Issues/delays with immigration at first Japanese port mid-cruise?

[the mice]

We are on the Riviera next February-March.   We will arrive in Ishigaki, Japan on March 1 for the day coming from Hualien, Taiwan.   We will then sail to Shanghai, China before arriving at our next Japanese port, Kagoshima, on March 6.

 

I'm trying to plan shore excursions so I checked the Ports of Call forum.  There's very little information on Ishigaki, but there are reports of Japanese immigration officials coming on board (HAL ship) and taking hours to clear passengers (HAL did it by deck starting with uppermost), so that the last cruisers processed had less than 2 hours in the port.    

 

Is anyone familiar with how this has been handled on an Oceania ship?  Since we leave Japan and then return a second time, would this process be done all over again?  Realize that no one may have current info since Japan has only recently reopened to cruisers.   

[Cape Hernlopen]

Dear TM:

We visited seven Japanese ports on our June tour from Bangkok to Tokyo (on Insignia) and never had any problems with Japanese immigration authorities. We stopped in Ishigaki on a Viking cruise in 2018 without any problems.  There is not much to do or see in Ishigaki. 

Joel Barry

[the mice]

4 hours ago, Cape Hernlopen said:

Dear TM:

We visited seven Japanese ports on our June tour from Bangkok to Tokyo (on Insignia) and never had any problems with Japanese immigration authorities. We stopped in Ishigaki on a Viking cruise in 2018 without any problems.  There is not much to do or see in Ishigaki. 

Joel Barry

Thank you for this.

Hard to find anything much to do on Ishigaki. Saw some videos and it does look scenic if you get away from the town close to the port, which does not look that interesting.  Ship's excursions are very expensive here.  The only interesting one is an OS to Iriomote and it is $289pp (or $216.75 with the 25% discount).On Viator, not much aside from stand up paddle boarding (not for us).  What did you do on Ishigaki?  Any suggestions appreciated. 

[Cape Hernlopen]

Dear TM:

There is not much to do on Ishigaki.  We walked around the town and took a cab (hard to find one) to a small Shinto Shrine and walked along a beach.  We were back on the ship for lunch!

Joel Barry

[Tranquility Base]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:13 AM, the mice said:

Is anyone familiar with how this has been handled on an Oceania ship? 

Perhaps not applicable to your situation, however for info:

Note they are 1st entry and Westbound from Alaska to Japan.

Regent forum, Live from Explorer, post # 134.

[the mice]

2 hours ago, Tranquility Base said:

Perhaps not applicable to your situation, however for info:

Note they are 1st entry and Westbound from Alaska to Japan.

Regent forum, Live from Explorer, post # 134.

Thank you for pointing this out.   This is exactly what the poster on HAL described.

[Cindy Yee]

@the mice how did it go? We are on the NCL spirit in a few weeks and I have the exact same question as yours. Please share as I’m trying to figure out how much time we will have 

[pinotlover]

To address a couple points.

 

1. Everyone during the course of the day, must exit the ship and go through immigration even if they have no tour set up.

 

2. Everyone will be fingerprinted digitally and have passports checked and cleared. This process can take awhile, so if planning on an early tour, exit the ship early and get in line.

 

The amount of time required depends upon when and how you hit the process.

[WESTEAST]

41 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

To address a couple points.

 

1. Everyone during the course of the day, must exit the ship and go through immigration even if they have no tour set up.

 

2. Everyone will be fingerprinted digitally and have passports checked and cleared. This process can take awhile, so if planning on an early tour, exit the ship early and get in line.

 

The amount of time required depends upon when and how you hit the process.

Will chime in to say we agree completely with the above points. Re #2, when we arrived back to Japan from South Korea in March, the Japanese authorities boarded the ship and all passengers had to line up to go through fingerprinting, photos and passports which took time (we went through the same process when we left Japan to sail to South Korea) - pack your patience. 

