As cruise addicts we were alerted to the fact that Princess was about to send a new cruise ship to be stationed at Shanghai for cruises around the Asian region. The ship was launched in April 2017 and after undertaking a number of short cruises in the Mediterranean was then repositioned to the Far East.

The inaugural Asian cruise was for 21 days duration commencing at Singapore on 18 June and visiting the following ports : Laem Chabang (Bangkok), Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Xiamen (China), Hong Kong, Keelung (Taipei), Yokohama (Tokyo), Osaka and ending at Shanghai and provided an excellent overview of this part of the world.

As I was an "Elite" member of Princess' Captain's Circle (membership of which requires you to have completed 15 cruises with Princess or sailed 150 days with them) priority embarkation was one of the benefits and resulted in very quick entry to the ship. Not sure how the other 3000 odd passengers fared. Read more