Lee
My "tentative" itinerary for the 3 days pre-cruise will be: half day orientation tour of Osaka, a full day to Kyoto, a full day to Tokyo or a half day to Nara. I have no idea of the distances between places neither what type of transportation to use. I was leaning towards Osaka as my base as that's where the ship departs, but any suggestion will be appreciated. I'll be arriving at the Narita airport so also need to know how to get to my base city as one way flights were quite expensive & saw no direct flights to Osaka. Trains is not a good option as for a 20 days trip there is going to be a lot of luggage.
For the Panda cruisers that are arriving early in Japan & are not doing the pre-cruise with Regent which city will you use as the base?