The shape of the voyage
Seven nights at sea, four ports,
and one strait taken slowly
The route was not chosen for the beaches, although there are beaches. It was chosen because a sea dragon lives at the end of every leg of it — in a cave, on a cliff, under a bridge, over a gate, across a ceiling.
0
days
19–29 July 2027
0
places
shrines, temples, beaches, gates
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ports of call
plus one strait, sailed slowly
0
nights aboard
balcony stateroom, port side
0
countries
Japan and South Korea
0
hours ahead
a whole day gained, then given back
- 1YokohamaDays 3 & 10
- 2TobaDay 4
- 3KōchiDay 5
- 4Kanmon StraitsDay 6
- 5Seogwipo, JejuDay 7
- 6NagasakiDay 8
The ship
Diamond Princess
ダイヤモンド・プリンセス
Built in Nagasaki in 2004 — one of the very few large cruise ships made in Japan, which is why she keeps a proper cypress bath on deck.
Sails from
Yokohama Ōsanbashi Pier
横浜大さん橋
The timber-decked terminal locals call the whale's back. No railings on the roof, just a grass-and-wood field over the water.
The long way there
AC5 · Boeing 777-300ER
モントリオール ⇄ 成田
Thirteen hours and twenty minutes non-stop from Montréal, straight over the pole. You land the day after you leave.
Before the taxi comes
What to sort out, and what to bring
None of this is exciting and all of it is load-bearing. The phone in your pocket is the single most useful object on this trip — but only if the right things are on it before you leave, because two of them cannot be installed once you are there.
On your phone
Google Maps is excellent in Japan and cannot give you directions of any kind in South Korea — not driving, not walking, not cycling. That is a legal problem rather than a technical one: Korean law forbids exporting the detailed national basemap abroad, and Google has been asking since 2007. So the Jeju day needs a different app, and it needs installing before you sail.
Google MapsGet this one
Japan — everything
Walking, driving and transit all work properly in Japan, and the transit directions are among the best anywhere. Search by place name rather than by address: Japanese addresses are block-based, not street-based, so a romanised address often finds nothing. Two useful tricks — the place card carries the Japanese name you can hold up to a driver, and where your app language differs from the local one Maps shows a speaker icon that pronounces the destination in Japanese.
Before you goDownload the offline areas for Tokyo, Yokohama and each port while you are on wifi. Be clear about what that buys you though: offline maps give driving directions only. Walking and transit routing do not work offline anywhere in the world.
Naver Map네이버 지도Get this one
Jeju — the one that matters
Google Maps cannot give driving, walking or cycling directions anywhere in South Korea, and has not been able to for twenty years: Korean law forbids exporting the detailed national basemap to servers abroad. Naver has that data, so it routes you through crosswalks, stairs and alleys that Google simply cannot see. Full English interface including English turn-by-turn voice, and no account, Korean phone number or Korean card needed — tap Skip when it asks you to log in.
Before you goInstall it and switch it to English at home: Menu → Settings → Language → English. Korea conditionally approved Google's map-data export in February 2026 but nothing had shipped a year later, so plan for Google not working and treat it as a bonus if it does.
GOタクシーアプリ GOGet this one
Japan — taxis
Japan's dominant taxi app, covering all 47 prefectures — including Toba, which nothing else reaches. Interface in English. Since November 2023 it takes overseas mobile numbers and foreign credit cards, so no Japanese phone number and no Japanese card.
Before you goMake the account and register the card at home. SMS verification to a Canadian number is much easier before you are dealing with roaming.
Uber
Japan — taxis, no setup
Your existing Canadian account and card work as they are. In Japan it dispatches licensed taxis rather than private cars, and since 2026 a tourist-only tie-up with S.RIDE adds about 20,000 more taxis in Yokohama and Tokyo — eligibility keyed to the foreign phone number on your account. Good in Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagasaki and Kōchi; no use at Toba.
Before you goNothing, beyond keeping your Canadian number as the account number.
k.rideGet this one
Jeju — taxis
Kakao Mobility's own foreigner edition, running on the same driver pool as Kakao T, which has over 90% of Korean taxi hailing. It exists because Kakao T itself is awkward for visitors: it wants a Korean account and commonly rejects foreign cards. k.ride takes a Google or Apple sign-in, needs no phone verification, accepts cards issued outside Korea, and auto-translates the destination and the driver chat. Uber exists in Korea but is thin outside Jeju City and should not be your only plan.
