Celebrity Millennium 12-Night Best of Japan & Nebuta Festival Cruise Summer 2025 – Part One
Hello and welcome to our new cruise series. Coming up in this series, we travel to Japan to board the Celebrity Millennium for one of our favorite trips ever. We set off in late July 2025, determined to squeeze in as much as possible, but still came away knowing there was even more to see and do. It seemed like a cruise had had everything. other trains, deer, sharks, shrines, Godzilla, and even malfunctioning Canadians. [Music] Along the way, we experienced record extreme heat warnings, an earthquake that threatened to create a tsunami, and even a shipwreck. [Music] This is just a taste of what’s to come in this series, and we do hope to do the itinerary justice. [Music] This was our biggest journey to date to spending close to 3 weeks in Japan. Our journey took us around the entirety of Japan with a stop off in South Korea along the way. Welcome. It is currently what time? 3:00 in the morning. 3:13 a.m. 3:13 a.m. We are just leaving a hotel at Newcastle airport, heading to the airport for the first part of our trip. Here we go. Off to Tokyo. Leaving our car behind, we headed off to the British Airways backdrop area in Newcastle airport. It may be [Music] 4:20 in the morning, but it’s the low. So, there’s our pint and a There’s hardly anything in there to be fair. It’s a full glass of what? My mom’s using a coffee. And a coffee, but more importantly, that’s our pint. Welcome board this British Airways LS A320 series aircraft. After the short flight from Newcastle to Heathrow Terminal 5, we headed straight towards the departure gates in preparation for our marathon flight. Now in terminal 5 Heathrow and I’m on the neck oil. Very short flight from Newcastle. Waiting for our departure. Our trip began with a roughly 15-hour flight from Heathrow to Tokyo Haneda. So, here we go. 15 hours in roughly 45 seconds. Our flight with British Airways was as comfortable as could be expected and the crew did their very best to help pass the time. The views as we are closer to Japan made the long journey worthwhile. Especially when we got our first glimpse of Mount Fuji. We finally made it to Hanita Airport, but I doubt this landing would make it onto the top 10 touchdowns of this pilot’s career. So, we’ve just come out of the airport there and we are heading on the little limousine bus and all you have to do is come down in a lift and there it is. In fact, there is the bus arriving. So, there you go. I’m going very fast. So, I’ve never done this before. very humid. And there’s the bus. It’s called the limousine bus. So because it’s bloody hot, surprise surprise, we have popped into a shopping center and most random thing in the world is it was quite strange to see cats and dogs for sale in a shopping center, but happily the staff were taking excellent care of the animals. You’re cute. These little robots are called Lovots and cost around £3,000 plus a monthly subscription, which seems a lot to us, but they work. You exhausted. Yes. Currently on 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Uh hang on. Or no sleep in Lisa’s case at all. Uh so yes, exhausted isn’t the word. We’ve been up since 200 a.m. UK time and it is now 2:00 a.m. No, it’s UK time still. So we’ve been up 3 a.m. actually. 3:00 a.m. So, I’ve been up for 24 hours now. So, tell it. As we were flagging, we stopped off for coffee and Japanese pancakes. We were on a cruise time to coincide with a famous local festival called Nabuta. And we got an early glimpse of some of the beautiful festival floats. It was at this point that Lisa began a slightly unhealthy obsession with Japanese toilets. Yokohama was beautiful but hot and we needed to grab some sleep. So we headed to our hotel and checked in. We had requested a room with a harbor view and this is why. Watching other cruise ships arriving in port only served to get us more excited for our cruise. Couple hours sleep later. We’re out. Water cup noodle museum. I kid you not. Not going to win cuz it’s not interesting cup noodles. But yeah, first evening in Japan. Weather is very very pleasant. But yeah, so from being up at 2:00 UK time, we didn’t go to bed till probably about 4:00 a.m. the next day UK time. had cut out sleep. It is again yeah uh it’s about quart to 7 at night Japan time now. We’re staying at the Intercontinental Grand Yokohama which is right on the port and we expect to see our ship in the morning when we wake up. We go with the Celebrity Millennium tomorrow. We are sharing it with Silver Seas. [Music] Safe to say I’m definitely going to need another memory card. This place is absolutely beautiful. Sun setting just over there. Still just s between the trees. The Yokohama has exceeded expectations already. Let’s go along. Okay, let’s go and get some food. [Music] [Applause] Butcher Republic Shaw Gun Burger. Let’s see how much how that is. Very authentic first meal of Japan. Plant-based Shogun burger and a lemon sour. Campai. