Day 1 of 25; Day 1 of Adventure
Diamond Princess: Relocation Cruise San Diego to Japan via Hawaii
- February 12, 2023 – San Diego 4pm departure
- February 13-17, 2023 – At Sea
- February 18, 2023 – Honolulu, Oahu, HI 7am-11pm
- February 19, 2023 – Lahaina, Maui, HI 7am-6pm
- February 20, 2023 – Nawilwili, Kauai, HI 8am-5pm
- February 21-24, 2023 – At Sea
- February 25, 2023 – Crossing International Dateline (Cruising)
- February 27-March 2 – At Sea
- March 5-7, 2023 – At Sea
- March 8, 2023 – Kobe, Japan 7am-7pm
- March 9, 2023 – Toba, Japan 9am-6pm
- March 10, 2023 – Tokyo (Yokohama), Japan 6:30am
This is the first day of our Perpetual-Cruising Adventure! It is an exciting but anxious day. Exciting because this is a long anticipated adventure. Anxious because today we call home where ever we are. This means making friends, figuring things out, learning new things about ourselves, and learning new things about the world around us.
We started today off in Indiana. We flew out of Chicago, IL into San Diego, CA and headed directly to the cruise port. It is only 2.7 miles - so we took a LYFT. (Always consider taking a cab when leaving a major airport or port. LYFT and Uber sometimes will have inflated or surge prices, especially when super busy.)
We had the opportunity to print our cruise luggage tags. While waiting to turn over our luggage to the porters, we attached the luggage tags to the items we won't be needing for the next couple of hours. We handoff the bags to the porters and joined the line to board the cruise ship. When checking in to the cruise we selected a check-in time that is close to the time we landed (approximately 30 minutes). Even so, we waited in a line to get checked in. Everything ran smoothly. We had all of our documents, passports, etc. and we walked onto the cruise ship.
Today is about getting settled into the ship. If we need to purchase excursions while on board, we do that first. (Usually we purchase excursions prior to boarding, but on occasion we are using onboard credit to purchase the excursions or cruise deals require the excursions to be done while onboard. Excursions do get booked up. Even if an excursion gets booked up, a spot could open later. Check back before the day of the excursion. We then confirm that we have Dine My Way set up and then set reservations for every day of the cruise. We prefer to eat earlier - around 6pm most days so we default to that. If we have excursions that come in later, we will set those days for a later time. We do this to ensure we can get the dining times we prefer right from the start. They can always be changed or cancelled later. (If either of these are available via the cruiseline's app, we try to do this on the app first.)
After that, we find somewhere to eat. Most people will head up to the Lido deck, and this is always a good choice. After a long day of travelling, if you can find a dining room open, it is nice to sit and relax and be served. After we eat, we find our cabin. We find two of our four checked bags at our door. (The rest will come soon). We see that we can satisfy our muster instructionals via the TV, so we watch it and confirm that we've completed it. (Pre-COVID this was usually everyone going into a designated room based on where your cabin is located and viewing the instructions. Post-COVID, different cruise lines have handled it differently.) We head up to the main deck for the Sail Away party at 4:00pm. We explore the ship and then it is time for dinner. After dinner I unpack our suitcases (the last four were waiting for us when we returned to our cabin)
Today is a great day. We got to San Diego, got on the Cruise ship, and we are on our way. The next few days are at Sea as we are heading to Honolulu, Oahu, HI.