riverboat Taras Shevchenko

[chefess]

We are booked on the May 26th river cruise from Kiev to Istanbul, on the above Ukrainian river vessel. Is anyone on the cruise? Has anyone been on prior cruises on this vessel? Any and all information would be appreciate.

 

Chefess

[chefess]

We are booked on the May 26th river cruise from Kiev to Istanbul, on the above Ukrainian river vessel. Is anyone on the cruise? Has anyone been on prior cruises on this vessel? Any and all information would be appreciate.

 

Chefess

 

OOPS -- it's the APRIL 26th cruise on the Tara Shevchenko. Sorry.

[DoubleDutch]

We're on this boat/ship on May 30, from Istanbul to Kiev. There isn't lot of info about it anywhere on the Internet, so we'd appreciate every info you can give us after your cruise. We have lot's of questions like:

Do you get any time on your own in every port?

Where does the boat dock in Kiev?

Which optional excursions are a must?

What was the best and what was the worst?

Did you get any sleep? (we went on a Russia cruise with the same company and got wake up announcements every morning at 7:00 am latest, even when the morning was free on the ship).

What are the extra costs? What are the costs of the drinks?

What do you think we should definately bring along (which you might have forgotten/didn't think of and wished you'd brought along) ?

How is dinner in Istanbul? In our shedule it's at the hotel, because that's where our vacation starts, but isn't it better just to go out and have a special dinner on our own?

How was the weather? Should we bring jackets?

Did you change any money, is it needed ?

 

And so on....

Anything you can tell us afterwards is greatly appreciated!

 

Have a great vacation!

[chefess]

We're on this boat/ship on May 30, from Istanbul to Kiev. There isn't lot of info about it anywhere on the Internet, so we'd appreciate every info you can give us after your cruise. We have lot's of questions like:

Do you get any time on your own in every port?

Where does the boat dock in Kiev?

Which optional excursions are a must?

What was the best and what was the worst?

Did you get any sleep? (we went on a Russia cruise with the same company and got wake up announcements every morning at 7:00 am latest, even when the morning was free on the ship).

What are the extra costs? What are the costs of the drinks?

What do you think we should definately bring along (which you might have forgotten/didn't think of and wished you'd brought along) ?

How is dinner in Istanbul? In our shedule it's at the hotel, because that's where our vacation starts, but isn't it better just to go out and have a special dinner on our own?

How was the weather? Should we bring jackets?

Did you change any money, is it needed ?

 

And so on....

Anything you can tell us afterwards is greatly appreciated!

 

Have a great vacation!

DoubleDutch,

We were scheduled to be on the Taras Shevenko on April 26, but we received a call from Uniworld saying the trip was cancelled for that date and scheduled us on another

cruise from Passau to Budapest. We hope to take that trip to the Ukraine next year. Let us know how you enjoyed it.

 

Sorry we couldn't help you.

Chefess

[loulou942]

Do you know why this cruise was cancelled? Thank you Louisa

[ONT-CA]

...Anything you can tell us afterwards is greatly appreciated! ...Have a great vacation!

 

We have called up this post as we think that now you may be able to tell US about the cruise. We want so much to do the Black Sea ports and lines Like Princess only do the two.

 

We see that the Ms Taras Shevchenko is offered and hope to hear from someone about the ship, the itinerary and anything else they would like to offer. Many thanks.

[DoubleDutch]

Sure, what would you like to know?

I'll start by some info on the ship:

It's a basic ship, all the Ukraine and Russia ships are about the same (we did a river cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg as well a year before this one), so it doesn't really matter which ship you are on. The cabins are small, but you won't be using them for anything else but sleeping etc. so that's oke. The bathroom is really VERY small, you'll use the waterhose from the sink for showering, very back to basic, but it works. The beds aren't really comfortable, very hard and not very long so if you are tall you might not fit in. There is enough closet space to store all you clothes etc. The airco didn't work properly, we just opened our window for some fresh air. The announcement system had problems at well, sometimes we didn't here it in the cabin and sometimes it was very loud. But it was better than on our Russia cruise, where they started annoucements very early each day and in 5 different languages. All in all not too positive about the cabin, but we knew this in advance from the Russia cruise. So not to be negative but expect the worst than you'll be fine, since then everything is better than you expect, that's always a better start. If you want luxury, like the sea cruises (we've been on RC, Princess, NCL, Costa, Celebrity) then don't go on a river cruise in the Ukrain or Russia! It can't be compared, everything is so different, the style, the food but also the atmosphere etc. The food is fine by the way, but also basic and for instance salads are always almost the same, just get a different name on the menu when an ingredient is added or left out. You get to choose between 2 starters and 2 main dishes. There weren't many local dishes on the menu unfortunately. We bought some vodka etc on shore and drank it on deck after dinner, enjoying the great weather. We only had bad weather the last day and then you'll find out that the ship is somewhat small. If everybody has to stay inside it's too small when it's fully booked. At our iternary the ship wasn't fully booked and still I was glad we didn't had more rainy days, it was too crowed... But we understood that the cruise before ours was fully booked and they had rain almost everyday, I think I would have become crazy then! So if you go, I would suggest to go in the summer months, it's hot, but that's better than having to stay inside all the time.

