txtravelers2

We didn't go on the dinner excursion but others did and they enjoyed it. However there was no folkloric dancing, but Viking had told them this before they went.

Thank you :) How is your cruise going?? Are you pleased with everything so far??:confused:

It's an interesting choice of restaurant for Ukrainian dinner as Tsarskoe Selo is literally Tzars Village which is not only Russian, but is located near St Petersburg. Odessa is overall isn't very if at all ethnically Ukrainian city of course now things might have changed and some or even majority of population is pro-Ukraine.

 

To me it's a very high cost excursion unless it's a very fancy restaurant

Thank you :)

Has anyone done the Optional Tour - "Traditional Ukrainian Dinner at the Tsarske Selo restaurant", located in the former gunpowder storage facility of the Pechersky Fortress? Just wondering if it is worth $79pp for dinner??

Aside from the Opera House, we have not signed up for any other optional tours. Just want to know if there is an optional tour that we "should not miss"?? ;-)

Thanks for your recommendations.

We are in Kiev, the first day of the cruise. We have pre booked for the Opera so we talked to Oliver who is in charge of our excursions, he told us we will have good seats, in the center towards the front. We will be going on August 13th so I will let you know.

Thank you Kathy. It looks like you will be getting off in Odessa August 15th, the same day we get on. ;p I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to this. We only have a few days left to make changes before the cruise. So your recommendation is to keep the "pre booked Opera House"? I guess you won't know for sure until the 13th, but it sounds like they are booking better seats for the pre-booked than on earlier cruises. Hope you have a wonderful trip!! :cool:

Thanks so much for the updates :D Sydney

As Peregrina651 says the dress code is smart casual. My husband did not wear a jacket nor did many of the other men. The ladies dressed a wee bit fancier but not too OTT. I had been keen to see a performance in the Opera House and not in another venue and had asked Viking for confirmation that our evening would be in the Opera House. As I didn't get that assurance we did not book in advance. Once onboard it was confirmed that the venue was the Opera House but on a different date so we then booked. Some passengers had prebooked and on the evening found that they did not have good seats ( Very similar to those in Peregrina651's photo) Those of us who booked later had excellent seats. Luckily Michel, the cruise director, managed to move the people with bad seats to a better location.

We saw Giselle.... but a modern interpretation... It was very different from the norm but enjoyable. As has been said there were no programs available and so it was a wee bit confusing to follow the action. However Olga, one of the guides, gave a good description during the interval.The second half was self explanatory Make sure you explore the staircases in the theatre during the interval.

Viking supplied snacks before the performance and then a light meal afterwards.

Our seats were in the stalls about a third way up from the stage and in the centre of the theatre. Couldn't have picked better myself. We were given our tickets onboard, so the seats were assigned before we went.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for this valuable information. Based on what I understood you to say, should I cancel my pre-booked Odessa Opera House excursion and rebook it when I get on the ship so that I can get better seats?. Is the cost the same?? Thanks again ;):D

We start our cruise on August 5th, so you arrive as we leave. We are expecting the guests will be from many different countries and only a few Americans.

We are looking forward to exploring this part of the world and meeting the local people.

We will use the ATM machine in the airport to get some local currency but as to how much that difficult to say.

I will try to post on this web site to let you know our thoughts before you leave.

Kathy

 

 

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Thank you. Can't wait to hear all about it. Hope you have a wonderful time. Sydney

In 2012, we had no trouble using ATMs to get cash. There was one at the airport when arrived, we found a couple as we wondered around Odessa and Kiev. I would say that we used credit cards in a couple of places but mostly used cash. Not all places took credit cards, especially smaller vendors.

Thank you

We just returned from this cruise on June 17th. My understanding is that we were the third cruise on the Sineus since they started cruising this year. The ship is newly refurbished and the cabins are very clean and modern. The crew is still a little green and some of the stewardesses in the dinning room a little unsure of themselves, but overall they were very good. There were four tour buses that followed the ship from port to port for the excursions. Which bus you ended up on for a given excursion was random, as was which tour guide was assigned to the bus. By chance (or luck) we alternated between two tour guides for almost all of the excursions, Olga and Ninna. They were excellent. We went on all the included tours. I wish we had taken the optional tour to the opera house in Odessa. They performed Swan Lake and we heard it was very good. We liked the Ukraine and the people we met. We learned a lot of history, both old and new. We had planned on taking a private tour to Chernobyl but had to cancel at the last minute because the Viking home office gave us the wrong departure time from Kiev. They told us 5 PM but we found out the day before that it was 1 PM which didn't give us enough time to make the trip. We went to the local Chernobyl Museum instead (about a mile walk from the ship) and found it interesting and worth while. They have English audio guides available which were very good.

I suggest that you use the ATM's in the Kiev airport to get some local currency. The ATM's will only let you get 2000 hryvnias per transaction (about $76), but you can do more than one transaction.

We flew to Kiev on Lufthansa from Seattle, changing planes in Frankfurt. Our return flight from Odessa was Austrian Airlines to Vienna, overnight in Vienna, then Lufthansa from Vienna to Frankfurt to Seattle. Be aware that airport security in Germany is even worse than TSA.

Overall we enjoyed the trip and I think you will too.

Jeff

How much money/

We leave in Early August for this cruise. We are booked on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam and change to KLM to Kiev. We then fly from Kiev to Athens to do a Viking ocean cruise.

 

 

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This is my first time to enter anything on a Forum, so if I do it wrong please let me know. We are taking this River Cruise on Viking Sineus August 15-25, 2018. It is called "Kiev to the Black Sea", although we will start in Odessa and end up in Kiev. You mentioned going in early August. Will you be going at our time or earlier in August??

I admit I was concerned when the only review I found online for this cruise was from that very unhappy guy who went in May 2018. I'm so thankful, to find this Forum and read something positive about this trip. Is there anyone on here that is going August 15th??