Cruising Japan: Boarding Norwegian Spirit in Tokyo! πŸ‡―πŸ‡΅

i traveled over 7,000 miles to one of the most exciting cities in the world Tokyo Japan to board Norwegian Spirit the oldest ship in Norwegian’s fleet at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal for a 10day voyage all around Japan and South Korea so come on if you’re ready it’s boarding day in Japan let’s get this adventure started here we go now officially on board Norwegian Spirits here in Tokyo just went to muster station that was very easy he’s out here on the prominade where we just entered you can see the security setup right there and it was just right down there so already done with muster station the quickest I’ve ever done muster station now entering the main lobby here what a beautiful ship this is the ship underwent a massive refurb million refurb back in about 5 years ago so she may be an older ship but she looks good as new here on the inside so several things to note immediately here in the main atrium a lot of things in here of course this big screen TV this is the hub with a lot of seating down here and then the guest services and short excursions desk are right here the internet cafe is right here and then right back here is Atrium Cafe which is the location of the Starbucks i haven’t really looked up much about the spirit and anticipation for this crew so I’m really excited to look because as I mentioned a $100 million complete transformation of the ship as far as understood they redid everything and so I’m excited to see how Norwegian has taken an old ship a smaller ship in their fleet and made it like new and this is Henry’s pub right here you see this is like a traditional pub so probably a good place to come and hang out in the evening but I don’t think we can go anywhere from here so we’re going to cut back to the atrium and see where we can wander and explore uh early here on this imbarcation morning just 11:00 here in Tokyo so we’re currently on deck 7 i figured that much out and we’re going to walk down the main prominade here toward the aft of the ship the first place we’ll come to is Kagny’s right here the Kagney steakhouse of course this is like the premier specialty dining and the cool thing about Norwegian and all their ships is they do offer a lot of specialty dining and that is true here of Spirit again while it’s a smaller ship it does have all the great amenities all the fun and all the great tasting restaurants you get more when you stay with Norwegian that’s certainly true here on Norwegian Spirit you can see they have it set up for dinner already so you can get a good idea of what it look like but a very cool venue very classy venue and actually where I’ll be having dinner tonight so excited about that continuing after we’re coming to the Stardust Theater which I believe is the main theater on board kind of unusual for it to be in the after the ship versus the front which is the case with most new cruise ships now but theat’s usually in the front but they will be having a welcome aboard show tonight at 8:00 p.m take a step outside here to the prominade i love a prominade and one of the things I think I like the most about an order ship is these old wider prominads you just don’t see them a lot like this anymore but on order ships they typically have the wider prominads usually right under the lifeboat deck but a great shaded place to come and walk i love to do walk morning laps and this will be a perfect place to do that here on Spirit but let’s take a minute to appreciate where we are at today beautiful Tokyo Japan out here in Tokyo Bay and this is really cool really unique because this is a new terminal we’ll see it again in a minute when we go over to the other side of the ship and uh actually we’ll go up and see a little bit and I’ll tell you a little bit more about it then but I did mention a minute ago that it is early and it’s just 11:11 here in the morning it’s a Sunday morning here in Tokyo i’m filming this on June 15th of 2025 we’re embarking today on a 10day cruise we’re leaving Tokyo uh later this afternoon we’ll be leaving Tokyo we’ve got 10 stops on this cruise so every day is a stop somewhere new so we’re going to go around the southeast coast of Japan making several stops and then our final two stops will actually be in South Korea we’re going to be going to Juju Island and also Seoul which is where we’re going to end the cruise and we’ll have an overnight there at the end so technically I guess there’s nine ports or eight unique ports and before we get too far along in this vlog I do want to say thank you to my friends at Norwegian who I’ve collaborated with they provided uh a lot of amenities and things a lot of dining and things I’ll be able to utilize just to make my trip a little bit more special so I can try a lot of things on the ship i did pay for my own cruise but they have provided me with many amenities on the cruise i want to say thank you to them and in addition to some of my videos that you’ll see here on my channel also in the coming weeks go check out Norwegian’s channel because I’m going to be creating