The staff was friendly, but not very knowledgable about the different ports. In every port you'll be guided by local guides, some good, some not, and your "guide" from the ship will join the group just to keep everybody together and to answer questions like where the toilets are and at what time you have to be where etc. The group amount by the way depends on the travel organisation you are with. They put people from the same travel organization with each other and make sure they get a guide that speeks their language. If you book it as an indepenent traveller, you get together with other independent travellers, so you'll have a more mixed group (with english as language) from different countries, we were the latter, since we prefer to be around different nationalities and going out on our own every now and then. Our guide understood this and everytime we wanted to leave the group to do some exploring ourselves she helped us in explaining how to get back or at what time to get somewhere else to catch up.

So much to tell about the ports, what would you like to know? For instance which hotel NOT to stay in Istanbul? Well we had the Berr Hotel, which was awfull, but some other guests (other travel agency) had a nice hotel much closer to the center of the city. So you might check this in advance...Oh, this brings me to the direction: we started in Istanbul and then had the bus ride to Nessebar and from there the cruise to Kiev started. This means that if you do the cruise in the other direction you'll get the long bus ride at the end of your vacation and then the hotel nights in Istanbul. We think it's more handy to have it in the direction Istanbul to Kiev, simply packing you suitcase at the end and going to the airport is a better end of the vacation we think, compared to have a long bus ride at the end.

Reading this back it all sounds a bit negative, but we're not, we really enjoyed ourselves, we just like to warn you about some things that might me different from what you are used to and can then ruin your vacation spirit. Some people started with too high expectations and kept on complaining which won't help and surely doesn't make you enjoy your vacation. Everything is very basic, but the iternary is great, seeing so many countries and so different places with lots of variety (with the Russia cruise there was less variety, many churches/icons/choirs at that one).

One advice if you like to get out on your own, and you will have time for this don't worry, make some copies back home from travel guides on the different places. This way you'll have good maps and know more about what you want to see or do. We did this and it really helped us in deciding on which extra excursions we wanted to book or not and of course to get around by ourselves.

[ONT-CA]

Well DoubleDutch, we can't thank you enough for this great input. You covered every aspect that we were interested in. We should say that we visited the Soviet Union back in 1981 and had a taste of the their travel industry back then. But by the sounds of your critique we gather not much has changed for the better. The one thing that has changed of course is our ages and as Elite passengers with Princess who have been fortunate enough to have tasted an upgrade to a suite, we can see more than a few problems with this accommodation for us at this time of our lives. But that is not to say that others who are, as yourselves, more apt will benefit from your input and are hearty enough to take on this river cruise. Again our many thanks.

[Rivermoores]

We took this Kiev-Istanbul cruise Aug 2010. As for a review, the Jan 2007 post is largely still true. Here’s our comments. Booking cabin: be aware that there are no elevators, so if you book the 5th deck, you’re walking up 2-3 decks several times a day. Also, if you’re on lower decks (eg 2nd) you have only two portholes in the already small cabin – spring for upgrades to give you a big window on a higher floor. The AC works fairly well, but in really hot weather (esp on unprotected top/5th deck) it may not be as cool as you like. We were there in about mid-80’s weather and the AC was only was sufficient after we complained and a maintenance guy tweeked it.

The main complaints, which we more/less knew in advance are cabin size, beds and food. Cabins are indeed small, with narrow beds and minimal mattresses (OK if you have a bad back). There is enuf storage space, however. Food is respectable but not exciting, tho there were some quite good meals. Don’t ask for seconds, as they’ve allocated amounts for each meal ! You do pay for water (about $3 for a large bottle good for four servings), tho one of us used an antibacterial water filter with the ship’s water and had no problem.

What’s good? The staff are excellent and very efficient (except general manager), and multilingual – they divide you by language for most activities. The ship is kept spotless. The daily included tours are very well coordinated and conducted, including with clean buses. In most cities you have a bit of free time to wander and shop. In most stops you’re right in town and can walk to town. The ports are all interesting, tho we did not care for Odessa and Constanta. Of the optional tours, do not miss the Sevastopol Black Sea military show. The Odessa musical show (string quartet) was also good but pricey.

Money. DO call your credit card cys to advise you’ll be in these countries, or they might not honor your ATM (Bankomat) transactions. You can charge onboard expenses (drinks, optional tours), but you DO need cash (Euros or Hrvinia) for tips – plan ahead. We suggest $6-7 per person per day for the “crew,” and $10-15 total per person for the key cruise guides (our wonderful Tasha). You can get money reliably from the ATMS anywhere in Ukraine in our experience.

Bottom line. If you know the limitations this is a well-run and interesting cruise with ports you might not ever see again. Enjoy.