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Yeah, not a bad view. First night. This reminds me of um if you’ve ever been to New York, the fifth one at the top, fifth. Obviously, not a tie. If you’ve been to New York, you know what I mean. rooftop on [Applause] top of some rooftop place. Barbecue place when you can barbecue stuff. Uh I’m high. And we’ve been up rather a long time. Yeah. This is now starting getting a bit delirious. Delirious. Yeah. So we’d had no sleep. I didn’t get on any plane. Peter got a tiny bit. up over 24 hours. Probably had a couple hours of sleep this afternoon. We’ve gone and had a lie down. Best thing we did actually got checked into the hotel early and then had a quick lie down and then straight back up. So, we’re hoping ourselves a bit more in Japan time. And that’s it. Yeah. Certainly recommend the Intercontinental Grand Hotel. Oh, yeah. If you’re in Yokohama, it’s really close to everything. Uh and also very very close to the cruise terminal. So, that’s how I built that’s it there. You can’t miss it. In the Yo Farmer Port area, there’s a random little theme park as well with roller coasters and what have you. [Applause] Getting in from the airport, we took the Kyuku bus, buy a ticket from the desk just inside the terminal. It was £2,000 yen, which is about £10 for the both of us straight from the airport literally to the hotel. Very easy to do. Uh, and much more. Well, if you got luggage as well, we had four large cases. It’s not a problem. Much better than trying to fight your way through on the trains or and also a lot cheaper than a taxi. And we haven’t got the super card yet. Haven’t needed to be fair. Everywhere’s taken contactless and had lemon. At least it’s got lemon sodas. Everywhere’s contactless, even Android. Uh cuz you read all the contacts only work if you got an iPhone. My Samsung’s working perfectly fine. We have bought e same as before we came out which is very easy to do. Set it up once we once you got in the airport. However, everywhere we’ve been there’s been free Wi-Fi. So again, not really sure if you even need to do that. But certainly nowhere near as daunting as you’re led to believe from all the YouTube videos, etc., etc., etc. Dead easy. Really, really easy. and loving it. It’s just so much to see. We haven’t been here 12 hours yet. Actually, we have been here. No, we haven’t. Yes, we have. We landed 7:00. Yeah, we Yeah. 12 hours in Japan and we love it. This is pretty gorgeous. There’s the cable cars. Yeah. Air cabins. Call them air cabin. Air cabins. Oh, wow. This place is stunning. Very very warm. It’s very very beautiful. We are just seeing how we’re expecting to be overwhelmed. All the videos say it’s overwhelming blah blah this sort of stuff. It’s really not. I mean certain things are I think what was more overwhelmed was knowing that you were flying that way around the world. Yeah. I mean the flights, you know, nice long flight. Um flying across. Yeah. Yeah. Everything is just dead easy accessible. [Applause] I was going to pick it up on the camera, but that’s like a Japanese Balamorei. It is. Loads of different colored houses. Mrs. Hulie Hulie. Miss Hulie’s at the moment. Miss Hulie and the Archie. Um, Penny Pink or somebody. Beautiful. Sweating Cobs now though. We are going to head back via a convenience 7-Eleven or whatever convenience stores next to our hotel and we’re going to crash. We are. So, we are staying at the Intercontinental Grand. That was me hand. [Applause] And heading back into the arato. [Applause] [Music] That’s the Intercontinental Yokohama Grand. It is very grand too, but it was very grand back. It’s very 90s. Yeah. [Applause] I’ve been tempted to get in that water earlier. Man, it was that warm. And come up the escalator to main reception, the hotel bar, but we had a little drink earlier. They do very, very fancy afternoon teas that they saw a lot of people enjoying. Yes, Lisa played with us earlier. It’s only open between 10 and 6. Must make too much noise. So, this is the view from the room of an evening. You can still make out Tokyo in the distance. We still have Silver Sea ship next to us. And we hope to wake up tomorrow morning to see our Celebrity Millennium there. But yes, uh can’t rave about this place enough. Love it. It is one of the chie and this is our first taste of Tokyo of Japan rather. And it is unbelievable. So clean. Sounds such a