I did the 10 night Hokkaido Cruise with Nebuta Festival on the Diamond Princess. Initially booked a standard balcony cabin but was offered an upgrade to a full suite pre-departure for a small fee so I accepted.

Embarkation: I turned up at 1pm as directed to on my card and went straight to the front of the elite and suite area and boarded immediately. I had my own carry on luggage in hand being a 60 litre travel bag and back pack which contained all I needed for my cruise including formal attire.

Safety Drill: I mention this because on this sailing it became a inconvenience where I noticed many passengers tuning out and becoming rather impatient with the long and mundane announcements at this safety muster. Any safety information critical to be passed on would have been lost as passengers lost interest due to the length an ridiculous and needless information being sprouted at this drill. The announcement was in both Japanese and English and myself being able to speak Japanese recognised that the Japanese announcements were more direct and to the point and had much less waffle and hot air and irrelevant garbage passed on in the English announcement. I am also elite with Princess and have been to many of their muster drills and feel that they expanded on it far too much that passengers lost interest. The safety issue was that no one was paying attention by the end. Read more