[pinotlover]

For us, they didn’t board the ship. Everyone had to leave the ship and go through the terminal and immigration.

 

This nearly caused mayhem. We were scheduled to depart port at 5:00 and at 4:30 ( all aboard time) several still hadn’t left the ship and gone through immigration. This after postings in Currents and all day CD announcements instructing people to do so. Finally, the Captain came on the PA system and ordered the Misfits, by name, to report to Deck 5. They were escorted by ship Security to Immigration. Butler told us later that Japanese immigration had told the Captain they were closing at 17:00. If everyone hadn’t cleared,the ship would remain at dock until the next day and they cleared when immigration reopened. Our Butler said had we spent the night, all those Misfts would be left on the dock the next morning, kicked off the ship. This was almost surreal. The Ship’s Captain came on the system, read out all the names for everyone to hear, and ordered ( not requested) them to proceed to Deck 5 and the gang plank!
 

Hopefully all goes well with your stops there. Some are merely arrogant and don’t believe the rules apply to them.

[cruiseaholic78]

There is not much to do here, most people wandered around and went to the 7/11 to spend their remaining Yen.

 

Edited September 2 by cruiseaholic78

[the mice]

10 hours ago, Cindy Yee said:

@the mice how did it go? We are on the NCL spirit in a few weeks and I have the exact same question as yours. Please share as I’m trying to figure out how much time we will have 

Are youasking about Ishikagi excursions or the immigration procedures?

 

For Ishikagi, Oceania cancelled the excursion to Iriomote.  We took the other short excursion offered since I couldn't find anything else to do and was concerned about the immigration process.

 

Since we were on a ship's excursion, we went to the theatre and met with the Japanese immigration officers.  It was a quick process to be cleared for our excursion.  Of course, Oceania Riviera only has about 1200 passengers. 

 

After Ishigaki we had Shanghai as our next port.  That was followed by Kagoshima, Japan, where we were again on a ship excursion and the immigration process was the same IIRC.

 

This was followed by Nagasaki, Japan where we had a private excursion, but I think it was very fast to get off the ship -  this was back in March so I don't remember this day's process as clearly.  However, when we returned to the ship, the currency machine in the port wouldn't work for me (it was not an ATM - it only converts cash which I didn't have enough of on hand).  So I needed to reboard, get cash from my stateroom and return to pay my guide.  The immigration officers let me through ASAP both getting onboard, off again and back onboard.  

 

 

 

[Cindy Yee]

Appreciate your reply! I’m going to buy a ship excursion for ishigaki hoping it will help get me onto shore quicker. I was worried that it could take a while to get ashore and only have a few hours, our cruise will have 2000 passengers. 

[ronrick1943]

23 hours ago, pinotlover said:

For us, they didn’t board the ship. Everyone had to leave the ship and go through the terminal and immigration.

 

This nearly caused mayhem. We were scheduled to depart port at 5:00 and at 4:30 ( all aboard time) several still hadn’t left the ship and gone through immigration. This after postings in Currents and all day CD announcements instructing people to do so. Finally, the Captain came on the PA system and ordered the Misfits, by name, to report to Deck 5. They were escorted by ship Security to Immigration. Butler told us later that Japanese immigration had told the Captain they were closing at 17:00. If everyone hadn’t cleared,the ship would remain at dock until the next day and they cleared when immigration reopened. Our Butler said had we spent the night, all those Misfts would be left on the dock the next morning, kicked off the ship. This was almost surreal. The Ship’s Captain came on the system, read out all the names for everyone to hear, and ordered ( not requested) them to proceed to Deck 5 and the gang plank!
 

Hopefully all goes well with your stops there. Some are merely arrogant and don’t believe the rules apply to them.

Question, so if you go through immigration at your first Japan port, do you have to do anything before getting off the ship in Tokyo when you arrive?

[pinotlover]

2 hours ago, ronrick1943 said:

Question, so if you go through immigration at your first Japan port, do you have to do anything before getting off the ship in Tokyo when you arrive?