cliche to say, but so clean. Uh everyone is very very friendly, very helpful, very respectful. It’s very easy. So, as is probably compulsory on your first night in Japan, we’ve been It wasn’t a 7-Eleven, it was a daily something. That’s our name. No, we haven’t been to 7-Eleven. We have 7-Eleven. That wasn’t It was a Lawson was daily something. Anyway, so this this is what we managed to get for £10. Some salty seaweed flavored rice crackers. Breakfast. Breakfast for morning. Got the pastries. Cup noodles essentials. Some cup noodles. [Music] Some sun to 196 that we usually get from our local co-op. Emily, these are what we were drinking in the garden on Friday. Em normally get in the co-op. However, these are twice the size and half the price. Oh, that little Japan. And the stronger. These these are the strong 9% ones. One step. Oh, William. This is for William. Who? Our stepson. Well, my stepson, Lisa’s son, who’s obsessed with monster, Japanese monster, comes in a bottle, dude. Water. Bit of water, obviously. Chopsticks to go with our cup noodles. I don’t think people need to see the Easter. But thick little towels for when you get hot. Cold towels. Yeah. Put your neck so he kills you down immediately. Come on. Is it QVC channel? QVC. It’s Andy Peters. and and a random lip thing for me. So, the entirety of that, admittedly, extremely random collection of product was about just a little less than £2,000 yen. So, a little bit less than £10. Yeah, it’s quite cheap here, isn’t it? It can be. However, I did pay over £8 for a very small beer downstairs in the hotel bar. Balance. It was a nice one. It was very nice. It was all right. We were exhausted that It was8 pound for a very small bear. But yeah, anyway, that’s what we’ve purchased today. Stay in the bathroom. Oh, look look look. It looks like we willy winky. Mine like touches the ground. The toilet has all these weird buttons. That’s for your bomb. Sorry. That’s for your front bits. I know what the pressure is about. Like like Oh, that deodorizes it. That sanitizes it. And that sanitizes it. And the seat’s warm. [Music] So, here we are in our matching pajamas. Yes. His and hers in. It’s a thing. Although Peters are a lot tighter than mine. They’re not made for 6’6 men. They’re not. But, you know, they’re quite nice. I actually want to take these home. You know, it’s all you’re sitting cuz I’m not showing you anymore. So, we’re actually exhausted. We got here in the heat. But, I tell you what, it hasn’t been overwhelming. It’s been fantastic, hasn’t it? Somehow, we’ve made it to nearly 11:00 Japanese time. And as I said, not overwhelming. Well, overwhelming in the fact that you’re in Japan. Yeah, it’s been fantastic. Fantastic. Positive overwhelming, not negative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not scary. you know, um, getting from the airport to Yokohama. Dead easy. Oh, that was so easy. Limousine bus. Limousine bus. Dead easy. Yeah. Uh, everything’s so efficient. So, everyone’s so friendly and respectful. Respectful. I think quiet, polite, respectful. Yeah. I need to quieten down a little bit, not point. Uh, and we’ve we arrived in Yokohama this morning, Japanese time at about 8:00. Mhm. The lines in security were quite long but got through really really quickly. You can do a little QR code for people to see. Not sure not sure what not sure what it does but how Peter can put a little link in that later what you do. Um yeah so I got through the queue quickly. A lot of people on the on the in the queue but got through and I would say about 20 minutes half hour at the most. Um and yeah then we got here and we ended up going like a um aironditioned shopping center really wasn’t it? Yeah, just at that point in time it was middle of it was oh it was crazy hot 10:00 in the morning delirious with exhaustion and already very hot uh very very humid not unbearably humid mind you so again all don’t go to Japan in August that sort of stuff you know what it’s all right it’s no worse I’ll be honest it doesn’t feel any worse than when we went Barcelona last year on the RV video doesn’t feel that was a lot of there was a humidity yeah it was doesn’t feel that bad and I was wearing chinos. Not the best choice. Big thick train, heavy trainers and a t-shirt. Not the best. I got changed on the plane before we got off and got freshened up. Just still fine. Still fine. Uh it wasn’t too bad. Dubai is worse. It might it might be worse elsewhere. We might we were doing a video in a couple days time saying, “My god, this horrific.” Yeah, but you just you cope basically and you just stay out of the sun and the main bits during the day. So, it’s better like it’s it’s like anywhere really. Tomorrow