Before you goInstall and sign in at home. App coverage at Gangjeong is thinner than in the city, and you will be arriving with 2,700 other people.
Papago
Korea — translation
Naver's translator, purpose-built for Korean, Japanese and Chinese and consistently better than Google for Korean menus and idiom. Live camera overlay for signs.
Before you goDownload the offline packs on wifi.
Google TranslateGet this one
Both — translation
Camera translation of signs and menus, and a two-way conversation mode that is the thing which resolves "the driver did not understand the destination" when you share no language.
Before you goDownload the Japanese and Korean offline packs on wifi before you go.
Princess CruisesGet this one
The ship
Runs free on the ship's own network without buying an internet package. It carries the daily schedule, the deck plans, your onboard account — and, most usefully for this trip, the day's all-aboard time and the port agent's phone number.
Before you goInstall it and complete OceanReady before you fly. Over ship wifi it is slow.
Organic Maps
Both — the backstop
Free, OpenStreetMap-based, and it does genuine offline turn-by-turn walking navigation for both countries. That one install covers the two biggest gaps at once: Google cannot route pedestrians offline anywhere, and cannot route them at all in Korea.
Before you goDownload the Japan and Korea regions on wifi.
Things to do first
Counting backwards from the 19th. Most of this is admin you can do in any order on any evening — but three things have a queue behind them, and they are numbered below so you know which envelope to open first: the costume session, then the port-day cars, then the fortune reading. Where a government service is named, that domain is the only place to use it — every one of these has look-alike sites that charge for something free, and they buy the search ads.
Now
Check both passports
Japan asks only that a passport be valid for your stay, but airlines routinely apply their own six-month rule, so treat anything expiring before about February 2028 as needing renewal. Check the blank pages too: this one trip can generate six stamps — into Japan, out to Korea, into Korea, out again, back into Japan at Nagasaki, and out on the 29th. Japanese law requires you to carry the actual passport whenever you are ashore in Japan. A photocopy is not a substitute.
About six months out
Buy travel insurance
RAMQ pays what a treatment would have cost in Quebec, at Quebec rates, and covers nothing of emergency transport, private rooms or drugs bought out of province — it says so itself and recommends private cover. Check three things specifically: medical evacuation including an escort home, pre-existing conditions in writing, and repatriation. Then check the policy covers a cruise, covers both Japan and South Korea, and covers 19–29 July including the travel days.
About six months out
Buy a Korean K-ETA, even though you may not need oneRecheck in 2027
Canada's exemption from Korea's travel authorisation runs out on 31 December 2026 — seven months before you sail — and no extension into 2027 has been announced. As things stand you will need one. Buy it early regardless: it costs about ₩10,000, lasts three years, and holding one also exempts you from Korea's e-Arrival Card, which otherwise has to be filed from the ship within three days of the Jeju call over ship wifi. It gets you into the faster automated lane at Gangjeong too.
Only at k-eta.go.kr
Six months out — the first thing you book
Booking priority 1Book the geisha and samurai session
This is the only thing on the whole trip with a genuine queue in front of it, and the only one where losing your slot loses you the afternoon rather than costing you a fee. Book direct with COCOMO rather than through a reseller — resellers hold a smaller block and cannot move you. Ask for 11:00 on Wednesday 28 July, not 10:30: disembarkation that morning goes by luggage-tag colour from about half past eight, and the honest chain reaches the studio door at eleven exactly. Settle two things in the same email — whether the plan includes the outdoor location shoot around the temple, which happens inside your three hours rather than after them, and whether there is a lift, because reception is on 2F and the garden studio on 4F and no lift is documented anywhere.
Six to three months out
Booking priority 2Book the port-day cars
The most consequential booking on this list, because a car that is not there is the only thing on this trip that can cost you the ship — and also the one most easily overbought. Only Kōchi genuinely needs a car held for hours: the wharf has no rank, no bus and no railway, so charter that one for about four hours and stop worrying about it. Toba needs two one-way runs with a booked return pickup rather than a driver paid to sit at Futami for eighty minutes. Nagasaki needs a car for 08:10 through the ship's shore excursions desk and another to meet you at Ōura Tenshudō-shita for 11:15, because Glover Garden's Gate 1 is not a taxi rank and nobody tells you that — the rest of that day you simply hail. Jeju needs nothing booked at all. Read the section below before you commit to any of it: which instrument you buy matters more than how early you buy it, and the difference between doing this well and doing it nervously is about ¥70,000.
