Anybody cruise on the Diamond Princess in the last month or two?

[cr8tiv1]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

The issue we’re having is that if we put 19 days, it appears we will be staying in the hotel for 19 days rather than just one overnight. We’re starting to lean towards keeping only 2 days, as that’s how long it will be once we board the ship the next day. Now once we get on the ship, Princess I’m sure tell us what we will need to do next.

 

When you processed through the airport on arrival, did you just show the QR code from the Travel Japan Web link to a Kiosk, get approved and then move on, or did you actually show it and talk with a Customs representative?

 

That was the worst of it. With a QR code, I still had to stand in an hour+ long line.  Don't have a clue why we couldn't be expedited, although finger prints were necessary.  

 

If you are in a wheel chair, they have a special line for you that is much faster.

[Ken the cruiser]

15 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

That was the worst of it. With a QR code, I still had to stand in an hour+ long line.  Don't have a clue why we couldn't be expedited, although finger prints were necessary.  

 

If you are in a wheel chair, they have a special line for you that is much faster.

Thanks for sharing your experience. We have decided to change the number of days on the VJW form that we will be Japan to 6 days. The reason being we will be cruising on the Diamond around Japan for 5 days before heading to Korea. Since we'll probably have to fill out the Japan reentry paperwork on the ship coming back from Korea, 6 days makes the most sense. At least for now ... 😂

[Cruise Raider]

Pros and Cons of the Diamond Princess (my opinions only) from a cruise they did earlier this year:

 

Pros:

the entertainment was absolutely phenomenal 

the food, except for one meal during the entire sailing, was also very good with a couple of the meals being incredible

the wheelhouse was designed nicely

Crooners .. small but very nice for entertainment

Sabatini’s .. the best ever 

 

Cons not easily rectified:

No international cafe 

No Vines

No sit down pizzeria 

Ship 5 MDR dining venues felt very cramped 

Crown Grill was part of the buffet 

 

Cons they could have easily rectified: 

Decent wine choices were almost nonexistent 

Embarkation and disembarkation were horrible, compounded by power outages for both (no working elevators)

Aside from a couple of outstanding staff members (two in the MDR, a couple in Sabatini’s, one at guest services), the service was pretty bad.  It could have just been new staff but most were really subpar compared to the service we would normally receive on Princess
Our room steward was awful and our room was filthy (most of the ship had a dirty feel to it but that feeling could have come from having such a dirty stateroom)

Toilet in our stateroom needed to be repeatedly fixed … BTW, we never threw anything down there that didn’t belong.  
Safe in our stateroom also needed to be fixed twice 
 

While, I’m not really much of a complainer when it comes to cruising, I wouldn’t sail on the Diamond again.  She just has too many cons to overcome, mainly ones that couldn’t be easily rectified.  
We still had a great cruise on her due to friends being onboard, the entertainment being so incredible and the food being so good!  
 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

45 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

Pros and Cons of the Diamond Princess (my opinions only) from a cruise they did earlier this year:

 

Pros:

the entertainment was absolutely phenomenal 

the food, except for one meal during the entire sailing, was also very good with a couple of the meals being incredible

the wheelhouse was designed nicely

Crooners .. small but very nice for entertainment

Sabatini’s .. the best ever 

 

Cons not easily rectified:

No international cafe 

No Vines

No sit down pizzeria 

Ship 5 MDR dining venues felt very cramped 

Crown Grill was part of the buffet 

 

Cons they could have easily rectified: 

Decent wine choices were almost nonexistent 

Embarkation and disembarkation were horrible, compounded by power outages for both (no working elevators)

Aside from a couple of outstanding staff members (two in the MDR, a couple in Sabatini’s, one at guest services), the service was pretty bad.  It could have just been new staff but most were really subpar compared to the service we would normally receive on Princess
Our room steward was awful and our room was filthy (most of the ship had a dirty feel to it but that feeling could have come from having such a dirty stateroom)

Toilet in our stateroom needed to be repeatedly fixed … BTW, we never threw anything down there that didn’t belong.  
Safe in our stateroom also needed to be fixed twice 
 

While, I’m not really much of a complainer when it comes to cruising, I wouldn’t sail on the Diamond again.  She just has too many cons to overcome, mainly ones that couldn’t be easily rectified.  
We still had a great cruise on her due to friends being onboard, the entertainment being so incredible and the food being so good!  

