the Kagoshima port and bought the Kagoshima one-day pass or the "Cute" one-day pass? If so, did you buy the pass at the cruise terminal? There was a recent CC post that I read, saying maybe those passes can not be bought at the cruise terminal, and must be bought at the Tourist Info Center in town. We want to do the Kagoshima City View bus. If we can't buy the pass at the terminal, that mean we must take the Princess shuttle to town (I think drop off by Dolphin port), then have to walk from drop off point to Tenmonkan's tourist center to buy the pass before we can get on the bus

I read a lot of taxi drivers don't speak much English. At the cruise terminal, did you have problem telling the taxi driver you want to go to the Sakurajima ferry terminal? And getting taxi in Tenmonkan by Don Quijote to take you back to the terminal, did you just tell the taxi driver (in English), to take you to "cruise ship terminal"? Did you need to pay your taxi fare with cash or you were able to use a credit card?

@Ken the cruiser For your 1st cruise (9 days), the picture you posted showed the cruise pass for the Izumi Bath is $99. If you don't mind, when you have the time, can you kindly pass by Izumi Bath again (Sun deck aft) and ask what is the cruise pass for this 8 days cruise? In Sept., we have a 7-days cruise, then 5 days land, then a 9-day cruise. I am curious to know what is the pricing difference for a 8 day cruise vs a 9 day cruise? Of course, it will be 7 and 9 days for us. Thank you so much for your assistance!

Thank you !

@Ken the cruiser Next time when you are at the Fitness Center, please check if the free Sauna and Steam rooms are still there (by the changing rooms). I heard some of the Grand class ships (for example, Emerald Princess), they have been removed from the Fitness Center. TIA.

Yes, my original question was about the steam and sauna in the Fitness center. Thank you for the explanations.

Thank you.

Yes, and that is sad, because I love hot pots, Korean char-broiled food, etc. It is a health issue that started in 2016; saw so many doctors and tried so many different treatments, and none seems to work. Every time I eat spicy, grilled, fried food or even roasted nuts, in less than an hour, canker sores will start inside my mouth, and in a day or two, will become a large white painful canker sore patch. Super painful. I love Udon and Ramen. Do not eat sashimi, but eat some sushi (California rolls).

That look very interesting, thank you for posting it. I can't eat anything spicy, so definitely no kim chi. I also can't eat fried or BBQ/Char-broiled food; so Korean food is not for me. I like Japanese food; though can't eat their tempura food.

The Seogwipo shuttle that you took, was it a Princess round-trip shuttle? How much?

So will your cruise include Jeju and Nagasaki?

Thank you for your information. For Nagasaki, we do plan to walk to the tram stop and take the tram to Hamamachi Shopping Arcade, then walk to Chinatown, and either walk or tram back to ship. For Kagoshima, we want to do the HOHO Kagoshima City View bus (80 minutes loop). But I can't information on the stop location of that bus, thus, don't know how/where to catch that bus. Either we can take the RT Princess shuttle for $28pp or take the taxi. There will be 9 of us, so if we taxi, probably have to take 3 taxis. Our worry is, will it be difficult for us to get 3 taxis from town back to ship. I will continue to search if I can find information on the City View bus stop locations. If we do go ashore in Seogwipo, we will just take the shuttle and go to the Olle Market. I don't know if it is worth the hassle to get in long lines at Immigration to get back to the ship just for shopping at the Olle Market.

Sorry if I missed something; I re-read every page of this thread, and am seeing 2 different itineraries for your July 5-19 cruise. Have you visited Jeju (7/7) and Nagasaki (7/8)? We will be visiting those ports, so I am interested/look forward to your posts on those ports.