We were traveling with some friends, and were interested in the locations visited. The ship and crew were fantastic. We enjoyed the food, which we felt was diverse and of high quality. However, we were not happy with the excursions. In general, they were superficial, lacking detail in the locations visited. The local guides often had difficulties speaking the English language. These comments applied to both the included excursions, and several of the paid excursions. We had similar problems with Viking tours in the past (aboard a European River cruise). We were particularly disappointed in the "Historic Kyoto tour", and expressed our concerns to the excursion personnel on the ship on our return (as did many of the other people on this all day excursion); despite the high price of this excursion, we were not compensated in any way for the poor quality of the guide. You might be better off organizing your own private excursions. The enrichment activities onboard the ship were excellent (4 guest speakers gave numerous talks), with talks about history, geology, and (interestingly) the space program.