Cruise to Russia - Staying in the cities?
 

Wanted to know if anyone knows of cruises that go to Russia where you stay in Moscow and St. Petersburg rather than on the ship when in those 2 cities. I've heard so much about how far the ship is from the cities and that it can take 2 hours to get into the cities every morning. Don't want to go through that.

I am interested also...is the cruise ship that far away from Moscow and st.Petersburg. ?

I am talking about those ships that cruise from St. Petersburg and Moscow.

When Princess cruise ship docked in St.Petersburg ( from Helsinki)...........it certainly was not 2 hours away.

PErcy -

Are you saying that you did that cruise? (The Princess Cruise)

kenav

Maybe we are talking about two different cruises.

I did the Princess cruise from Copenhagen to Stockholm ,to Helsinki..to St. Petersburg...to Tallin Estonia ...to Gdansk Poland and then to Oslo Norway.

But there is a River boat cruise that starts (or ends) in St.Petersburg and goes down the Neva River ... then down the Svir River and then down the Volga River to Moscow (end or start of the trip).

I did the Princess Cruise out of Copenhagen...but not the River cruise to Moscow.

We did the Baltic cruise, including 3 days in St.Petersburg on Oceania and docked just about in the middle of town.

boom boom -

How was the trip on the Oceana? I am wary of large ships, thousands of people and only staying in port 1 or 2 days. Do you really get to see the port you're in? (Being there for such a short time.)

So yes, I was thinking about a river cruise. You didn't get to Moscow did you?

Kenav: We too cruised the Baltic with a stop in St. Petes from which going into town took a short time, certainly not two hrs. As for the Moscow question could you possibly be referring to a river vs. sea cruise? Moscow is way south of St. Petes and is not coastal though there are waterways that go thru it. (see link) You don't need to stay in St. Petes unless you want to. Most cruise ships stay in port two days because you need that much time to see it and even then its a snapshot, albeit a good one. If Oceania stays an extra day so much the better.
Hello Percy. We are three weeks away from the Panama canal which starts in Acapulco. BTW that restaurant you recommended, Coyoba 23 or something like that is closed for renovations. I've heard good things about Baikal and El Ovido. Any ideas about these? Larry :-)
http://map.rin.ru/cgi-bin/main_e.pl?Region=moscowobl

Kenav: Oceania only carries 678 passengers.

We had two days in St. Petersburg on an Oceania cruise in 2007. Since we had been there before, we arranged a private tour with two other couples we met on CruiseCritic.

In 2002 we took the Viking Moscow to St. Petersburg River Cruise. It was terrific. We were docked in town. Because we had some free time in St. Petersburg (though not in Moscow) we took the subway from ship's dock to Nevsky Prospect and explored downtown on our own.

kenav

I had no problem with the larger cruise ship because I had private tour guides in St.Petersburg..

I did not use the ship tours.

At all other ports there were just the four of us with private tour guides.

jacketwatch:

Hi there.

Glad you are doing the Panama Cruise, you will enjoy it.

I do not know about the other restaurants you mentioned ,as I did not visit them.

I am trying to re-cooperate from right hand surgery , I had on January 9th...just got the stitches out the day before yesterday!!

Off to the hospital this afternoon for begin some physio. (ugh)

Hard to type with one finger of the left hand !!!

I had surgery for Dupuytren's Contracture.

( click on the second line below !)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dupuytren%27s_contracture

Take care

Wow Percy I'm sorry to gear that and I hope you recovery fully and quickly. I certainly hope that you can post as often as before. Anyway you have a good excuse now for avoiding chores such as shoveling snow, etc. :D Hopefully all will be well soon. Take care. Larry :-)

Percy
Been there done that. I had the surgery on my right hand ring finger. It fixed the curve but the physio took a while. Important to keep with it though to get all the use back. So far the curve has not returned and it has been about 6 years. Good luck!

jacketwatch

Lucky you to be leaving from Acapulco on your cruise .

Best of luck and have a great time.
If you have never seen them..then do see the Cliff Divers.

( I can still sweep a little snow !)

Reisender:

I agree that the physio is worse than the operation.

It takes alot of work doing this physio routine 5-6 times a day but you have to do it faithfully.

Also wearing that night splint is a bit aggravating, because when you wake up in the middle of the night ...you feel like just ripping it off .!! :)

Thanks for you input.

Sorry for hijacking your thread kenav.

Mimi and others -

Yes, I was thinking about the river cruises. It seems the Oceana-Baltic cruise does not go to Moscow.

So - anyone else take the river cruise? (That's the one that I heard takes a lot of time to get from the boat into the city center.)

Re: Hand: Good luck Percy

Try www.cruisecritic.com. Lots more info there.

Did go to "cruise critic". Actually, there's not a lot there about the Baltic cruise on Oceana (as far as reviews go). Hardly any reviews about GCT, which I think is a river cruise ship and goes through Russia.

kenav

I think it is the River Cruise you are after if you want to do both St.Petersburg and Moscow.

There are several tour companies that do this cruise.

One of them is Viking River cruises.

Go to vikingrivercruises.co

they have two different ones.

1.Waterways of the Czars ....13 days

2. Russian Rhapsody...16 days

I mean vikingrivercruises.com

I guess this review by someone on cruise critic, is what I meant when I said I heard about how long it takes to get into the cities from the boat:

"Be careful - when reading the brochure. Torstein Hagen says in the intro that " no time is wasted with lengthy coach excursions as most of our cruises moor in the centre of towns and cities". This does not apply to the "Waterways of the Czars" cruise;the boat in Moscow is between 60 and 90 minutes by coach from the city centre;it is a 20 min walk then 25 min metro journey to the centre. In St Petersburg it is 45 min to the centre by coach;or 20 mins bus then 20 mins metro to the centre. "

There's a wonderful review of the Waterways of the Czars on Viking right here on Fodor's -- written by "rudy" back in 2002, called My Russian River Cruise (if memory serves)