videos for Norwegian Cruise Line so go check out their YouTube channel and watch for those videos that will be exclusive to their channel and I’m very excited to produce those and bring those to you i left deck 7 and now came up to deck 12 this is the Garden Cafe this is the main buffet here on board the Norwegian Spirit so this is uh like the first stop for everyone as they get on the ship want to come grab a bite to eat everything looks very nice modern and new here it does look like a new cruise ship which is really really cool so leaving the Garden Cafe walking forward from there is the main pool deck there are four hot tubs here see there’s one in each corner and then here’s the main pool right here in the middle a nice big screen back there with a stage where I’m sure they’ll have some live music and then plenty of seating out here on the open deck here’s Waves Bullbar right here and then there’s some tables over here too also on the other side where you can bring your food from Garden Cafe and have a seat outdoors to enjoy that and I know that there were seating on the aft out behind Garden Cafe too so you can do the same thing back there i did look at the deck plan and sort of see where some things were this is the Sper observation lounge and I love how Norwegian does an observation launch because they have them all the way forward on their ships in the very front of the ship and it’s just a great place to come and get great views of course you got Florida to ceiling windows you got plenty of tables you can see Tokyo there downtown Tokyo what we can see of it it’s a lot of it shrouded by the cloud so far this is really neat i’m liking that because this is such a port inensive cruise and it is in a area of the world that I love so much and I’ve cruised once before in Japan on the Diamond Princess from Princess Cruises but I really really enjoyed Japan that first time and I said ever since then I wanted to come back and do a longer cruise so 10 days here on Norwegian Spirit and it’s cool to have such a small ship these smaller ships have such a charm to them and I think this is going to be the perfect ship for such an itinerary smaller ship is we go all around Japan into South Korea let me stop talking and let’s go explore more of the Norwegian spirit before we can head to our rooms usually the rooms aren’t ready till 1:30 they did say that they would make an announcement and let everybody know so probably in a couple hours we’ll get to go to our room and I’ll get to get rid of my luggage that I’m lugging behind me so back out here on the open deck i came up one level from the pool deck and here is the beer garden beer Garden is an outdoor bar i wanted to come around here to the other side and show you this beautiful terminal here in Tokyo Japan this is the Tokyo International Cruiseport and like I mentioned it is new i don’t know how new but it is fairly new it’s very accessible too the Tokyo Montreal actually runs right here right beside it maybe a 15-minute walk 10-minute walk if you’re a quick walker you can get there but you can see this path that uh comes right here i’ll try to point to it there right there is a walkway that actually takes you over to the Tokyo Montreal so if you want to get here via public transport you can no car is required but a great place to embark on a cruise and you can see we are really really close you can see downtown Tokyo right over there so that’s the cool thing about Norwegian selling from Tokyo is most of their cruises will leave from right here the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal right here right near downtown so that you know you don’t have to go all the way to Yokohama that’s where a lot of cruisers leave from when they say they’re leaving from Tokyo it’s actually the next town over really cool that Norwegian is leaving from right here if you’re watching this and you’re like “Wow that looks cool that looks exciting he’s in Japan.” You could be in Japan too if you’ve never experience Japan book it now get your passport if you don’t have it come to Japan because it’s incredible been here 2 days uh here just around in Tokyo doing some things before the cruise and I love this country i love Japan i love South Korea too been there before also so if you’ve never cruised here before y’all what are you waiting for come and check out the Norwegian Spirit book a cruise over here in Japan this is Spice H2O down here with all the seating down here the more plush seating this is an adults only area it is open to everybody it’s not exclusive it’s not like a Vibe Beach Club or anything but Spice H2O is adults only but I did want to show if you can see uh right about the middle of the screen over there maybe not right there there’s a plane landing that’s actually Canada airport so if you are landing at Canada airport just to give you an idea of how close you are to not only downtown Tokyo which is again right behind us but how close you are to the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal right here so just wanted to give you a a little data point there in case you are traveling here for