We wanted to take my MIL and FIL on vacation. Living in Hokkaido their entire life, they'd never been to the USA. We found this transpacific cruise last September and we chose it- my second repositioning cruise; their first cruise EVER.

Embarkation - we'd received a message indicating the Inside Passage was now a no-go. Ok, I thought- though beautiful, it wasn't a deal breaker. We got on board, though, in Yokohama only to find out that due to poor weather conditions, our only stop in Japan- at Kushiro- was cancelled. And, as we'd now fully depart Japan from Yokohama, we'd be staying overnight in Yokohama so Japan Customs could "stamp us out" of Japan the next day from the terminal. Ok- so it was a first (overnighting in a port). So we made the best of it. But the most impressive was that we checked our baggage and got on board - then went to our rooms- and we had our luggage already in our room! Amazing. It wasn't more than 20 minutes since we'd checked them in the terminal. Wow. Very impressive. And a beautiful terminal - Onabashi terminal- nicely located in Yokohama.

Initial thoughts - the ship - while similar to Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam (which I'd been on before) was older and a bit smaller. Though it had lovely artwork and was well-maintained for the most part, she's 20-yrs old. And it showed in some areas of the ship. Read more