Thanks for your feedback. FWIW I will be doing a Live From thread on our upcoming July B2B around Japan with a couple of visits to Korea. Hopefully, I'll be able to report nothing but a positive experience! The last time we were on the Diamond, which was also our first Princess cruise, was back in 2015 when we went to Australia and New Zealand. 

 

We are currently booked in a Reserve Collection mini-suite, so hopefully our "private" dining area won't be too crowd, as we usually arrive for dinner as soon as it opens. As far as the other issues go, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Regarding the wine selection, I'll be happy if they have either Moscato or Riesling, and of course Baileys Irish Cream for my after-dinner drink waiting for the evening show to start. 😀

[Cruise Raider]

1 minute ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks for your feedback. FWIW I will be doing a Live From thread on our upcoming July B2B around Japan with a couple of visits to Korea. Hopefully, I'll be able to report nothing but a positive experience! The last time we were on the Diamond, which was also our first Princess cruise, was back in 2015 when we went to Australia and New Zealand. 

 

We are currently booked in a Reserve Collection mini-suite, so hopefully our "private" dining area won't be too crowd, as we usually arrive for dinner as soon as it opens. As far as the other issues go, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Regarding the wine selection, I'll be happy if they have either Moscato or Riesling, and of course Baileys Irish Cream for my after-dinner drink waiting for the evening show to start. 😀

I look forward to reading your live review.  
Bon voyage … 

[cr8tiv1]

@Cruise Raider was your cruise from San Diego when they just brought her online or Japan?  Thank you for your comments.

 

@Ken the cruiser looking forward to your live.  I doubt Jennifer (receptionist CC) will still be there. She’s so friendly.  

[Cruise Raider]

Just now, cr8tiv1 said:

@Cruise Raider was your cruise from San Diego when they just brought her online or Japan?  Thank you for your comments.

 

@Ken the cruiser looking forward to your live.  I doubt Jennifer (receptionist CC) will still be there. She’s so friendly.  

Yes .. it was in late January into early February in and out of San Diego.  

[cr8tiv1]

1 hour ago, Cruise Raider said:

Yes .. it was in late January into early February in and out of San Diego.  

 

They brought many more crew onboard once they hit Japan.  I've noticed more and more room stewards are new and are not as sociable as those in the past.  It could be that they are just overwhelmed with more rooms to attend to.  

 

I was in the Santa Fe dining room (MDR).  Service was excellent.  Food was good.  Did not like the casino.  Missed having an IC.  Didn't drink much (not a wine expert).  I miss the days when Princess was consistently good and reliable.  

[Bgwest]

3 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

I wouldn’t sail on the Diamond again.  She just has too many cons to overcome, mainly ones that couldn’t be easily rectified. 

Interesting perspective. Give life to the whole idea of YMMV.

 

Wife and I were on the Diamond out of San Diego for Yokohama this February into March. This was our first sailing on Diamond. We concluded that the Diamond tied the Coral as our favorite ship. We've been on most of the current Princess fleet (except the really new ones) and absolutely love the Diamond.

Given that she spends her time in Japan and along the US west coast, we are sorry we will not able to sail her again any time soon. 

[Cruise Raider]

1 hour ago, Bgwest said:

Interesting perspective. Give life to the whole idea of YMMV.

 

Wife and I were on the Diamond out of San Diego for Yokohama this February into March. This was our first sailing on Diamond. We concluded that the Diamond tied the Coral as our favorite ship. We've been on most of the current Princess fleet (except the really new ones) and absolutely love the Diamond.

Given that she spends her time in Japan and along the US west coast, we are sorry we will not able to sail her again any time soon. 

