Royal Caribbean Is Timing a Ship for Japan’s Cherry Blossoms

Royal Caribbean has laid out where Voyager of the Seas will spend spring 2028, and the schedule leans heavily on Japan’s most popular season. From late February through April 2028, the ship will sail a run of itineraries centered on Tokyo, timed for cherry blossom season. The cruise line had signaled an expanded Asia-Pacific deployment over the summer, and the newly detailed sailings show exactly how the ship will be used once it arrives in Japan.

The season opens with a 10-night open-jaw cruise from Hong Kong to Tokyo, calling at Nagasaki and Kagoshima, with an overnight in Kobe and time for Osaka. From Tokyo, a set of 11- and 12-night roundtrips mix Japanese ports such as Kobe, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kagoshima and Sasebo with calls in South Korea at Jeju and Busan. Select sailings stop at Shimizu for views of Mount Fuji and include an overnight in Okinawa.

The finale is a 16-night Pacific crossing from Tokyo to Seattle. The ship heads north to Muroran for an overnight in Hokkaido, then spends a long stretch of sea days crossing the Pacific, including the International Date Line, before arriving in Seattle. That repositioning brings the ship to the U.S. West Coast and gives American cruisers a one-way route home from Japan’s north without a long-haul flight from Asia.

For travelers, the appeal is seeing several Japanese cities during cherry blossom season without the hotel prices and constant repacking that a rail trip demands. Bloom timing shifts every year and varies widely between Kyushu in the south and Hokkaido in the north, so no single sailing guarantees peak blossoms at every port. As always with cruises, compare the total fare including port fees and taxes rather than the headline price.

Sources: Cruise Industry News, Royal Caribbean Blog