Princess Cruise: Japan

[stevenr597]

We are thinking of taking a Princess Cruise (Diamond Princess) around Japan during the Spring, 2026.  We understand that March, April are the best months to see the Cherry Blossoms.  Which side of the ship would be best, port or starboard.  In addition, what are the thoughts about the Diamond Princess, we have heard some positive and negative comments. 

Thanks for suggestions and advice. 

[cruzsnooze]

I sailed on the Diamond with a cruise-tour May/June this year. I don't recommend it. The tour guides barely speak English. After 2 days they had to replace the land tour guide for that reason. The excursions during the cruise where repetitious and boring. See Budda see landscaping that is gorgeous/ repeat tomorrow and the next day and the next day.  The Diamond was a lovely ship, no issues there. 

[Arizona Wildcat]

Tours definitely a challenge.  Port or starboard doesn't really matter.  The issue to us in the past was cruises cancelled because of charters.

[elaine5]

We had a wonderful time in April 2024 on royal princess. Excursions were quite good. We also did some diy-like Kyoto on your own. Shuttle to Kochi. April was great weather. We did not do land tour. 

[mtnesterz]

Diamond Princess is fine. Cruised on it last year..Circle Japan. You're too far out at sea to see the coastline from the ship when sailing.

Agree with @cruzsnooze, tour guides are not like watching presenters on NHK World, who went to college in the US or UK and speak understandable English.

Any excursion is a long way from port areas. Shuttle lines are long and expensive. Consider private excursions. I'm not one to recommend that usually.

Check and see if you still need to do the Yunyu Kakunin Sho. I started a thread in Ports of Call Asia on how to fill it out.

Edited September 20 by mtnesterz

[cjpj]

Yes, English is not widely spoken in Japan. Not like Europe or even Vietman and Hong Kong. Those that do speak a little really like to try and help, but you will need to rely on Google translate if you're on your own.

[cr8tiv1]

English IS spoken in Japan by the younger adults...with this disclaimer. They are taught English in school, they know the language, but their culture makes them not speak it since they are not "perfect".  Saying that, you won't find a region with friendlier guides and volunteers.  They were at every stop and busy corner willing to help you with directions.  Stop and have a conversation with them.  They welcome you making the first move to initiate a dialog.  They really do want to practice their English skills, but will generally not make the first move.

 

Book these guides EARLY...they will try to find you someone to take you around.  Generally you will pay for their transportation, lunch, and entry fees.  I tried to book several at the last minute.  Although they tried very hard, I waited too long.

 

https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/list-of-volunteer-guides/

 

Often a taxi into town is cheaper than the Princess paid shuttles.  But give yourself plenty of time to get there and back.  I ended up taking the shuttle to town and did my own walking to places I wanted to see.  I am not into shrines and temples.  We hit Cherry Blossoms at their peak and the weather was very nice. 

 

I know this won't help you much.  I had two voyages booked.  I waited until the 90 days before final payment to check the calendar.  I picked the right cruise date.

 

https://livejapan.com/en/article-a0001033/

 

This might help you plan your cruise:

 

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, cjpj said:

Yes, English is not widely spoken in Japan. Not like Europe or even Vietman and Hong Kong. Those that do speak a little really like to try and help, but you will need to rely on Google translate if you're on your own.

 

[donaldsc]

6 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

I sailed on the Diamond with a cruise-tour May/June this year. I don't recommend it. The tour guides barely speak English. After 2 days they had to replace the land tour guide for that reason. The excursions during the cruise where repetitious and boring. See Budda see landscaping that is gorgeous/ repeat tomorrow and the next day and the next day.  The Diamond was a lovely ship, no issues there. 

 

By doing a cruise-tour you basically ruined your trip.  We did a Diamond cruise but we also did not do any ship tours.  I set up all of my own tours which were private and varied in size from 2 people to 8 people max.  We discussed the places we wanted to visit before the cruise.  We booked directly with the guide and not with tour consolidators.  Our guides varied from good to spectacularly good and we felt that we had a great experience in every port.  True that a few of the guides were a bit hard to understand at times but we lived with it and we always managed to understand what they were saying.  Finding good guides was difficult for some ports as many of the pre-covid Japanese guides got out of the guiding business but we did find good ones.  However you took the easy way out with a cruise-tour and you got a disappointing tour.