a cruise just how close you could be if you uh arrive into Canada now Narita Airport is a little bit further away and I’ve actually never been there so I can’t give you too many tips on that other than Canada’s closer going to the elevator here oh this is one of the cool atrium elevators so we’ll have a a view here um I’m going to pick a random Let’s say we’re going to deck 10 i have no idea where we’re really going oh this is neat so we start to head down i always think a glass elevator in an atrium is really cool just to see what’s going on down below you come down to deck eight cuz there are a lot more things to see here a lot like deck seven where we saw that great prominade and kagnes you see that duplicated here and right here we have the teanyaki and sushi bar specialty restaurant take a quick peek in here see what this looks like we’ll be trying this out one day of the cruise and then back here you can see they have it set up I believe for the teenyaki experience yeah with a few tables right in here which is cool speaking of dining I just realized that I only made a couple dining reservations before the cruise so I need to stop talking and actually sit down somewhere and make some dining reservations cuz I had several places that I wanted to eat at but I didn’t book all of those so typically how it will work with Norwegian is you can book ahead of time uh reservations they open months in advance for the restaurants but if they show that they’re sold out before the cruise not to worry the day that you get on the ship you can actually go on the app and make reservations for dining additional reservations that you might not have been able to make before the cruise so that’s what you need to do that’s what I need to do so that’s what I’m going to do right now i’m going to pause and uh try to make my dining reservations so we’ll continue our exploring of Decade here in just a minute i also meant to mention in here uh this is also the location of Silk silk is the Asian ery in this same location so this is silk this is also the sushi and this is the teenyaki back in the back and I’ll be going to all those so look for more information about each of those in future content to come from here on the spirit on my channel so here on Decade back in the main atrium you can see they do have some live music going down below right now and this is where the shops are you can see they’re closed off right now but this is the location of the shops there’s also a bar over here oh this is an interesting little uh place to sit right here you can see this huge window this is actually where we entered the ship right back down there on deck 7 and see the gang way but how cool would it be to sit right here in one of these seats right here have a drink while you look out this big window and watch the sea or see the port that you’re in that day oh this is Magnum Champagne and Wine Bar that’s what this is called right here before we walk past it too quickly more shops over there on the other side of the atrium but headed forward here on deck eight is the art gallery uh some more shops some uh perfumes and things in there and then the photo gallery here in the front so now on deck seven of the forward of the ship came down one level from where we just were here’s the casino this is a nice big casino this is fairly large with the nice big ceilings uh you don’t see casinos like this very often on cruise ships i mean this looks like you’re in a Vegas casino almost this is crazy very unique walking all the way through the casino all the way forward we’re going to come to the social comedy and nightclub which is also doubling as the restaurant reservations desk here on imbarcation day so if there are any uh restaurants that you might want to make reservations for you can do that here actually was able to make mine on the app but if you need more assistance you can do that here and then here is the social club comedy all the way forward here on deck 7 this is a venue that looks very familiar because this is on a lot of Norwegian ships a lot of their newer ships and again that’s a cool thing of the Spirit an older ship one of their older ships but yet they’ve brought these new concepts these new spaces these new ideas to the older ship through that $100 million refurbishment so really neat to see a social comedy club here on board and I’m excited for some comedy because that’s always one of my most favorite activities on board a cruise we’ll enter the local the local is a 24/7 eery on board the ship you can see real quick the menu right here of all the different things that they have but it’s mostly 24/7 i think they might close for a portion of the night but they have uh sandwiches and burgers they have all sorts of different appetizers wings salads and then they have breakfast in the morning but it is all included in your cruise fair they’re actually having lunch in one of the main dining rooms this is Windows which is really cool cuz typically on imbarcation day you’re relegated only to the buffet so nice that they have this open for imbarcation day lunch and it’s now 2:05 p.m and