Three months out
Booking priority 3Book the Chinatown tarot reading
Airi takes reservations through their own site at coubic.com/irieuranai, and a named reader has to be requested in advance. Book 10:00 on Wednesday 21 July — that is their opening hour, so you are the first customers of the day with nobody in front of you, and the tai chi circle two streets south finishes at exactly ten. Ask for the Shanghai Road or Tenchōmon branch rather than the main store, which is up on the 2F of the Kamome market with no lift documented. Weekday hours are 10:00 to 20:00 with last reception 19:30 — which is why this cannot be the Tuesday evening, whatever the original plan said. Two things to settle when you book: whether they can read in English, because nothing on their site says they can, and that what is on the menu is tarot and palm reading. The "face analysis" the brief promised is not a service they offer.
Two months out
Buy the Narita coach tickets, both ways
Outbound, buy the two ¥4,000 Airport Limousine tickets online before you fly. Queuing at the Terminal 1 counter after a thirteen-hour flight is the thing that decides whether you make a coach at all, and the plan is built on the 17:25 to Yokohama with the counter already dealt with. Homebound, the Asakusa View Hotel is a stop on the Narita route but there are only six runs a day and the seat has to be reserved: book the 12:45 departure, which reaches Terminal 1 at 14:35 for the 17:35 flight. Not the 13:45 — it arrives at 16:00, and by the time you are through check-in, security and emigration the gate has closed. Confirm the reservation at the bell desk on the morning. The coach serves Terminal 1 last, after Terminals 3 and 2.
Embarkation day, 21 July, before lunch
Book the Izumi bath — but not until you are aboard
This is the one booking that cannot be made in advance and cannot be left until the day. Capacity is capped near thirty across 818 m² and the sea-day passes are the first to go, so it has to be done at the spa desk in the first hours aboard, for the sea day on the 27th. About US$39 for a two-hour session or US$49 for a day pass — and it is not covered by Princess Premier, whatever the brief says. The two indoor halves are nude and gender-segregated and the sides swap daily, so you cannot share the main baths; only the outdoor tub is mixed, and that one needs swimwear.
One month out
Sort out phones and data
Buy one regional eSIM that explicitly lists both Japan and South Korea — a Japan-only plan is dead the moment you step off at Seogwipo. Install the profile at home on wifi, because installing it needs a connection you will not have on arrival, then leave the line switched off until you land. Keep your Canadian number as the primary line: Uber's tourist taxi access in Japan is keyed to a foreign phone number. Confirm both handsets are carrier-unlocked first.
One month out
Tell the banks, and check the cards
At least one debit card has to carry a Plus or Cirrus logo — an Interac-only card will not work in Japan at all. Set the PIN to four digits, because Japanese ATMs commonly reject longer ones. Carry one Visa and one Mastercard, kept in different places. 7-Eleven ATMs are the reliable ones: over 20,000 of them, English menus, essentially round the clock.
Two weeks to 48 hours out
Register on Visit Japan WebRecheck in 2027
Japan's own portal, free, and it replaces the paper landing card and customs declaration with a single 2D code. It is optional — paper is still accepted — but it is the difference between two queues. Screenshot the code on both phones and print it; it lives behind a login, which is miserable on airport wifi after thirteen hours. Whether it also works for the mid-cruise re-entry at Nagasaki is genuinely unresolved, so expect paper forms from Princess there and treat the code as a bonus.
Only at vjw.digital.go.jp
Two weeks out
Complete OceanReady
Passport details, security photo, payment method and your arrival-group time all go in the Princess app before you fly. Yokohama uses assigned arrival groups, and if you do not pick a window one gets assigned to you 24 hours out. If the Medallions ship to Montreal, pack them in your carry-on with a lanyard each.
From Tokyo, in the last 72 hours
File the ArriveCAN advance declaration
Not required to enter Canada, but it saves real time at Montréal–Trudeau, which has the kiosks that read it. You cannot do it before you leave — the window is 72 hours, so it is a job for the Asakusa hotel room on the 28th.
Only at cbsa-asfc.gc.ca
The cars, and what happens if one doesn’t turn up
“Held all day” is a real arrangement with a published price — but it is the most expensive instrument there is, and this trip needs it exactly once. Buy it at Kōchi, where the wharf has no rank, no bus and no railway. At the other three ports you are in a resort, a city, or a hundred metres from a taxi rank, and a car paid to sit outside a building is money spent on a fear you can answer for nothing.
