Sasebo port International Terminal — Local services in Sasebo

When you arrive in this port coming from Korea, you are going to have to fall in line with Japanese immigration to check your passport. When we did this, the line was very long, but it moved, however not very fast. There is a free shuttle that brings cruise passengers from this port to the side of the river where the Albuquerque bridge is located. That is a very convenient drop off the spot for cruise passengers so they can walk around the very very beautiful park, or go through the longest shopping center in Japan -Sasebo Yonkacho Shotengai.

After one gets back to the cruise port before the cruise ship leaves, they will find that there are a lot of vendors who set up shop to sell all kinds of local in Japanese souvenirs. There really is a large variety of interesting products one can look at. But they only said this up in the afternoon before the...

NCL Spirit arrival on Nov 17. A free shuttle is provided to the "shopping street", though the port itself is adjacent to the JR station and main bus terminal. Easily the most conveniently-located port in the entire itinerary!

99 Islands area is just 30 minutes away but watch out for the bus schedule, which can be tricky. If you're having immigration clearance at this port, the process will eat into your sightseeing hours and plans should be set loosely.

The port also offers a great vantage point to check out the naval vessels at Sasebo, and even a chance to watch (from a great distance) the flag lowering ceremony on the Japanese vessels if the sail out coincides with the...

We took the ship’s boat to the shopping street, which was a huge disappointment. There were only food items really worth eating. We used Google to locate a good lemon steak, which was so tender it almost melted in the mouth, but that was the only highlight of the day. We should have gone on a boat tour of the...