they’re not ready with their rooms yet uh which is actually kind of late i thought it’d be around 1:1 it’s typically when it is when cruise lines have rooms ready but not so here which has made the ship quite busy i mean all the public areas that I’ve tried to go to there’s just swarm with people uh I’m carrying around my uh luggage here i always do carry-on and bring my own stuff on the ship so just been carrying that around so hopefully soon we’ll get to go check out the room and you’ll know when we do because I will take you with me and we’ll take a look at the room that I’m going to have this cruise i did want to mention that the lunch that I had in Windows the main dining room there was a good lunch i had a Caesar salad which was good and I enjoyed and then there was quite a long wait though the service was very slow in there and there was quite a lengthy wait between the appetizer and getting my actual entree but I had a Philly cheese steak which was pretty good enjoyed that and then went and sat in the main atrium had a Starbucks there at the atrium cafe and then have actually went up to the spa and did a little spa tour up there where they took me around and showed me some of the treatments that they offer at the Mandara Spa here on board and now I’ve actually come out to uh Spice H2O which I told you just a minute ago is the adults only area and I’m going to flip the camera around here and show you a little bit of that so there is a pool back here that folks can use there’s also uh a lot of seating a lot of like beach chairs these are very padded though I will say that so these are a little bit better quality see the wicker chairs than what you would get probably on the pool deck so that’s nice and like I said right here on the very back of the ship uh you see some a lot of people up here that’s the great outdoors up there literally that’s what it’s called it’s a bar up there you can’t see it from here but then they got these like stadium style like seating that’s just where folks can sit and eat their lunch from the Garden Cafe cuz the Garden Cafe is just up there inside of those doors there’s also the Spice H2O bar back here so if you’re going to come and relax back here at Spice H2O uh you can grab a beverage to enjoy while you do that but just wanted to show you where I’m hanging out here for a little bit hoping that they call for our rooms available here pretty soon okay so I actually just came on uh about 2:10 so 5 minutes after I talked to you a minute ago and said that they’re calling them by deck and they just called deck 11 already so we’ll see i’m on deck 6 so we’ll see when they get to deck 6 fingers crossed that it’s soon but we’re being patient right we’re on vacation and uh just hanging out here in Spice H2O and enjoying the ambiance of this humid it’s very humid today in Tokyo this is an inside stateateroom it’s a solo inside cuz if you’ve watched my videos before you’ve heard me talk about what a great job Norwegian does by its solo cruisers and that it provides stateaterooms in all categories inside ocean view and balcony just for solo cruisers and that usually means that you don’t have to pay a solo supplement so this is my stateateroom for the next 10 days it’s an inside stateateroom and it looks great here is the bed of course two beds put together uh you can have this if maybe you’re not a solo cruiser you know you can have them where they’ll have the table in the middle and a bed over here and a bed over here if you’re traveling with a friend or something there’s also a pull down bed in here which of course we don’t need cuz it’s just me there’s a TV over here on the wall a smaller TV but a TV nonetheless and then there is a chair in the room here nice little fruit and things uh from my friends at Norwegian so thank you for that and then back here we have the closets let’s look real quick do a very quick room tour and I’ll be talking about this room and all the Norwegian solo room options in a future video so be looking for that but just wanted to show you real quick sort of what you can expect now there is a teac kettle in here people ask that question a lot like uh is there usually a tea kettle there’s usually not i don’t know if this is because we’re selling in Japan or something but there is one here on the Spirit which is nice uh a safe the standard safe like what you would normally have a selection of waters here and then down below there is a fridge for you to use and then a lot of um pull out storage here there’s a a haird dryer blowd dryer we’ll take a look at the bathroom here and again it’s nice to see that everything on the ship the stateaterooms uh just everywhere around the ship has been remodeled freshly in the past 5 years that’s very nice but nice bathroom nice spacious bathroom your sink over here of course your hand soap and also coming over to the shower uh nice spacious shower with glass no shower curtains here glass it’s a frosted glass too uh but a nice big shower will get in it you can see also your shampoo and body wash are included in here there’s this line here which you can hang laundry on