Done that way, the driving across all four port days comes to roughly ¥36,000 in total — not per day. Charter everything instead and it is nearer ¥110,000 for the same journeys.
CheapestJust take one, and take another later流し · nagashi
Only the fare. Regional Japan runs about ¥670 for the first kilometre and roughly ¥300 a kilometre after it, so most hops on this trip are ¥800–2,800
The default, and the right answer more often than the planning documents suggest. It works anywhere there is a rank, a resort or a city — Jeju, Nagasaki, and the Toba terminal. Do not hire a car by the hour to sit outside a building in a place where another one will come.
02Metered, with the driver waiting待機 · taiki
The fare, plus roughly ¥60–70 a minute parked — so about ¥5,000 for an eighty-minute wait
One stop of up to about an hour, somewhere with no rank. The meter keeps ticking slowly while he waits rather than stopping. Say 少し待っていてください and show him the return time written down. This is what Sōfuku-ji wants, and nothing else on the trip really does.
03Send him away and book him back迎車 · geisha — and no, not that one
Two one-way fares plus a pickup fee of about ¥400 — which beats waiting by roughly half on any stop over an hour
The one most people never think of, and the biggest saving on this itinerary. At Futami you are ashore eighty minutes; paying a driver to sit through that costs more than the round trip itself. Book the same firm to come back at a named time, take their number, and confirm it before he drives off.
DearestHourly charter時間制運賃 · jikansei unchin
About ¥5,900 for the first hour, then about ¥2,700 each half hour — so a four-hour port day is roughly ¥22,000, for the car rather than per person
Exactly one day on this trip justifies it: Kōchi, where the wharf has no rank, no bus and no railway, and where three separate bookings at a port with thin supply is more risk than a single known car. Everywhere else this is money spent on reassurance you already have. Also called 貸切, kashikiri.
The ship's shore excursions desk
Costs the most, removes the risk entirely
The only option that does not merely manage the problem. Anything arranged through Princess is coordinated with the ship's own schedule, and their stated policy is that if a ship-sponsored trip runs late the ship waits — and where she genuinely cannot, Princess gets you to the next port at their expense. No independent taxi anywhere carries that. It is bookable from home in the Princess app once the excursion list opens, and again at the desk on board. On the days that worry you, it is the right amount more expensive.
The hotel concierge, for the Yokohama days
Free, and they do the hard part
The bit you cannot do from Montréal is telephone a Japanese taxi firm in Japanese. The Hyatt's desk does exactly that, as a matter of routine, for guests. Email them two or three weeks out with the date, the time and the destination in both scripts — this is how the pier run on the 21st gets booked, and it is worth asking them about Toba at the same time.
Direct with the local firm, by email
Cheapest, most work, book earliest
Small-town operators rarely have an English booking page. Write short Japanese — run it through a translator, nobody minds — and give five things: the date, the ship's name, the pickup point, the pickup time, and 時間制運賃でお願いします if you want the hourly charter. Ask for the confirmation in writing with the driver's mobile number on it, and ask explicitly what happens if immigration or the tender queue overruns. Then put that number in both phones.
Toba
Thursday 22 July
Book him back, don't pay him to wait
About ¥6,800 — two 7.5 km runs at roughly ¥2,800, a pickup fee, and a ¥800 hop at the end
Terminal → Futami at 07:35, then back at 08:55 once you have done the shrine and Ryūgūsha. A separate short hop, aquarium → terminal, at 12:50.
If the car is goneManageable
You would lose an hour, not the ship. The Marine Terminal has a rank, and Futami is about fifteen minutes' walk from Futaminoura station on the JR Sangū line, two stops from Toba — infrequent, but it exists. GO covers Mie; Uber does not reach here. Supply is thin on a cruise day, which is the argument for booking the return rather than for paying ¥5,000 to have a driver sit in a car park.
Kōchi
Friday 23 July
Hold this one. Only this one.
About ¥18,000 on the meter with the waiting, or roughly ¥22,000 as a fixed four-hour charter
Terminal at 09:45, the museum, down the hill to Katsurahama, through lunch, and back to the terminal at 13:30 — about four hours.
If the car is goneThis is the one
Misato No. 7 is a working cargo wharf with no rank, no bus and no railway anywhere near it, and app dispatch into a restricted port area is unreliable. Katsurahama itself is fine — a bus terminus, a big car park, a tourist site — but its bus goes to the town centre, not to your ship. This is the single place on the trip where the cheap version is not worth it. Take the driver's card at the museum and photograph the plate.
