russia travel help
 

has anybody used IntelService Center to make travel arrangements in Russia? is this a good/reputable company?<BR>

Have not heard of IntelService Center but I understand there are many companys giving tour services now in Russia. Has anyone used Palladium our company -- mentioned in one of the message topicks above this one?

Although I have not used them I have spoken with several people who used their Atlanta office for visa support and they were all happy with the service.<BR><BR>I would NOT use Palladium--they messed up a train reservation for me a while back (thinking that Smolensk is in Belarus is akin to thinking Detroit is in Canada).

I used IntelService for my visa support and they were excellent. Took them all of 15 minutes to prepare and fax me the invitation.

intelservice is good.<BR><BR>we used them this year to arrange visa support, hotel reservations in moscow and st. petersburg, tickets to the bolshoi and kirov ballets, and several airport transfers.<BR><BR>all went smoothly. (i would say, however, that it's cheaper to take a taxi from the airports - at least in st. petersburg and i suspect in moscow as well - than it is to use intel's transfer service.)

Unfortunately, you sorta take pot luck with any Russian travel service. I don't know of one that is consistently good. Intel is probably as good as any. The Russians have been mired in their kind of bureaucracy for so many generations that they have not yet adapted to the concept of providing good service as a primary objective. They are stuck on the theme of keeping records, putting in their time at the office, justifying their existence or their job, and covering their fanny so they never get blamed for anything. Yet the Russian people, away from their place of work, are as warm and friendly as any people anywhere on earth. It's just a phenomenon of their culture, and it might not ever change.

&gt;They are stuck on the theme of keeping &gt;records, putting in their time at the &gt;office, justifying their existence or &gt;their job, and covering their fanny so &gt;they never get blamed for anything. <BR><BR>You just described all my "places of employment", including current.

Note: Alexei from Palladium clarified that it was not his company that made mistakes on my train reservation to Smolensk.

We used Intel Service for our hotel reservations, airport transfers, and theatre tickets...all via email. We found them to be fine and everything was jsut as they said it would be - rides always showed up, tickets always where they said they would be, etc. I agree with one of the posters - a taxi might be cheaper than using Intel Service for airport transfers. But, we came to like our driver quite well and even made friends!