is embargation day onto Celebrity Millennium. The ship’s going to be down there somewhere. There’s a there’s one in there at the moment, actually. It’s like a little down there. Massive fat head down there somewhere. But anyway, I don’t think people want to look at us so exhausted and our weird job. Good night. Say absolutely saying. Whilst we were mostly on Japanese time already, we woke slightly early than usual and were rewarded with some amazing views of the sun rising over the harbor. Well, good morning from Yokohama. One of the joys of not quite jet lag, but getting over the getting over the jet lag is been up since half past 4. Watch the sunrise. There’s Lisa again. I’m famous. Watch the sunrise. She’s not She hasn’t put any makeup on. She’s hiding her eyes with sunglasses. uh watch the sunrise and we’re going to all being well be able to watch the ship sail in uh through under the uh the bridge into Yokohama itself. So it’s currently times it 12 minutes past 5 in the morning. Oh, it’s gorgeous. And I’m still on yesterday’s clothes to get showered yet. We’ll get showered when we get back. I haven’t showered since like yesterday. Yeah, but not this morning. Haven’t showered this morning yet, but we shall. And we’ll watch the ship come in. So, yes. Good morning everybody. Welcome to day two of Japan. Kicha Kicha Hotel. It’s a bit like a cruise ship in port. You can’t miss it. So, if you’re ever in Yokohama and you want to know the way the intercontinental is, there it is. So, we have a beautiful, beautiful morning over the port. People paddle boarding very impressively. Just waiting for the millennium to come in. More ducks from around the world. Japanese ducks this time. Ducks. Hopefully, we’ll see under see how the intent is. Hopefully, we’ll see the ship coming under that bridge very soon. Good morning, Celebrity Millennium. So, right here we have the man who said he was never really sure about a cruise. Look at him now. Getting this shot, getting it just in the bay of Yokohama. Watching the ship coming. There’s a song there somewhere. But yeah, well know about Yoga obviously. So it’s a bit beautiful. [Music] town up there park and it’s just after 5:30 in the morning and it’s already very very very hot but it’s beautiful about this. Yeah, hope is. sound of hopefully the microphone’s picking this up. But yeah, it’s a sound of you’ll never forget. So, Millennium may be an older, smaller ship, but still not what you would call small. Still a big out ship, right? That’s about as close as we’re going to get until we get on board at 11:30. So, going to go and find a coffee or something somewhere. The embarcation was quick and relatively smooth, but the terminal could have benefited enormously from some air conditioning. Whisked on board, we immediately headed to the main dining room for our welcome lunch. I’m asking your thoughts on your concierge welcome aboard lunch at Mr. Cavana. [Music] Peter is looking very serious today and he’s drinking water. I’m very concerned. Anyway, this is embarcation day and Loki’s on coffee. Are you all right? I did coffee. Don’t forget actually I did coffee on the MSC. Yeah, only cuz you were working. Anyway, I don’t think this will last. We shall see. It won’t last. I’ll the next beer he has. I’ll I’ll I’ll thinky that one anyway. It was a very very quick embarcation. Hence why there’s no videos. Uh literally you come out of the terminal up a little tunnel and you’ll board the ship. So there’s nothing nothing really says you get on board. Uh however, this is the lovely view. That’s our hotel from last night. Hotel just there. Yeah, hotel from last night. And ship is very pleasant, very nice. Had just been to the conscious class lunch thing. We think or don’t think we know if you’ve been on the Mela Voyager Nathan and A we know you have it’s literally the Voyager. So yeah, obviously celebrity. It’s quite a culture clash going from all Japan, everyone’s Japanese to everyone being American, English, Australian again. Quite strange. Basically, in a nutshell, Peter’s decided that he loves Japan. He’s getting in the right little not a straw, but he’s like he doesn’t like people being near him. He doesn’t like people being anything other than Japanese now apparently. And he’s right. It has been amazing. We’ve literally been here by the way of people 24 hours just putting out there. Quiet. And he’s drinking water and a coffee. And I’m very concerned. So I’m going to take him to that bar there and we’re going to have drinks. Yeah. Japanese people are very quiet, respectful. Oh yeah, we’re already reserved. Suits beat down the ground in beautiful. But anyway, ship’s lovely. We’ll see a lot more of it over the coming days. We’ll get the hang of it all. