Royal Caribbean has lined up a spring 2028 Japan programme for Voyager of the Seas, with sailings timed for cherry blossom season between late February and late April 2028. The schedule includes three distinct itinerary styles, and bookings form part of the ship's wider 2027-28 Asia Pacific season.
The headline option for Japan fans is a 10-night open-jaw sailing from Hong Kong to Tokyo. It calls at Nagasaki and Kagoshima, stays overnight in Kobe, then moves on to Osaka — a city that has built a reputation as one of Japan's best eating destinations — before finishing in Tokyo.
If you'd rather start and finish in the same place, there are three roundtrip cruises from Tokyo, running 11 to 12 nights. These mix Japan and South Korea: expect Kobe and Osaka, Kumamoto, food-focused Fukuoka, historic Nagasaki, volcanic Kagoshima and the coastal scenery of Sasebo. Selected departures add South Korean calls at Jeju (Seogwipo) and Busan. Depending on the sailing, you can also get Mount Fuji views from Shimizu and an overnight in Okinawa.
For something genuinely different, a 16-night repositioning cruise runs from Tokyo to Seattle. The ship sails north for an overnight stay in Sapporo (Muroran) on Hokkaido, then crosses the Pacific — and the International Date Line — on a run of sea days before arriving in the US. It's the kind of voyage that suits people who like ships as much as ports.
All of this sits inside a broader Asia Pacific season for Voyager of the Seas covering two- to 16-night itineraries from Brisbane and Sydney in Australia, plus Singapore and Hong Kong. The season spans Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, China, Japan and South Korea, so the Japan sailings are one slice of a much larger deployment.
Why it matters: cruising is one of the more comfortable ways to see multiple Japanese cities in a single trip, especially in spring when hotels in the popular cities get busy and pricey around blossom time. An itinerary that combines Osaka's food culture, Kyushu's history and volcanoes, and a Mount Fuji glimpse — without repacking a suitcase — appeals to first-timers and repeat visitors alike. The roundtrip Tokyo sailings that add Jeju and Busan also let you tick off two countries in one booking.
Worth planning well ahead for: spring is peak season in Japan, cabins on ships positioned for cherry blossom usually sell early, and open-jaw cruises like the Hong Kong-Tokyo sailing mean you'll need one-way flights at each end. The 16-night Pacific crossing is best suited to travellers with flexible schedules and a taste for long sea days, but it's a rare chance to sail out of Japan to the US West Coast.
