Vantage no go Russian Waterways 2015

[plan09]

Greetings,

Just started planning a Russian River Cruise for late summer early fall 2015. I liked the land/ship package from Vantage but have read here and now confirmed by Vantage that they are not offering it in 2015.

Is there another organization that offers this? Viking is now on the top of my list.

Thanks in advance.

[Talisker92]

I would recommend looking for a cruise line that puts you up in hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburg as Vantage had. It is my understanding that with Viking you are on the ship the entire time. Traffic in both cities is horrendous, and getting to and from the remote docks is a real problem.

[id4elizabeth]

Look at Uniworld too. The port calls are identical, and we thought the Uniworld cruise was great. We had to go through the Viking boat in some ports to get to the docks (and sometimes the Viking passengers had to go through our boat at others), and IMO the Uniworld boat was slightly better. The price in 2012 was lower for Uniworld too - not sure what the comparison is now. Either one though involves busses into town in St Pete and Moscow (:-(

[plan09]

Thank you I will keep looking, that's half the fun.

Talisker, I enjoyed your blog.

[hvsteve1]

This is probably blasphemy on these boards ;), but we had a Viking cruise booked for this summer and, after seeing all the negative comments about the bussing to and from the cities and Russian river boats not being up to the usual European cruise standards, along with some other issues with rather strenuous group tours, we opted for a company that does a land tour where you stay in the city at nice hotels and travel between Moscow and St. Petersburg by high speed train. True, you don't cruise into towns on the Golden Ring, but towns such as those are also available by land if you wanted to book a side trip. Pricewise, the tour will be in the same ballpark as if we had done a river cruise. The only thing missing is the meal plan. We will be getting a fancy breakfast at the hotel and lunch while touring. Dinner is on our own but, to tell the truth, we would have been rather bummed out having to eat all our dinners on a cruise rather than be able to experience some local Russian restaurants.

 

Again, we normally only discuss cruising here, however this land tour answers most of the concerns I see posted regarding Russian river cruises.

[id4elizabeth]

You'll enjoy the food in the local restaurants - it's quite good actually. Expensive, but good. This was one of the things that surprised us about Russia. We spent 3 extra days in St Pete and 3 in Moscow, and thoroughly enjoyed the food. One piece of advice - don't order steak - Russian beef isn't that great. There's a reason they invented Beef Stroganoff.

 

And if you can't find any Russian food you like, there's always Subway, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and KFC. We saw lots of these in both cities, particularly Subway.

[jc foster]

Someone on this forum was forming a group for a 2015 Russia cruise on Uniworld at a discount group price. I think his screen name may be ( BUCK 1949) but I am not positive.

[plan09]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I was able to get in touch with Bill "Buck" about the trip.

Appreciate you all taking the time to respond.

[kiwitrippers]

We are doing a Russian river cruise this year with Scenic after our wonderful experience with them 2012 on the European river cruise. The ship is used as our "hotel" for the 4 days in St Petersburg & again in Moscow, but we like that - unpack once & relax :-) We enjoy getting to know the folk on board.

[Benita]

We took the Volga River cruise a few years ago with AMA on the Leo Tolstoy. It was then taken over by Vantage and now Vantage is stopping the river cruise. The ports were interesting, but the Leo Tolstoy is not a nice ship. The cabins are smaller than closets and do not have closets or room to store your suitcase, so you have to pile your clothes on the third, pull down bunk, if they have one or on the floor. Very uncomfortable - that is probably why Vantage is getting rid of the ship, too.

The problem with using the ship as a hotel in Moscow is the traffic will make a trip into the city take a few hours. We actually left the tour and took the Metro back, which saved about 2 hours. From what I gather, none of the companies have nice ships for the cruise, as it is not truly a river cruise and goes through a couple of lakes, with strong currents, which the river boats could not handle.

[Coral]

This is probably blasphemy on these boards ;), but we had a Viking cruise booked for this summer and, after seeing all the negative comments about the bussing to and from the cities and Russian river boats not being up to the usual European cruise standards, along with some other issues with rather strenuous group tours, we opted for a company that does a land tour where you stay in the city at nice hotels and travel between Moscow and St. Petersburg by high speed train. True, you don't cruise into towns on the Golden Ring, but towns such as those are also available by land if you wanted to book a side trip. Pricewise, the tour will be in the same ballpark as if we had done a river cruise. The only thing missing is the meal plan. We will be getting a fancy breakfast at the hotel and lunch while touring. Dinner is on our own but, to tell the truth, we would have been rather bummed out having to eat all our dinners on a cruise rather than be able to experience some local Russian restaurants.

 

Again, we normally only discuss cruising here, however this land tour answers most of the concerns I see posted regarding Russian river cruises.

 

Honestly, IMO - you will be better off. Having done Russia by land and also done a Russian river cruise on AMA, I much preferred the land trip! I felt like I saw 2x as much on my land trip than I did with AMA.

 

Which company did you book with?

[Coral]

From what I gather, none of the companies have nice ships for the cruise, as it is not truly a river cruise and goes through a couple of lakes, with strong currents, which the river boats could not handle.

 

I was told the reason they don't have nice ships has to do with regulations on where the ships are built (must be built in Russia) and the fact that the season is so short compared to Europe, it is not financially feasible.