Pre cruise organizing

   The day that our renewed passports arrived in January, we received a promotional offer from Holland America showing some cruises. After browsing the material, we decided to book two cruises at good prices, one around Japan and then taking the repositioning cruise back to Seattle, Washington.  We had booked similar cruises in 2021 on Holland America and 2022 on Celebrity, but both were cancelled as Japan was closed to tourists.      

  I started researching the ports and checked on Facebook and Cruise Critic for threads on the two cruises and a group about Japan travel tips on Facebook. We were alerted that to enter Japan taking more than 30 days prescription medications a "Yunyu Kakunin-sho", a certificate to import drugs, is required. You can take 60 days of over the counter drugs without a certificate, but Tylenol and other common drugs are not allowed.  We have our Yunyu Kakunin-sho, for this 34 day trip.

   Today, the exchange rate for $100 Canadian is 9,783.61 Japanese yen, which makes a fast conversions easy. A salad at 978 yen would convert to $10. It was mentioned that credit cards may not be accepted at all stores and restaurants, so you should have yen. We ordered yen from our bank and it arrived within five business days.

   Like Canada's ArriveCAN app, Japan has Visit Japan Web. We had to upload our COVID-19 vaccination information and passport numbers as part of completing the form, frustrating at times. Hopefully our arrival in Japan will be smoother having completed that form.

  It was unclear if Canadians who do not need a visa to visit Korea require a K-ETA, travel authorization or if Holland America would be doing a blanket one for the passengers. We completed the application, including uploading COVID-19 vaccination information, and were approved. The fee is $10 US.

  To board the ship, we had to complete VeriFLY and upload our COVID-19 vaccine information, too. From reading other peoples experiences boarding the ship, this is the faster way to go - completing it ahead of arrival at the cruise terminal rather than completing it there. We also need a negative COVID-19 test done within 24 hours of arriving at the terminal in order to board the ship. We will take rapid tests from home like we used on last fall's cruises. 

   The cherry blossoms, known as Sakura, blooming in Tokyo around St. Patrick's Day, about 9 days earlier than their average start. We arrive at Narita airport, 64 kilometres from Tokyo, on April 6. We expect to see cherry blossoms on Hokkaido island, in the north, when we arrive at Otaru on April 20 or Kushiro on April 26. There was a news item about the different kinds of Sakura foods and souvenirs in shops at this time of year in Japan.

   We also borrowed a Lonely Planet Japan guidebook and a phrasebook as another research tool. We decided to get a SIM card for use in Japan to use in an old iPhone for accessing to Google maps. I also read something about pocket WiFi, but I will have to wait until the next trip to investigate how it works.

   By the mid February, we had found a deal on flights to Tokyo so good that we decided to treat ourselves and try business class for the ten hour flight from Vancouver to Narita airport near Tokyo. Next, we booked a hotel near Narita airport for the first night. We were considering whether to take the train or a bus from the airport to Yokohama. After messaging with our guide (for a walking tour in Yokohama), we decided that the limousine bus to Yokohama would work for us. We won't have to drag our luggage onto a train, which could be crowded. The drive will be less than two hours, which is a bit longer than our private car transfer from Rome airport to our hotel in Civitavecchia last fall.

    Tokyo and Yokohama are on the largest of Japan's four main islands, Honshu. We will visit other Honshu ports - Omaezaki, Kobe, Kanazawa and Aomori; Kochi on Shikoku (4th largest); Fukuoka on Kyushu (3rd largest & closest to Korea) and Otaru, Hakodate and Kushiro on Hokkaido (2nd largest)

   Japan is on a major fault line, so we might experience a small earthquake during one of the stops in Japan. There are over 1,500 seismically measurable tremors each year, but most are not felt. Tsunamis are a possibility along the coasts in the event of a strong earthquake.

    On March 13, the Japanese government dropped its recommendation to wear face masks for most situations. Although most reports say that face masks usage in Japan is still high.  Face masks are required on the ship in indoor spaces, other than your room. If the ship has more than 10% of the passengers and crew diagnosed with COVID-19 then the port authorities will not allow the ship to dock. On our fall cruise, there was a section of the ship reserved for passengers testing COVID positive. 

    During March, North Korea has been testing missiles over the Sea of Japan making South Korean and Japanese citizens weary. We will be cruising in the Sea of Japan travelling from Fukuoka on Kyushu island, the largest Japanese island in southern Japan, to Busan, in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), proceeding north to Otaru, on northern Hokkaido island over five days.

   A glance on Cruise Critic today revealed that a person going on our cruise, has a friend on the ship currently who has been on it since February 27 (they started in Singapore and visited South Korea as well as the smaller islands in southern Japan). She stated: "lots of immigration paperwork at the various ports, which sometimes caused delays in getting off the ship. {We have booked all of excursion with the ship; delays could be a problem with independently arranged tours}. The passengers do not know what to expect at a given port, whether it will be a face to face check; passport collection; on board immigration control or all of the above." {Since some of the ports we will be visiting will have received our ship in the two weeks prior to our embarking, maybe the delays will be shorter.}

    A few days ago, South Korea announced that in celebration of "Visit Korea Year (2023-2024)", K-ETA, its electronic travel authorization for people travelling to the country, will be temporarily exempted to 22 countries/regions from April 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.  Canada.is included. Travellers who have already applied and received their K-ETA are not required to submit an arrival card at the port of entry.  We have had our K-ETAs for more than a month. There was also a note that no refund would be given to people who have already submitted their K-ETA applications.

   Today, we printed our boarding passes for the ship. We have a 2:40 check-in time on April 10 at the Yokohama cruise terminal, which we will be able to see from our nearby hotel. There have been posts that check-on times could get changed closer to embarkation day.

   Now it's time to decide what to pack and get the luggage from the storage room. We have purchased Apple Air Tags to insert in the luggage and in our backpacks. If they are lost we should be able to trace their location within a few hundred meters. We are concerned about lost luggage after the chaos of last summer's and the Christmas chaos at airports.