Episode 4 cuts between the Royal Princess in Alaska and the Diamond Princess in Japan, hitting two genuine set pieces along the way: a 300-year-old sulphur-stinking onsen with a strict no-clothes-please policy, and an 80-foot Alaskan rappel that turns a heights-averse Texan into a believer. Standouts are guest services supervisor Olivia, who somehow throws axes badly in Ketchikan and runs a same-week vow renewal in the same shift, and the Diamond Princess officers Charlie and James, who back a 115,000-ton ship into Aomori without killing anyone with a snapping mooring line.
So this week, Cruising to the Ends of the Earth went both naked and 80 feet straight down, and somehow the more terrifying option was the hot springs etiquette quiz. Greg Wise’s narration sets up episode 4 with a Japanese onsen rule that requires committing to full nudity in front of strangers, and an Alaskan cliff rappel where the instructor calmly tells two Texans to put their heels over the edge of an 80-foot drop.
(The following is a recap of episode 4, and there are spoilers, insofar as a Princess Cruises documentary can be spoiled.)
We open in Ketchikan, where the Royal Princess has parked itself overnight and 4,000 guests are about to pour into a town of 8,000 people. Two of the ship’s British crew, Olivia from Southampton and Chesney from Torquay, are going ashore for a rare day off. Chesney has done his homework, knows it’s Alaska’s First City, knows it’s actually on an island. Olivia asks how he knows all this. He says he’s a nerd. He offers to charge her tour-guide fees to her cabin. It’s that kind of show.
They land at the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show, which is exactly what the name suggests: flying axes, chainsaws, men flinging themselves up 30-foot poles, the works. The crowd cheers, the chainsaws whir, and Olivia and Chesney sit there processing the fact that this is a real job somebody has.
Cut 3,900 miles west, where the Diamond Princess is trying to back itself into the port of Aomori. Third Officer Charlie from Teesside is at the bow. Second Officer James from Wakefield is at the stern. Cadet Eva from just outside Glasgow is four weeks into her training and shadowing James to learn how to not run a 115,000-ton ship aground. They thread between two yellow buoys marking shallows, swing the vessel 180 degrees, and reverse in.
Then comes the mooring. Sixteen lines, all under enough tension that the entire deck is classed as a snap-back zone, which is industry talk for: if these ropes go, they go through you. James notes calmly that snapping lines can potentially kill people. Charlie and James direct the operation with hand signals because the winches are too loud for voices. Eva watches and says she could be doing this in a year. It is exciting, she says. It is also very scary at the thought.
Back in Ketchikan, Olivia has lost her chance to look cool. After Chesney lands two axe throws cleanly, she misses, misses again, and announces she’s getting worse. (She is.) Eventually she gets one to stick, the crowd erupts, and she declares she can go home with her head held high. The bit where Olivia and Chesney plan to put framed photos of each other on each other’s desks back at work is the episode’s first quietly perfect moment.
Over on the Diamond Princess, the passengers are off to the main event: a 300-year-old communal bathhouse called Sukayu Onsen up in the Hakkoda Mountains. British-born Amelia and Zach from Miami, celebrating their first anniversary, are escorted by guide Yuko, who first stops them at the Jogakura Ohashi Bridge to gawk at a valley Zach says looks like a painting. They ask Yuko what the bath’s dress code is. Yuko’s answer, delivered via interpreter Shintaro Takada, is short.
“In principle, naked.”
Zach had earlier admitted he wasn’t sure they were ready for that. Reader, they chose the rental swimwear. (Wise call.)
The Senjin Buro, the Bath of a Thousand Bathers, smells aggressively of sulphur. Amelia describes it as gardening Bordeaux, but boiled and bathed in. They last a few minutes. The narrator notes that veterans of these baths sometimes stay for several days. Amelia and Zach are not those veterans. They want a cold shower and a nap.
The Royal Princess has now sailed 300 miles north to Skagway, population 1,200, where a recent landslide has knocked out the cruise ship dock entirely. Guest services director Amanda from New Jersey has to tender every single passenger to shore in five small boats running on a continuous loop. Amanda enters what she calls Serious Amanda mode. Decks get closed, radios chatter, tenders rotate. It runs, somehow.
Among the disembarking passengers are Texans Kylie and Cody, off to spend the day rock climbing on Porcupine Hill with guides Shaelynn and Dylan. Cody’s been on indoor walls before. Kylie has spent the entire pre-climb interview reminding everyone she doesn’t like heights.
The starter wall is 40 feet. Cody, in Shaelynn’s words, is crushing it. Kylie keeps slipping, keeps catching herself, keeps going. By the top, Dylan is already pitching her on the bigger walls. Confidence acquired.
Meanwhile, back on the Royal Princess, Olivia, the same Olivia who an hour earlier was throwing axes badly in Ketchikan, has changed into work clothes because, in her actual day job, she runs the ship’s wedding department. Today’s couple are Karen and Daniel from New Hampshire, renewing their vows after 37 years. They booked the ceremony two days ago, which is, per Olivia, not how this usually works. She wrangles flowers, cake, the works. The Italian captain, Andrea Spinardi, officiates. Karen and Daniel repeat their vows. Olivia exhales.
If anyone had a busier 24 hours than Olivia this episode, the show declined to find them.
Then it’s back to Porcupine Hill, where Kylie and Cody have nailed the 80-foot granite face and are now informed they’ll be rappelling back down it. Dylan instructs them to put their heels over the edge of the cliff. (No-one, he points out, has likely ever asked them to do this before.) Cody, who has spent the climb playing it cool, admits he’s more nervous about the rappel than the climb itself. He goes first and confirms it on the way down: he liked the climbing better.
Kylie, who has spent the episode terrified of heights, leans back over the lip and says she will regret it if she doesn’t. Then she does it. The shot of her hitting the bottom and her boyfriend catching her in open arms is the episode’s biggest cheer moment, and it’s earned.
The final stop is back in Aomori for date night. Third Officer Charlie, last seen counting metres of distance from a moving bow, is off shift. He’s at the ship’s sushi counter with his girlfriend Annie, a dancer from Florida who he met on the Island Princess 18 months ago and who, per Charlie, moved into his cabin four days into the relationship. He’d come back from shifts and a different thing had been added to the cabin.
Sushi chef Ronald from the Philippines builds them maki rolls and walks them through the construction. Charlie, by his own admission, has not mastered chopsticks. Annie is teaching him. He is not winning awards anytime soon.
Charlie has the 8 to midnight watch. Annie is dancing in the ship’s 80s show later. The date is, as Greg Wise puts it, short and sweet. Annie gets the episode’s closing line.
“I get to do what I love, which is dancing, and travel the world, which is also another thing I love. So yeah, it’s the best of the best. And do it with the person I love.”
