St Petersburg vs Mosow

[c4cdlm]

Will be docking in St Petersburg in July, have two days to explore. Orient offers a trip to Moscow. Has anyone taken this Tour? Should we go to Moscow or stay in St Petersburg? Which city has more to offer in the way of architecture? Not too interested in art and ballet.

[Bruin Steve]

First of all, there is SO MUCH to see in St. Petersburg that two days isn't nearly enough...

 

Second, it is approximately 450 miles from St. Petersburg to Moscow in each direction.

 

Visiting Moscow from your ship in St. Petersburg is like having your ship stop in New York City and decide to do an excursion to Cleveland Ohio...or dropping anchor in New Orleans and doing a tour to Little Rock, Arkansas...It just doesn't make a lot of logistical sense.

 

You will waste a lot of time and go through great expense.

 

Spend BOTH days in St. Petersburg. Take in the Hermitage (even if you are not that much into art--the building itself is the old Winter Palace of the Tsars), the Peterhof Palace, the Yusopov Palace, Catherine's Palace and all of the churches and monuments. This is one of the great cities of the world. Architecturally, St. Petersburg was one of the world's first great master-planned cities. The Tsars had it designed and laid out to be a showplace...with wide boulevards and great monuments.

 

When we were leaving, after spending an exhausting two days there, my wife said "We have to come back".

[Cally]

We did this tour with Celebrity 2 years ago and I would not miss Moscow. It is a very long day as you take a early morning flight and a late night flight back but it is well worth it.

 

On our second day in St. Petersburg we booked our tour through Red October tours and probably saw just as much as 2 full days of touring through the ships tours as there were no lines to wait in and you could personalize your tour to do what you wanted.

 

Don't miss Moscow it is very different from St. Petersburg and unless you plan on going back another time it would be such a shame to miss it.

[mek]

Just my oppinion, but I was on a Baltic cruise last summer,(Grand Princess) and spent both days in St Petersburg with Denrus. So much to see there and even with two days, you only scratch the surface. The trip to Moscow was around $700 for the day and I would rather save that and go to Moscow at a later date and spend several days there, rather than just a few hours. Perhaps you never plan on going back to Russia and want to see the highlights, in which case I would probably suggest you take the Moscow tour and do St Pete the next day. If you do that, I would definately contact Denrus or Red October for the day in St Petersburg - they will get you around faster and in to places quicker, so you will see more.

[IRIS FAYE]

Do NOT miss MOSCOW. St. Petersburg is a wonderful place to visit, but due to the way they set up excursions with two days in Russia; do NOT miss that one day in Moscow. Moscow is what Russia is all about from the historical part. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! is the best I can describe. My $700.00 was very well spent. St. Petersburg is the modern part and is wonderful also, but nothing like Moscow. My personal OPINION!!!!!!! Have fun and don't miss out on anything in life if possible. Iris

[MaseratiCruiser]

I struggled with the same dilemma before our cruise on Oceania in 2003. I opted to spend the two days in St. Petersburg and have never regretted it. We were so fascinated with this city and like the others said, you will not see it all in two days, but we feel we did see a great deal of it through the very efficient tour company Red October.

 

If I had to do it all over again I would once again take Oceania cruises because they are now offering a three day stop in Russia! This way you could have your two days in St. Pete and also get in a day in Moscow. I wish they had this same itinerary when we cruised their inaugural year, not to mention they have also added Poland and Germany to their Baltic schedule which makes it that much better!