 

I do want to make a specific comment about your "see Buddha see landscaping" comment.  True that we did see a lot of Buddhas and castles and gardens but every garden and every Buddha and every castle was different and a good guide would tell us and show what the differences between each one was.  

 

I will also bet that you did not go to the wonderful restaurants that we went to.  We told our guides that we did not want to go to tourist restaurants but to one that they would go to.  We often ended up in a small restaurant up a flight of stairs where we were the only non-Japanese in the restaurant.  Sometimes the restaurant didn't even have an English language menu and we sometimes just told the guide to order what was good.  It worked for us.

 

The Diamond Princess was OK but I regard a mass market cruise ship which is what all the Princess ships are as just a big bus that will get me to the ports I want to see.  One interesting thing about the Diamond Princess is that I would guess that 50% of the passengers were Japanese.  We had 2 cruise directors and all announcements were made in English and Japanese.  The shows were ones that would work for both the English and Japanese language passengers which limited the types of shows.  The passenger demographic also meant that we had a lot of Japanese options for meals.

 

 

[SCX22]

Definitely set your expectations.  Many of the Japanese cruise ports aren't the usual major cities, but country like seaside towns.  The sights aren't what you will typically see in the occidental part of the world.  It's not the West.  As far as seeing Buddhas and temples, I think you also have to be culturally sensitive; one could say the same thing about European churches.

 

I preferred Japan by land and taking high speed trains because this method takes you to the major cities.

[riffatsea]

I have been to Japan twice as a solo land tr aveler

I found good English speaking guides

It is possible to book your own excursions and not just those offered by the ship

I used Tokyo free guide and had a retired teacher take me out for a day

I only paid for lyunch and public transport

There are these free guides in many cities

Google will !!help you

 

 

 

 

[rwmiller]

We were on Diamond Princess for 20 days this August. We loved the cruise. The ship had a large number of Japanese onboard and enjoyed the many educational lectures and cultural activities. We also went on many Princess excursions and all of our guides spoke English well enough to understand them. I think you would have a wonderful time onboard. 
 

Bob

[donaldsc]

3 hours ago, SCX22 said:

Definitely set your expectations.  Many of the Japanese cruise ports aren't the usual major cities, but country like seaside towns.  The sights aren't what you will typically see in the occidental part of the world.  It's not the West.  As far as seeing Buddhas and temples, I think you also have to be culturally sensitive; one could say the same thing about European churches.

 

I preferred Japan by land and taking high speed trains because this method takes you to the major cities.

 

Excellent point.  I should have thought of it.   Put yourself in the shoes of a Japanese tourist being in Europe and taken to yet another large church with lots of meaningless features and stained glass.  They might make the same "same as" comment as CruiseSnooz did.  

 

DON

[OzKiwiJJ]

On 9/21/2024 at 11:56 AM, SCX22 said:

Definitely set your expectations.  Many of the Japanese cruise ports aren't the usual major cities, but country like seaside towns.  The sights aren't what you will typically see in the occidental part of the world.  It's not the West.  As far as seeing Buddhas and temples, I think you also have to be culturally sensitive; one could say the same thing about European churches.

 

I preferred Japan by land and taking high speed trains because this method takes you to the major cities.

We loved our nine night Japan cruise last year, visiting ports on the north-western side of Honshu as well as Busan. By carefully selecting the excursions we did we were able to experience a number of local unique attractions without much overlap of things like temples. 

[cruzsnooze]

On 9/20/2024 at 10:41 PM, donaldsc said:

 

Excellent point.  I should have thought of it.   Put yourself in the shoes of a Japanese tourist being in Europe and taken to yet another large church with lots of meaningless features and stained glass.  They might make the same "same as" comment as CruiseSnooz did.  

 

DON

The joke/comment  about Europe is seeing ABC "another bloody castle"

[donaldsc]

On 9/27/2024 at 9:21 AM, cruzsnooze said:

The joke/comment  about Europe is seeing ABC "another bloody castle"

 

Interesting point.  Many Japanese towns also have castles.  Completely different from European castles but also different from each other and interesting.

