Thought it was an exciting way to avoid flying to Japan and do some hiking in Alaska. One cruise port (Dutch Harbour) was cancelled for good reason I guess and we were credited but made it boring especially when all the theme were Japanese.
Seemed like the cruise director made it a Japanese theme cruise. What happened to those high demand line dancing. Totally ignored. It was a good way ...
The itinerary for this cruise - Japan, South Korea and the N Pacific crossing was great. We enjoyed all the ports. Embarkation and disembarkation was very smooth in Yokohama. Going ashore in the other ports was easy - the only hold ups were Japanese immigration but that is to be expected. Favourite ports - Osaka and Incheon
Service on the ship was very good but the cutbacks in staffing are ...
We are 5 star on HAL and love cruising the high seas. This itinerary was wonderful. We boarded in Hong Kong. Because of Cruise Critic we knew several couples that would be sailing. Several excursions were pre-planned before boarding.
One very frustrating incident was the fact we were told in China we would have to be back on board at least two hours before the HAL excursions. That meant ...