Sailing on the East China Sea and Pacific Ocean

Family Reunion Cruise -- 8-Day Roundtrip Keelung, Taiwan on Diamond Princess

Day 2 -- At Sea, November 19, 2018

I really did not do much on the next two days which were days at sea as we sailed to Yokohama. With everybody on their own schedule and activities, we, the older generation, decided to have breakfast at the main dining room. It was quite busy with many Japanese passengers enjoying their Japanese breakfast there. It seemed like that the main dining room was always busy at breakfast and lunch time. I assumed that the Japanese passengers do not like the buffet that much.

Although we boarded the ship at Keelung but in reality, passengers were able to board the ship for their 8-day sailings at any of the port stop as it sailed around Japan. Majority of the passengers were Japanese on this sailing, then it was Chinese who took a great percentage of cruisers on board. I have to say that there were very few westerners that you would normally see on other cruises. There were many services geared mainly toward the Japanese passengers. Japanese speaking crew members, ramen station and self-service sushi at the buffet, Japanese breakfast at the International dining room and Horizon Court, Japanese dinner menu in the main dining rooms everyday, etc. etc. which we enjoyed immensely. Most of these disappeared on my next cruise in December when we sailed from Yokohama to Singapore. It was almost like day and night difference.

Just in time for the beautiful sunrise.

I took a one-mile walk around the deck after breakfast. The waves were splashing and the ship was rocking and rolling a bit. I think this was the day that we experienced the most movements on this trip.

Then I went to the Culinary Show at the theater which was done by all three cruise directors and the chef on board. Lynn from California, Tina from China, and Mikiko (I think that was her name) from Japan. Three main languages were used throughout the show.

It was a full house at this show but I was quite offended by what Tina said in front of all the audience. When she was translating what the chef said as he was demonstrating, she said in English "I don't think the Chinese know who Christopher Columbus was so I don't think I need to translate what the chef just said." I did write a letter to complain and guest services contacted me later for more details about the incident. Tina did write a letter of apology a couple of days later. I just hope that things like that would not happen again. With that many people at the show and going through the galley tour at the end, I decided to skip galley tour after all.

International Dining Room where open seating breakfast and lunch was served.

Knowing how chaotic the Horizon Court would be, we decided to enjoy our lunch at the main dining room. Fewer choices but we had a relaxing and enjoyable meal there.

First Formal Night

This was our first formal night on this cruise and most passengers dressed up for this occasion. Most men were in suites and many women were in their kimonos or evening gowns.

Crab Salad

Escargot

Lobster Tail 

Beef Wellington

Chocolate dessert

We went to the show "Silk" after dinner. It was a good performance.

Day 3 -- At Sea, November 20, 2018

Breakfast menu, bilingual Chinese and English

This was the Japanese breakfast. Notice the Omelette rice? This was not on either the Japanese or English menu.

I had a regular omelette and it was very good.

Skywalkers on deck 18

Very quiet!

With an excellent aft view.

Dinner menu

Trio of Seafood

Grilled New York Strip

Braised Pork Belly

It was FIL 90th birthday and the service staff brought out a birthday cake after dinner.

FIL was quite embarrassed by all the attention he got.

We did not request for this but Princess took notice.

This was also the last night for the passengers debarking at Yokohama the next morning so the cruise directors came into the dining room to bid them farewell.

It was also the Baked Alaska Parade night.

Everyone had a good time!

Some napkin-creations at the dining room entrance.

After two sea days we were ready to get off the ship for a little exploration.