Questions from a first time Viking River cruiser: STP to Moscow

[Happy2cruise12345]

Hi Everyone,

We are considering taking our first river cruise on Viking from St. Petersburg to Moscow "World of the Tsars" cruise. I have a few questions: 1.When you are in port in STP and Moscow are the ports very commercial or are they nice? (We will be there several days with a balcony, but if the ports are ugly and noisy...) And, does it matter which "side" of the vessel you are on? 2. How are Viking excursions? Are the excursions crowded? I read about people taking private tours (which we do on other cruises that don't include excursions.) 3. If you have gone on this cruise, did it take a lot of planning on your part?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Coral]

The river boats dock far from town in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The only viewing is other river boats. Other ports, you do dock in town but you are in port the entire time you are docked so no advantage to a balcony.

 

It doesn't matter which side of the ship you are on. I personally would not go out of my way to book a balcony on this itinerary.

 

I did not do Viking but another river cruise line. I had Russian History previously so there wasn't planning. It does help to know some Russian history but no planning is necessary. At least study the Russian Revolutions.

 

I have done a river cruise in Russia and a land trip in the Soviet Union (back in the day). I personally preferred my land trip and staying in downtown hotels and taking the train between the 2 cities. I got much more out of that high school trip than I did on my river cruise.

 

St. Petersburg and Moscow are very busy cities. You spend a lot of time on busses getting into town due to traffic congestion. Thus, I preferred staying in hotels downtown. I wasn't overly impressed with the ports in-between and wish I had more time in the large 2 cities. Just my opinion.

[English Voyager]

I am puzzled as to why River boats would be docked far from the St Petersburg city centre.

 

We visited the city twice on the Seabourn Pride and were docked at a river boat stop opposite The Hermitage.

 

Wherever docked, St Petersburg is such a magnificent city one should not miss an opportunity to visit it.

 

Taking a group tour removes the necessity of obtaining an individual visa.

[Coral]

I am puzzled as to why River boats would be docked far from the St Petersburg city centre.

 

We visited the city twice on the Seabourn Pride and were docked at a river boat stop opposite The Hermitage.

 

Wherever docked, St Petersburg is such a magnificent city one should not miss an opportunity to visit it.

 

Taking a group tour removes the necessity of obtaining an individual visa.

 

If you are flying into Moscow or St. Petersburg and doing a river cruise, you do need a Russian visa. I have had to get it 2x. If you are on a cruise ship that docks in St. Petersburg, and do a group tour, you don't need an individual visa.

 

In Moscow, there were probably 50 plus river boats docked there. In both cities, we were probably at least an hour docked from town due to traffic (bumper to bumper traffic). One day in Moscow, it was a tad quicker as it was a holiday and the locals were not working and most left town (thus less traffic). Though with holidays, some things are closed like Red Square.

 

In St. Petersburg, I saw 2 different docking locations for river boats. Ours was farther away but the other one was not close either.

 

It was a huge waste of time as they often brought us back to the ship for lunch. I felt like some days we spent 4 hours on a bus just going back and fourth between the pier and downtown. Though, one day they did let us take a boat to Peterhof from where our ship docked so that saved some time that day but we took a bus back....

 

I am guessing they don't dock across from the Hermitage is due to the volume of ships. For example, there are Russian River cruise ships that we never see (being North Americans). For example, I saw a Viking River Cruise that I never saw advertised here, it turns out it was only marketed in Germany and was full of Germans. There are less ships operating now due to tourism in Russia is down but I couldn't believe how many ships were in Moscow (only one dock for River Boats) - we struggled to find our ship as it had moved and they were all built at the same time and most look alike. For example - many ships are owned by Vodohod and are then chartered by companies (I was on AMA) and all of the Vodohod ships looked very similar back then with minimal changes. I believe Viking does own their own ships (one of the few) but it looked just liked ours also.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Coral

[Coral]

Wherever docked, St Petersburg is such a magnificent city one should not miss an opportunity to visit it.

 

I personally believe Moscow is equally as amazing.

[napoxoguk]

I am puzzled as to why River boats would be docked far from the St Petersburg city centre.

 

Well, because there are river ports that were originally designed for river boats. Viking operates out of Utkina Zavod (Уткина Заводь), which is not very central, but well connected by both public transport links and taxis.

 

Taking a group tour removes the necessity of obtaining an individual visa.

That statement does not apply to river cruises. All river cruise passengers must have a valid individual visa to get into Russia in the first place.

[napoxoguk]

Sorry, somehow missed Coral's responses.

And yes, totally agree with Coral here - Moscow is a destination in and as of itself.

Moscow port (Severny Rechnoy Vokzal) is just a 10-minute walk away from Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, which is about half an hour away from city center.

If you want to do Moscow on your own, some planning is in order (downloading offline maps from Google or Yandex, downloading metro and Uber apps, figuring out the itinerary, places to eat, etc.), but the end result is, in my opinion, well worth the time and effort invested.

Edited December 30, 2017 by napoxoguk
Stupid Turkish autocorrect

[Coral]

Sorry, somehow missed Coral's responses.

And yes, totally agree with Coral here - Moscow is a destination in and as of itself.

Moscow port (Severny Rechnoy Vokzal) is just a 10-minute walk away from Rechnoy Vokzal metro station, which is about half an hour away from city center.

If you want to do Moscow on your own, some planning is in order (downloading offline maps from Google or Yandex, downloading metro and Uber apps, figuring out the itinerary, places to eat, etc.), but the end result is, in my opinion, well worth the time and effort invested.

 

I would agree. We ditched our tour and went off on our own and used the Metro Station to go back to the Moscow Port. So glad we did this.