We did not. In Tokyo ( Yokohama), we just walked off the ship. We had already cleared Japanese Immigration previously as described above.

[cjwags]

We were on Riviera last March.  We spoke with a senior officer, and he explained that this was one of the the crew's first experiences after shut down with the Japanese immigration process when arriving in Korea and when coming back into Japan.  The process was very slow and many people were not patient at all.  Lots of complaints and fussing.  We reminded ourselves that we were on a fantastic cruise, in Asia, and quite lucky to be there.  We did our best to be patient and expressed to crew how grateful we were to them.  They remembered us for the rest of the cruise and thanked us often, saying it has been a difficult day for them. 

 

Japanese immigration officials were to have been on the dock, but decided at the last moment to board the ship.  Internet connections had to be set up and instructions needed to be changed, all resulting in long wait times.  All in all it took about two hours.

 

We had a ship excursion booked for that day and they adjusted the times accordingly.  Some of those with private excursions missed their tour.  I can understand how disappointing this was.  We had read on the CC boards to book ship excursions in Korea and when returning to Japan. 

[ronrick1943]

3 hours ago, pinotlover said:

We did not. In Tokyo ( Yokohama), we just walked off the ship. We had already cleared Japanese Immigration previously as described above.

Thanks, great information.

[durberville]

Interesting. On a related note I’ve just discovered that our first port in Japan which was supposed to be Kushiro (North Pacific Panorama) has been changed to Aomori. We aren’t sailing for a month so I doubt it is weather related. I wonder if it has anything to do with customs/immigration and processing logistics. I guess it could be anything. 🤷‍♀️ Oceania didn’t notify me - I just saw the change in my online account when a shore excursion disappeared.  

[WESTEAST]

14 hours ago, cjwags said:

We were on Riviera last March.  We spoke with a senior officer, and he explained that this was one of the the crew's first experiences after shut down with the Japanese immigration process when arriving in Korea and when coming back into Japan.  The process was very slow and many people were not patient at all.  Lots of complaints and fussing.  We reminded ourselves that we were on a fantastic cruise, in Asia, and quite lucky to be there.  We did our best to be patient and expressed to crew how grateful we were to them.  They remembered us for the rest of the cruise and thanked us often, saying it has been a difficult day for them. 

 

Japanese immigration officials were to have been on the dock, but decided at the last moment to board the ship.  Internet connections had to be set up and instructions needed to be changed, all resulting in long wait times.  All in all it took about two hours.

 

We had a ship excursion booked for that day and they adjusted the times accordingly.  Some of those with private excursions missed their tour.  I can understand how disappointing this was.  We had read on the CC boards to book ship excursions in Korea and when returning to Japan. 

We were on the same cruise and remember the CD announcing the delays with technology which most in the long line-up greeted with much frustration!  Wasn't a good experience but overall we loved the itinerary, ship and service so that is what counts. 

[ronrick1943]

We just expect delays when coming to a country-lines happen and we don't let it spoil are trip.  We just try to plan.

[goletans]

I just read through comments about bringing medicines - prescription and OTC - and vitamins into Japan on the Asia board. From what I understood, Japan is very strict about this and may check any personal items and luggage when going ashore. Transiting at the airport may also include immigration checks.

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[ronrick1943]

On 9/4/2024 at 7:00 PM, goletans said:

I just read through comments about bringing medicines - prescription and OTC - and vitamins into Japan on the Asia board. From what I understood, Japan is very strict about this and may check any personal items and luggage when going ashore. Transiting at the airport may also include immigration checks.

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True, but reality we've never been stopped or checked.  But it does happen.

[goletans]

Not being stopped nor checked is our hope, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I am also concerned about a pre-cruise DIY land tour in China (not Hong Kong). Obtaining a China Visa looks to be quite the production with 2 drives to L.A. to complete the process.