My favorite ship of all times is the Royal Princess.  She has everything we love about cruising!  
I have cruised on the Coral in the past and really liked her, too.  But, ever since the new Royal class has been introduced, we just love them!  
We just had too many issues with the Diamond, some of them could be fixed but some were just problems with the ship’s design and maintenance issues.  There was so much mold in our bathroom and fifty carpet the entire sailing, draperies were ripped, plumbing issues, our steward left all sorts of garbage in the room from the previous passengers  .. the ship was full and I didn’t complain beyond the first day as we really weren’t interested in getting any fired but did have to report the things that just weren’t functioning.  
they kept trying to seat us in that aft main dining room and every time one of the waiters walked by the table, it felt like the floor was going to cave in.  It was also so annoying being the ones seated in that raised section.  Our waiters would bring us wine that we clearly didn’t order … and then charged us for it even though what we had ordered was covered in our package.  Then, we finally found a halfway decent wine within our package limits and they wouldn’t serve it to us in the explorers lounge even though that’s where they got it from to serve in Sabatini’s.  Service and food in Sabatini’s was phenomenal.  
The first time our room steward was even seen by us is the last day at 8 AM.  We lost the electricity on the entire ship and he wanted to boot us out.  We were doing walk off and couldn’t use the elevators and clearly couldn’t even disembark as nothing was working.  When it came time to disembark, on,ly once the electricity was restored, everyone was packed in a line to get off the ship .. that’s where I believe I caught CoVid as it showed up about 3 days after we got home???  Now, it could have come from the San Diego airport .. so, not maybe not fair blaming that one the ship.  It’s just there was no attempt to maintain social distancing.  
Oh dear!  I could go on but hate when people just whine whine whine and I see that I’m breaking my cardinal rule so I will leave it at that.  

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Cruise Raider

[Ken the cruiser]

Thanks for the feedback on some of the experiences you all have experienced recently on the Diamond. Hopefully on our upcoming cruise around Japan in July, it will be another wonderful experience similar to all of the other cruises we’ve been on since cruising started back up.

 

But I have to say preparing for our initial arrival at the Yokohama airport reminds me of the various C19-related hoops we “almost” had to jump through on both our recent NCL cruise out of Athens last November as well as on our Regal Princess cruise last summer. Luckily they all went by the wayside by the time we were in the final stages of preparing for each cruise, just like what recently happened regarding the C-19 requirements associated with cruises around Japan - they disappeared. 😁

[chubbypiggy]

6 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

@Cruise Raider was your cruise from San Diego when they just brought her online or Japan?  Thank you for your comments.

 

@Ken the cruiser looking forward to your live.  I doubt Jennifer (receptionist CC) will still be there. She’s so friendly.  

Sorry to be off the topic of this thread.  Since I have seen it many times in CC, I have been wanting to ask this question.  How do you reply to a post with the name of the poster you are replying to?  For example, in your case, "@Cruise Raider"?  TIA.

[Ken the cruiser]

28 minutes ago, chubbypiggy said:

Sorry to be off the topic of this thread.  Since I have seen it many times in CC, I have been wanting to ask this question.  How do you reply to a post with the name of the poster you are replying to?  For example, in your case, "@Cruise Raider"?  TIA.

Of course, you can click on the “Quote” button at the bottom of the post you want to reply to, like I did to reply to your post. Now if you want to add a CC member’s handle in a message in a thread like the two above, you first type an @ then start typing the first few letters of the CC member. For example, type @ke and then a list of handles will start to appear.

 
Sometimes you need to type 4 or more characters depending on the handle. Once you see the CC member’s handle you’re interested in, click on it. Is this what you’re referring to?

[chubbypiggy]

10 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Of course, you can click on the “Quote” button at the bottom of the post you want to reply to, like I did to reply to your post. Now if you want to add a CC member’s handle in a message in a thread like the two above, you first type an @ then start typing the first few letters of the CC member. For example, type @ke and then a list of handles will start to appear.

 
Sometimes you need to type 4 or more characters depending on the handle. Once you see the CC member’s handle you’re interested in, click on it. Is this what you’re referring to?

@Ken the cruiser  Thank you!

[Ken the cruiser]

13 minutes ago, chubbypiggy said:

@Ken the cruiser  Thank you!

Do you also know about the “…” box in the upper right hand corner of each post? Once you submit a post, you have about 15 minutes if you need to correct something after you “Submit Reply”. The Edit option is one of the options behind the “…”. Once a post is successfully edited, you’ll see the below at the bottom of the edited thread, like this:

Edited June 5, 2023 by Ken the cruiser

[chubbypiggy]

20 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Do you also know about the “…” box in the upper right hand corner of each post? Once you submit a post, you have about 15 minutes if you need to correct something after you “Submit Reply”. The Edit option is one of the options behind the “…”. Once a post is successfully edited, you’ll see the below at the bottom of the edited thread, like this:

That is nice to know.  Thank you. ☺️