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a message for our guests who have recently embarked the Celebrity Millennium. Welcome aboard. We’ve upgraded to the premium drinks package. And why have we done that, Peter? Cuz I felt compelled cuz I’ll be forced to drink my Rei all week otherwise. He likes a nice IPA randomly. I don’t always drink, although it does look like that. I um like some pelagrino. It’s not included otherwise and all the nice coffees. So, and it wasn’t that much more to be fair. It’s first half felt compelled to upgrade to the deluxe drinks package. Yeah, it is. Uh but works out about £12 a day per person. Like I said, we get all the nice coffees and the different water like Yeah. Yeah. So, yes. So, we believe it’s worth it. I mean, I’m just anyway. I could have got this on the classic, but most people getting on now. There’s a massive queue for guest relations. People moving tips possibly. This is the sunset bar. There’s no sign of the sun setting right now. Blooming hot. Still just saying Elisa. It’s the first time we’ve been on a ship where when the sun is shining, the inside bars are busier. That’s cuz it’s blubbering hot. But that said, here on the sunset bar, it’s actually quite pleasant. It’s not too bad. I wouldn’t want to stay out here too long cuz this will burn. But yeah, inside bars rammed, outside bar is very quiet because it’s hot in Japan. [Music] Farewell to Yokohama. Onto the next step of our Japanese cruise. Crazy. That was our first day there yesterday. We saw all the sites last night. If you get a chance to visit, you’ve got to come to Yokohama. Really do. Unbelievable place. Unbelievable. Slowly adjusting to life randomly outside of Japan on a cruise ship. got used yesterday to not seeing any other people who weren’t Japanese. Now on a cruise ship full of everybody who isn’t Japanese. [Music] The Yokohama Sailaway is up there with the best. Sailing under the bridge is a highlight, and there are few better places to enjoy this than from the Sunset Bar. With the sun starting to set, creating some beautiful vistas, we started to settle into our cruise. An added benefit of sailing from Yokohama on a clear day is being lucky enough to see the majestic Mount Fuji in the background. Even without its iconic snow topping, it’s an amazing site. Right. So, we have just unpacked in fairly record time. So, yes, we are in a concier classroom, balcony room. And oh, there’s Mount Fuji. Just go outside on our balcony. Another test of strength. Apologies for the wind noise. I’m over here. Yes. Zoom in a little bit. Yep. Just have our cabin. There’s Mount Fuji. It’s a reasonable size balcony. We’ll see. Fairly average. Two nice recliners. Uh, we’ve unpacked, so it’s a bit untidy, unfortunately. Nice modern bathroom. No shower curtains, so a bonus. Plenty of storage space in the bathroom. Not so much space in the bedroom area. Literally, you’ve got a few drawers there, a couple of glass cabinets, which doesn’t look the tidiest. We’ll sort that out. Yeah, I’m not liking that because like if you want to like t not that much space for the men amongst us. Oh, ladies, turn light off. And the ladies again, that shelf does not come out, which is a bit irritating. drip. Yes. Yes. All in all, a very nice stage room. It is 10 8 lunch time in England time. About 12:00, 1:00. 12:00. 12:00 12 absolutely exhausted. It’s been a very very very intense different busy. Yeah, busy. Busy is the word. Yeah. Few days. But it’s all good. Here we are. It is about 10 or so. Uh wall exhausted. been to the main buffet which is very very nice on celebrity. Uh I don’t know why you’re saying buffet so posh cuz it’s not posh. I’m just saying you’re not posh but carry on. Okay. Carry on with your little review. It’s like Jimny Cricket stub your shoulder. Move. Thank you. You dingle and you ridiculous. I didn’t say you said you were dingle. Oh yeah I am dingle. say, “You’re ridiculous.” I said, “You dingle, I love you.” And with that, we called it a night for our first night on board the Celebrity Millennium. Thanks for watching and we will see you on the next video. If you like this content, please like and subscribe so you can be notified when our next blog is published. It’s free and we would really appreciate
Join us for our 12-night cruise aboard Celebrity Millennium as we journey around Japan with a brief stop in Busan, South Korea.
This was our first visit to Japan (and South Korea), and to say it blew us away would be an understatement.
In this first video, we make the long trip to Japan, spend our first day and night in Yokohama, before embarking on Celebrity Millennium.
AloJapan.com