First impressions of the internal deco of the cruise was slightly dissapointing - the clashes of funky carpets and strange geometric shards of metal strung together over the 'Centrum' proved to be a bit of an eye-sore.The staff are very nice and welcoming overall. Most of them are from the Phillipines and some are from China. I cant say the staff from China were not helpful but they were not warm either. One Chinese staff, I believe he was the house keeping manager, was very defensive when I pointed out to him that two female passengers jumped the queue when going through the face-to-face interview with the Japenses immigration procedure.

The most frustrating part of the trip was that we were cut short for the on-shore time. We rushed to meet the "All aboard" time for both ports in Japan, only to spend the next 2 hours sitting around waiting for the people who joined the group excursions to come back.

We also experienced a very rough day at sea as we sailed from Xia Men to Kagoshima. Many people were sea sick and the whole ship smelt off dull vinegar and sweat. Many waiters and performers could not work since they got sea sickness too! We were all eagerly waiting for an announcement or two from the Captain to reassure us of the rough ride, or perhaps to tell us how to deal with the sea sickness but we waited in vain. In fact, the Captain seemed quite distant throughout the whole trip - not only were his announcements rare, we didn't even get a speech out of him at the Captain's Welcome formal dinner! Read more