The second edition of this column has one letter in it, and it changed the site. Clare, sailing on Westerdam’s 14-night Circle Japan loop from Tokyo on 28 March 2027, wrote with her ship, her date and her port, which is exactly what makes a question answerable:
I am on the Circle of Japan cruise with Holland America leaving Tokyo on 28 March. My port is Fushiki–Toyama on Tuesday 6 April. I am just wondering when 2027 dates will be on this website?
Two questions are hiding in that, and the second one embarrassed us.
“When will 2027 dates be on the site?”
Our schedule pages do not come from the cruise lines. Each one is built from the port authority’s own published list, because the port is the only party that knows the berth, and the berth decides your day. That has a cost: we can only show a year once the port has published it.
Most Japanese ports publish the coming year between December and February and then revise monthly. Toyama Prefecture put its 2026 list up on 25 December 2025, so its 2027 list is expected around late December 2026. When it appears, the Fushiki–Toyama schedule page will carry it, with the berth for each call. Until then the page shows the 2026 record, which is the best available guide to how the port treats each ship.
For Clare’s sailing the dates themselves are not in doubt. Holland America’s own itinerary page lists Toyama on Tuesday 6 April 2027, 08:00 to 18:00, and we have put the whole fortnight on one page: Westerdam’s Circle Japan, every port, hour by hour.
The question we had not answered: Fushiki–Toyama
When the letter arrived, Fushiki–Toyama was two sentences on our ports list. Ten of the eleven ports on Clare’s loop had a complete guide; hers did not. It does now: the Fushiki–Toyama guide, built this week from the prefecture’s call sheets, the railways’ timetables and the attractions’ own pages.
The short version, for a 08:00–18:00 call:
- The berth is the first fact. On both 2026 calls Westerdam docked at Manyo Wharf No. 3 in the Fushiki district of Takaoka city, a cargo wharf with no terminal, no shops and no ATM, and no shuttle run by the port. The Kaiwomaru park berth that some pages describe is 8 km away and takes only small ships.
- Getting out. Takaoka Station is 15 to 20 minutes by the ship’s shuttle or a taxi, about ¥4,500 by our estimate. The Himi line from Fushiki Station, a 20-minute walk, runs roughly hourly with gaps of up to 95 minutes, so we plan around the shuttle and keep the train as the fallback.
- The day. Zuiryuji, the Maeda family’s National Treasure temple, is ten minutes’ walk from Takaoka Station. Toyama city is a ¥390 train ride on: white-shrimp tempura at the station, the Glass Art Museum in Kengo Kuma’s timber building, and the Matsukawa river boat under the cherry trees, whose 2027 spring season is planned for 20 March to 25 April. Toyama’s normal full bloom is 8 April. Back at the gangway around 16:00, with the margin we always keep.
- The mountains. The Tateyama range across the bay is the reason the port exists on itineraries. It is seen from the Amaharashi Coast, two stops up the Himi line or a 3 km taxi, on a clear day only. April is the driest, sunniest month in one of Japan’s wettest cities. The Alpine Route and its snow wall open in mid-April, so they are not an option on the 6th.
- The one trap. Wednesday closes the Kaiwomaru ship, the fish auction and, on the first and third week, the Glass Art Museum. Clare’s call is a Tuesday.
What we changed because of one letter
A port guide, a schedule page, a ship page corrected (Westerdam’s 2027 loops do not all use Omaezaki, as our page used to say), and a port-by-port page for the sailing. That is the point of this column. If your ship, date and port are not answered on this site, send them, and the answer may become a page.
Questions appear here with permission, first names only. Ship, date and hours ashore make the answer sharper.