Jeju
Sunday 25 July
Don't hold anything
About ₩40,000 for the whole day — roughly ¥4,300, and the cheapest port on the trip
Three separate rides: port gate → the falls, the falls → the beach, and the beach → port gate. Nothing waits.
If the car is goneFine
Jungmun is a resort: hotels on every corner and cars circulating all day. k.ride and Kakao T both cover it, there is a Jeju Global Taxi desk beside the port gate, and the drive back is under twenty minutes. Ordering the return car from inside the cafe rather than at the kerb is the whole of the precaution needed here.
Nagasaki
Monday 26 July
One short wait, otherwise hail them
About ¥6,800 including the wait at Sōfuku-ji
Four short city hops and one 45-minute wait: 08:10 from the terminal, waiting at Sōfuku-ji, on to the Sky Road, a pickup at Ōura Tenshudō-shita for 11:15, and 13:00 back from Chinatown.
If the car is goneFine
A city of four hundred thousand with trams, ranks, full GO coverage and Uber as well. The only trap is Glover Garden's Gate 1, which is not a rank and never will be — walk the 200 metres downhill to Ōura Tenshudō-shita, which is a tram stop with cars on it.
Which app, where: GO covers all forty-seven Japanese prefectures and is the only one that reaches Toba. Uber works in Yokohama, Tokyo, Nagasaki and Kōchi city — but dispatches nothing to a cargo wharf, so it is not the answer at Misato No. 7. On Jeju it is k.ride, not Uber. And four habits make the rest a non-event: take the driver’s card at the firststop rather than the last, photograph the number plate, agree the return time in writing when you book rather than on the day, and put the port agent’s telephone number — it is in the Princess app every morning, beside the all-aboard time — into both phones before you go ashore. That last number is the one that solves the problem you are actually imagining.
Things not to forget
Not a packing list — you know how to pack. These are the eight things specific to this itinerary, which is stair-heavy, outdoor-heavy and takes place in the hottest fortnight of the Japanese year.
Yen in cash, and coins
Japan is 58% cashless now, but the gaps sit exactly where you are going: shrine and temple counters, omikuji and omamori, incense at the Chinatown temples at ¥500 a set, and temple admissions of ¥300–600. Cash for anything religious and anything run by one person.
A small towel
For the Izumi bath, and for the fact that a great many Japanese public washrooms have neither paper towels nor a dryer. The small towel goes into the bathing area and stays out of the water; the ship provides the big one.
Shoes you can climb in and slip off
Sōfuku-ji has no step-free route past its gate, Katsurahama has slopes and stairs before the sand, Futami's shore path is loose gravel, Cheonjeyeon is a gorge with a bridge over it, and the Jungmun beach ramp climbs fifty metres coming back — then you take them off at the door of a temple or a tatami room. Broken in, with grip: late July is the tail of the rainy season and wet stone is slick. Clean socks without holes.
Heat kit, treated as safety equipment
High-SPF sunscreen, a wide-brimmed hat or a UV umbrella, a rechargeable neck fan each, a cooling towel and a power bank. Recent Julys have put tens of thousands of people in Japanese hospitals with heatstroke. Buy the electrolyte drinks and salt tablets there — Pocari Sweat is in every convenience store and better than anything you would carry.
Medication in its original labelled containers
With a printed prescription and a doctor's letter using generic names, in cabin baggage. Check every item first: Japan bans stimulant ADHD drugs outright with no prescription defence, bans cannabis in every form, and requires advance written permission for codeine and other narcotics. Leave the pseudoephedrine cold remedies at home and buy a Japanese one there.
A compact umbrella and a long-sleeved layer
Nagasaki averages about nineteen rainy days in July, and the ship, the shops and every indoor space are air-conditioned hard.
A foldable tote and a bag for your own rubbish
Shops charge for plastic bags, and Japan has almost no public bins — people carry their rubbish home. Neither is a rule you can talk your way around.
Motion-sickness remedy and compression socks
The Toba tender crosses open water twice on an exposed anchorage, and the flight out is thirteen hours and twenty minutes.
Five things on this page are temporary, brand new, or genuinely unsettled: the Korean travel authorisation, Korea’s arrival card, Japan’s forthcoming JESTA, Japan’s new tax-free refund mechanism, and whether Visit Japan Web works at a seaport at all. Every figure here was checked against official sources — but a year is a long time in border policy. Put a reminder in the calendar for January 2027 to read it all again.