We started our 2025 winter travel with a Norwegian Sun cruise to Japan. Our cruise was the final cruise of the season leaving Vancouver, BC on Oct 17, 2025 and arriving in Tokyo on November 3rd. Once arriving in Japan, the ship would continue with Asian cruises throughout the winter months before returning to North America in the late spring.
The itinerary for this 17 day cruise was:
- Leave Vancouver
- One day at sea
- Ketchican, Alaska
- Icy Strait Point, Alaska
- Skagway, Alaska
- 8 days at sea for the North Pacific crossing (also crossing the international dateline)
- Kushiro, Japan
- Hakodate, Japan
- One day at sea
- https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2164.htmlTokyo, Japan
We booked this cruise almost a year and a half in advance during a sale for an amazing price. Then somewhere along the line we noticed a price drop. We contacted Norwegian Cruise Lines and they ended up giving us $600+ credits that we could use on any future cruises we take. That’s an important thing to keep an eye on. Price drops happen as you get closer to travel dates if the cruise hasn’t sold out and you should contact the cruise line to take advantage of those credits. When you budget travel, every little bit of credit helps!
Once we boarded the ship, it was time to let our hair down and toast the beginning of our adventure! While we were waiting to get access to our cabin, we enjoyed a glass of champagne and the sail away party on the top deck. One tip to getting the most of your vacation is to learn the staff’s name and to tip them. Tips don’t have to be huge but they do make a big difference in the service you receive! Staff will quickly remember your name and your preferences. I will go into more detail about tipping further down in this article.
We specifically chose an inside cabin located on a lower level and midship for several reasons. With an ocean crossing, particularly in the fall, you can anticipate some rough seas. Being low and midship will be less rocky than the higher decks in the fore and aft of the ship. We were nervous about seasickness and wanted to minimize the effects. Plus, being budget travelers, these are the least expensive cabins on the ship.
Our cabin was surprisingly more spacious than we expected. The beds were fairly comfortable with plenty of bedside table space, clothing storage space and our luggage stowed neatly under the beds. We purchased magnetic hooks on Amazon and used them throughout the cabin to keep things organized. The walls of the cabin are metal so you can put up hooks wherever you need them. That was really handy!
Let’s talk about tipping on the cruise. What most people don’t realize is that the gratuities that cruise lines add onto your cruise price won’t actually go to the cruise staff as gratuities. Those gratuities go towards the cruise staff’s normal wages so the cruise line gets a discount on their labour! You can opt not to pay those gratuities and instead tip the staff yourself. The staff appreciate this so much more and they will go above and beyond to give you the best service ever! We paid the gratuities upfront but then went to the customer service desk and asked for a refund. You have to sign a form and your onboard account will then be refunded that amount. We tipped bartenders, wait staff, dining room greeters, cabin stewards, etc. Within days the dining room greeters not only knew our names, they knew our cabin number and our preferred waitress and always seated us in preferential tables. Our waitress knew the wine we liked, that we wanted extra vegetables with our meals, etc. and anticipated our needs without having to be asked. We usually tipped our waitress $5 for breakfast and lunch and $10 for dinner. Our dining room greeter got $5 every few days. Our cabin steward got $5 a day and our bartender got $1 for each order. Over the course of the cruise we spent the same amount of money as the prepaid gratuities but the staff actually got tips on top of their wages and we got better service everywhere we went!
I love the free style cruising on Norwegian cruises. No set meal times and no set seating. When you are hungry, you just show up and eat. The food was amazing in the dining rooms. The buffet, not so much. We rarely ate from the buffet with the exception of the Moderna lunch buffet which served pizza, salad bar and ramen style soups which were delicious! We had the More at Sea package which included two specialty dining meals. We chose The Bistro which is a French restaurant and the Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant. Both were excellent. Here are just a few examples of the meals in the complementary dining rooms.
The amenities onboard also include a theatre for great live shows and entertainment, a library for those days at sea and a casino. We spent a lot of time in the casino!! Hahaha BUT we did win and we used those winnings to continue to play and earn points to use towards your next cruise. We got enough points to get our next cruise free!!! While it is important to know your limit and stay within it, if you are responsible and are lucky enough to win or break even, it can be a benefit to future discounts.
I am going to end this post here because it’s getting pretty lengthy but will do more posts about our ports of call from this cruise.
Watch this video for more info on this cruise.
