Russian River Cruise
 

Am planning on going on a Russian River Cruise ( June,2005) Looking at Tour companies...Viking and Uniworld. Would anyone be able to give some advise on any Russian River Cruise?

Thanks so much

May I suggest SmarTours for a possiblity. A complete diary and photos taken by a couple who took this trip in 2003 can be found at website www.biz2web.com/grant/Russia.htm
which is professionaly done.

Most of the ships that are used by the various cruise agencies are much the same, most are owned by Russian Cruise Companies. What you will find different is what they will provide in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Although most people will take the cruise between St Petersburg and Moscow, you can find cruises that go to other locations and are away from the mainly tourist routes. Besides the Moscow to St Petersburg route I have done cruises from Constanta in Romania to St Petersburg and St Petersburg to Rostov on Don. In June I do a cruise from Moscow North Port to Moscow South Port on the Volga and Oka River systems.

For photos I took on river cruises see:
http://community.webshots.com/user/wu687

For some other cruise ideas have a look at Orthodox Cruise Company website:

http://www.cruise.ru/index.html

They provide ships to a number of foreign cruise companies. You can deal directly with them, if you wish.

We decided on Uniworld because for almost the same price you get 3 extra days.

We just returned, 5/29/05, from the Russian River cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg on the Viking Pakhomov. On thing that was incorrectly advertised was that the entire crew spoke English, when in fact, only a few did and most of the resturant staff did not. Therefore, they could not answer questions and it made it difficult to get correct breakfast order. Also, on our cruise we were happy they had a Dr. on board because there were at least 30 that got sick and 2 were still in the hospital when we left Russia. Most felt this was food poisoning from under- cooked veal and pork. We did have an excellent guide, Valeri. The land tours were excellent. With the dollar value, we did find things somewhat expensive. It was a ONCE in a lifetime experience.

Dear Tandl,
I'm also taking the Viking cruise -Moscow to St. Petersburg next year end of May. You mentioned 30 passengers got sick because of food poisoning. I'm interested to know how did Viking handle this situation? Were the 30 passengers who got ill and the 2 who were hospitalized compensated for their misfortuned?

Also what basis did you choose Viking over other tours? Besides costing more, what does Viking offer better than other tours?

Yvonne