 

How about in Alaska - ABG.  Another bloody glacier.  We have all seen glacier posts on CC where the OP said that they wondered why the cruise was taking them to more than 1 glacier.

 

DON

Edited Saturday at 09:38 PM by donaldsc

[cr8tiv1]

A Japan cruise focus (in my opinion) should be on the culture and her people.  For most American's this is truly an experience.  Second to the culture is the scenery.  During my 9 day cruise last spring, I visited 2 castles but never went in to any.  Didn't do any temples (been there/done that before).  

 

FOOD....was my first priority.  Ate my way through the country.  Interacted with the locals as much as I could.  Enjoyed the Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) at their peak.  Went to local malls and shops since the exchange rate was so good.  I was fortunate to have a relative meet us in Yokohama and take us through one of the many gardens prior to the cruise.

 

The Japanese are one of the friendliest and polite people in this world.  

 

I am not as ambitious as a friend of mine who spent a month traveling through Southern Japan by train.  (Food and beer).  They will be going back this New Years to participate in their celebration (big event).

 

It will be helpful if you do your homework.  I know that time at each port is very limited.  I was at an advantage growing up in Honolulu.  I knew their culture and foods.  I knew their geography.  I knew about many of their towns and things to see/do.  I really wanted to see/perspective how the Atomic Bomb affected Japan.  I fell in love with their escalators that went up and down....and flat (moving walkway).  So many fascinating technological advances.

[waltd]

One of our best cruises ever was going to Japan.   People were wonderful.  The younger crowd always wanted to practice their english with you and were extrememly polite.   Tour guides were amazing.   Loved the cherry blossoms.    Would go back in a heart beat.

[donaldsc]

4 hours ago, waltd said:

One of our best cruises ever was going to Japan.   People were wonderful.  The younger crowd always wanted to practice their english with you and were extrememly polite.   Tour guides were amazing.   Loved the cherry blossoms.    Would go back in a heart beat.

 

Totally agree w that statement.  I just would never do it on a cruise tour or a tour consolidator group tour.  My private tours varied in size from 2 people to 8 people.

 

DON

[suzyed]

On 9/20/2024 at 9:10 PM, donaldsc said:

 

By doing a cruise-tour you basically ruined your trip.  We did a Diamond cruise but we also did not do any ship tours.  I set up all of my own tours which were private and varied in size from 2 people to 8 people max.  We discussed the places we wanted to visit before the cruise.  We booked directly with the guide and not with tour consolidators.  Our guides varied from good to spectacularly good and we felt that we had a great experience in every port.  True that a few of the guides were a bit hard to understand at times but we lived with it and we always managed to understand what they were saying.  Finding good guides was difficult for some ports as many of the pre-covid Japanese guides got out of the guiding business but we did find good ones.  However you took the easy way out with a cruise-tour and you got a disappointing tour.

 

I do want to make a specific comment about your "see Buddha see landscaping" comment.  True that we did see a lot of Buddhas and castles and gardens but every garden and every Buddha and every castle was different and a good guide would tell us and show what the differences between each one was.  

 

I will also bet that you did not go to the wonderful restaurants that we went to.  We told our guides that we did not want to go to tourist restaurants but to one that they would go to.  We often ended up in a small restaurant up a flight of stairs where we were the only non-Japanese in the restaurant.  Sometimes the restaurant didn't even have an English language menu and we sometimes just told the guide to order what was good.  It worked for us.

 

The Diamond Princess was OK but I regard a mass market cruise ship which is what all the Princess ships are as just a big bus that will get me to the ports I want to see.  One interesting thing about the Diamond Princess is that I would guess that 50% of the passengers were Japanese.  We had 2 cruise directors and all announcements were made in English and Japanese.  The shows were ones that would work for both the English and Japanese language passengers which limited the types of shows.  The passenger demographic also meant that we had a lot of Japanese options for meals.

 

 

Wow!

 

[ringers0815]

We have done 3 cruises to/in Japan on the Diamond Princess (all during cherry bloosom season ie end of March, early April) and loved every one of them. We are going back in 2025 on the Diamond Princess sailing from Sydney to Tokyo and will stay in Japan for a few weks after that. Its a beautiful country, very safe and its easy to explore on your own. People dont all speak english but. as others have said, they are very friendly and always eager to help. Google translate is a must.