Live from Japan: The snazziest toilets at sea

ABOARD THE DIAMOND PRINCESS -- We've heard of cruise ships that offer pillow menus for cabins. There are even a few with designer soap menus. But a toilet menu?

One of the first things you'll notice upon boarding Princess Cruises' recently revamped Diamond Princess is that some of the bathrooms in public areas and cabins now feature new, high-tech loos that come with heated seats and a menu of options involving shooting and pulsating water jets and under-the-lid air dryers.

A nod to the expectations of cruisers from tech-obsessed Japan -- the ship's new home for part of the year -- the toilets come with a controller with 16 buttons offering everything from a relatively self-explanatory "wash" and "dry" to the slightly more alarming "enema wash" and even a "massage." The water temperature and seat temperature can be adjusted up and down, and passengers can save their settings.

The toilets are just one of a number of new features designed to appeal to Japanese cruisers that Princess added to the Diamond Princess in March in a massive, $30 million overhaul. Also new is an extensive Japanese bath area, a sushi restaurant and a new luxury shopping zone. Menus in the ship's main restaurants and Horizon Court buffet also got makeovers to offer more Japanese specialties.

The changes come as California-based Princess ramps up cruises around Japan designed to appeal to Japanese vacationers as well as the line's traditional English-speaking customers. The Diamond Princess is in the midst of its first extended season of voyages around Japan with sailings out of Yokohama (near Tokyo).