but we’ll we’ll let that go in um there we go uh and then the shower head which is adjustable you can move this up or down or take that off so yeah this is the room my home for the next 10 days oh and then most important is looking at the climate control this looks like something that’s more original um with the ship this climate control but hopefully the air is still very good and then I’m going to hit quick cool cuz I love it to be If you watch my channel you know I like it to be very cool in my room so we’ll hit that button and yeah this is the stateateroom just wanted to show you also wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the imbarcation process here at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal so I did arrive just before 11:00 i think my actual check-in time your check-in time you will pick during the check-in process which you can do online about 3 weeks before your sailing i picked the earliest one available which was 11 to 11:30 however they weren’t checking those whenever I got here cuz there were very few people here and I walked right into the terminal building went up to floor 3 which is where the check-in process started and never stopped walking in fact I they just pointed me to the check-in desk they gave me my uh room key that I’ll use for the week that’s of course the key that you’ll use to make onboard purchases and things now Norwegian does this a little bit different than a lot of the other cruise line they actually give you your room key your room card at check-in so you’re going to have that when you board the ship and actually use it to board the ship i know a lot of other cruise lines now post those outside your room so when you go to your room for the first time like we just did you would grab it there to unlock the door and have it the rest of cruise so with Norwegian soon as I checked in got my key I went and sat down and they were already boarding the ship so I waited like 2 minutes sat down before they called me up to board the ship uh things are a little bit different here in Tokyo you know normally you would go through security first when you first enter the terminal building however it wasn’t until we were on our way to board the ship after we had checked in when they ran us through security that was the last thing we did before we got on the ship so very quick very easy very convenient uh so a great boarding process and now we’re here we’re officially on a cruise we’ve done our muster station that was the first thing they had us do when we boarded the ship was to walk to our muster station mine was right there when we were boarding they looked at my card and told me I was good to go so we are officially on a cruise on board Norwegian Spirit and I’m so excited to be back in Japan so excited to be back on Norwegian and I’m so excited that you’re journeying along with me so if you’ve not already go down below and hit that subscribe button because we’re going to have a lot more videos to come on the channel here from Norwegian Spirit we got more to come in this video i’m not done yet i just wanted to say that so yeah I’m going to unpack and settle in the room here and then uh I’ll catch you in a bit and see what we get up to as imbarcation day continues here in Tokyo it’s about 3:45 in the afternoon now we’re about 45 minutes away from scheduled departure and uh we’ll certainly be out here watching as that takes place i see a lot of the port operations uh wrapping up though i think the you know all the trucks bringing supplies and stuff and they’re all gone now so we should be ready to go here in just a bit but I did want to show you you can actually see downtown Tokyo now the clouds have vanished at least most of the clouds have vanished for a little while they actually have some sun out [Music] [Music] what a great sell away from Tokyo that was and what a fantastic sendoff they actually had a band come out and perform some songs for us as we were preparing to depart and then actually while we were departing which was very cool that’s one of the cool things about Japan just knowing what I know about it from being here last time they always have some sort of celebration at each port which is really cool uh so enjoyed that enjoyed the sellaway and now we’re out selling uh on our way toward the Pacific Ocean we’re not going far tonight we’re just going down to uh Fuji Japan which is near Mount Fuji you can actually see Mount Fuji from Tokyo so just goes to show you we’re not going very far at all tonight but the night is not over here on the ship it’s currently about 6:45 and I have reservations coming up at Kagny Steakhouse as I mentioned earlier Kagny’s is like the premier specialty dining restaurant on board the ship and speaking of specialty dining I did want to say thanks to Norwegian’s More at Sea program when I booked my cruise I got two specialty dining credits and I talked earlier about this stateateroom being sold just for a solo cruiser well included with my booking was an unlimited drink package two specialty dining credits now I’m staying in an interior room i would have gotten more