Japan and North Pacific Crossing

       After a winter season in Florida golfing, biking, line dancing and hanging out, we are headed back to the Princess cruise line. The “Japan and North Pacific Crossing” cruise of 16 days starts in Tokyo. We sail around Japan with 5 stops and a side trip to Busan Korea. After the 9 days near Japan, we then head north east for the 7 day Pacific crossing to Whittier Alaska. On the crossing we do have 2 Mondays as we get back the day `lost` in our flight to Japan.

    We have been to Japan before but 3 stops are new. We will explore some new places in Osaka and Muroran and just wander through Busan , a place we have stopped at “many” times. Shimizu, Sakaiminato and Hakodate are new ports.
    The Golden Princess carries 2600 passengers and was updated in 2015. It will be our 5^th time on this ship. We have a cabin on the Aloha deck about mid ships forward and may get another “upgrade”! The ship has an International Cafe, the small food bar in the atrium which is where we like to gather for daily tea and small meals .

   The map and chart shows our itinerary.

We have not booked any ship tours. Having been to the area before, we have already taken tours of city sites, temples, volcanoes , etc. After doing the research on all the stops we think we can just wander which is our style. We will wait to see what the on board port export has to say before deciding on any ship tours.

   As frequent Princess passengers, we are ready to enjoy the perks of being “Elite”. Free laundry, on board credits, internet, mini bar and wine tasting are part of it! Anyone that has cruised will appreciate the free laundry luxury. Thanks to Stacey our agent at the Automobile Association, we will enjoy dining in a specialty restaurant!


     We leave Wednesday afternoon April 25 from Toronto with a non stop to Hong Kong arriving at 7:00 pm. on Thursday night. We lose a day crossing the International date line sometime during the 15 hour flight. We are flying Cathy Pacific for the first time and have heard good things about them. After a 5 hour layover, our second leg (over 4 hours) will get us into Tokyo early Friday morning for the 2 hours bus trip to the ship. After more than a day travelling we will be ready to start the cruise!

            I hope to post each day. With the time difference it should be ready sometime after noon. At the bottom of each post is a small icon that looks like an envelop. If you open it, you should be able to send us an email. If you have a gmail account I think that you can leave a message on the blog. It is always nice to read the comments. More Later!