Usually when we visit a ship that we are going to write about, instead of making notes, we take a hundred pictures or more, just for visual reference (they say one picture is worth a thousand words - do the math - it saves a lot of paper) with no intention of publishing them, so they are just snapshot quality, often taken on the run, or a close-up of a design detail or so forth. If we plan to publish photos, we take a lot more time and care in setting them up and in the quality of exposure and so forth.
As we noted in the article in Cruise News Daily, our time aboard Diamond Princess in the yard in Nagasaki was limited to only about three hours (we'll have more in a couple of weeks when we sail on the ship), so there was no time for quality photos. Just time for about a hundred "visual notes." Since there is so much interest in seeing the ship and there are several new concepts rolling out on the ship, we are letting readers get a peek at our "notes."
Passengers are going to find four major enhancements aboard Diamond Princess. These photos will give you a better visualization of some of them.
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| The four Anytime Dining Rooms each have a distinctive look to go along with its specialty menu (Asian, Southwestern, Italian, and steak), although the complete menu from the traditional dining room is available in each one. Conversely, in the traditional dining room, the menu will include selections from one of the specialty menus each evening | |
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The internet cafe was expanded to include 29 workstations and a wireless hub. It also became a true cafe on Diamond Princess with the inclusion of a station serving coffee, juice and rolls. |
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Club Fusion, which replaces the aft lounge, is a quite an innovation. It will include a bandstand for a six-piece band, a DJ
booth, a dance floor, a small stage, a large bar, lots of different
types of seating areas where you can see everything in the rest of the
room, and everywhere you look, large plasma tv's and video screens. All
these will enable it to "fuse together lots of entertainment
options,:" according to its creator, and "There will be something happening there all evening long." The staircase in the center of the dance floor (above) leads downstairs to the quite, intimate Wake View Bar (left). |
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Diamond Princess' godmother, Yoshiko Tsukuda, the wife of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries president, Kazuo Tsukuda, is escorted to the naming ceremony (above, left) by the ship's master, Capt. Bernard Werner. Because Princess was honoring many Japanese traditions in the ceremony, Mrs. Tsukuda dressed traditionally in an off-white antique kimono. One of the many traditional elements of the event was a dragon dance performed by the Nagasaki Dragon Dance Club. |
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