if I were staying in a balcony and that is dependent how many nights you get of dining or how many credits you get of dining is dependent on how many nights the cruise is and also what level of stateateroom you’re in so I got two included here and then I also got $50 short excursion credit no matter how many short excursions I book each of them will have a $50 credit and then also got 150 minutes free Wi-Fi so Norwegian really hooks you up and that’s why I constantly say they’re the best value for solo cruisers because you are going to get a stateateroom just like this all to yourself and not have to pay a solo supplement and you’re going to get the more at sea uh and get all the benefits that come with that so I’m going to take advantage of Kagnes tonight uh I love Kagnes i actually just ate on Kagnes a couple months ago and I sold Norwegian Aqua speaking of which that’s the newest ship from Norwegian and I just realized earlier that Norwegian Spirit is actually the oldest ship in Norwegian’s fleet it debuted in 1998 this ship did and like I said it’s underwent a massive refurbishment the ship looks great now uh I mean I’m sure it did before too but it looks really good now because they have completely updated and overhauled the ship but originally came out in 1998 when it first came out it was owned by another cruise line it didn’t change hands and become under Norwegian ownership until 2004 so uh there’s a little bit of history for you on the Norwegian Spirit but uh I digress we’re going to dinner right we’re going to Kagny’s i’ll show you some clips of the food when I get back and we’ll close this vlog out so uh we’ll catch up with later me here in just a moment and now I am back i just got back from dinner and the show tonight so starting off with Kagnes kagnes was great kagnes is always a good choice on Norwegian i really really enjoy all the food that they have in there but tonight I wanted to go with something a little bit different and back up first I started with a lobster biscuit and actually forgot to take a picture of it because I was so excited about eating it that I just jumped right in but then I also got the wedge salad i always love the wedge salad i think it’s one of my favorite wedges anywhere uh and I am a pretty big fan of a wedge salad but they have one of the best at Kagny so enjoyed that and then for my main I went with the serpent turf i’ve never gotten this before this is a filet manan along with a lobster tail and it’s a $25 extra supplemental charge uh for the lobster but it was really good it was really worth it so really glad that I tried that this time and then for my dessert I got the raspberry creme brulee which was also fantastic then after dinner went into the Stardust Theater for the first show of the cruise tonight was the Welcome aboard show and the welcome aboard show is like the taster show it basically has elements of all of the shows that you’re going to see on board your cruise and that was good it was nice to see uh what to expect over the next few days as we go into this cruise actually the next 10 days more than a few uh it was nice to see some of that entertainment featured in there tonight really nice ship i’ve really enjoyed what Norwegian has done with the Norwegian Spirit and I can’t wait to explore it more and share it more with you and my content to come from here on board the ship and also like I mentioned my content that’ll be coming to Norwegian’s channel so make sure you be checking over there for the content I’ll put out over there this is going to be a great cruise so I invite you to come back make sure you go down below subscribe if you haven’t already hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed this video leave me a comment let me know what you think about my adventure to come here in Japan thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you on the next adventure

sponsored – I flew over 7,000 miles to Tokyo, Japan to board Norwegian Spirit, the oldest ship from Norwegian Cruise Line for a 10 day voyage around Japan and South Korea! It’s boarding day in Tokyo as we set sail on Norwegian Spirit – an old ship, but one that’s been completely renewed thanks to a $100 million refurbishment back in 2020. Once onboard we walk around the NCL Spirit, exploring her many eateries and venues, and quickly discover how charming this ship is. This Norwegian Cruise Line experience will be the ultimate way to get up close and personal with Japan and South Korea over the next 10 days!

In addition to the usual cruise content I post on my channel, I will also be producing a couple of videos for the @norwegiancruiseline‬ channel, so be sure to check those out too! β€ͺThanks to Norwegian for sponsoring my trip on NCL Spirit!

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5 Comments

  1. No the Sky is and the sun are the only two NCL ships in the fleet. The Spirit is the oldest Star built ship. Also before Star destroyed NCL.

  2. Another great video. Going to look into booking this for next year as Spirit has been on my list for awhile, as well as Japan. Enjoy the rest of your cruise!