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Has anyone done the "Waterways of the Czars" with Viking?


OnTheJourney
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I recently got back from a 10-day cruise on the Danube from Bucharest to Budapest, and felt the same way. More of an educational experience than a vacation. There's so much we as Americans don't know about that part of the world.

 

Roz

 

Sounds good though. An educational experience is fine with us! If I want more of a purely kick-back vacation experience, I can go down to the Caribbean anytime. Typically we try to cram in as much as we reasonably can sightseeing-wise wherever we go, and love learning about new places, so I think the Bucharest to Budapest is definitely on the list.

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I am so glad that I posted my experience in this thread. At first, I had given up on Viking (expected more luxury). I did not intend to complain publicly. I was only giving advice to OP. Unexpectedly, I gained knowledge from others’ responses. Indeed, the one positive that stands out from our Russia river cruise is appreciation of Russian History and culture. My husband and I particularly enjoyed the history talks onboard, Russian ballet performance (excursion), and the Russian musical instruments performance (excursion). From now on, I need to do more research on cruises to determine which ones have more luxury and which ones have more focus on history/culture.

Another surprise is Viking showing very sincere interest in our not-so-satisfactory cruise experience with the genuine intention of improving the cruise and encouraging us to try their other cruises. As in the case of other posters, Viking generously offered us future travel voucher which we readily applied to our next cruise. Considering our stellar Grand European cruise experience and superb Viking customer service, we think it worthwhile to cruise with Viking again. I always like happy endings when reading others’ problems/issues satisfactorily resolved. Do not expect happy ending also happens to us.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Russia, as well as on Viking cruises in general. I know what you mean about onboard history and cultural talks - the Tauck cruise directors on our Amsterdam to Budapest trip each gave several presentations - all very well done and interesting. On out Baltic cruise a few years ago, we did an evening ballet excursion - it made for a LONG day but wow was it ever worth it! I've never seen such precision dancing at a live performance. I'm admittedly not that much of a ballet fan, but it was truly captivating. Would not have wanted to miss it. Judging from everything I'm reading, I think the 'Waterways' trip is worth a try, and is probably most likely among the category of 'once in a lifetime' trips for us in that part of the world.

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After our cruise I wrote an honest review of our Viking River Cruise in Russia - both positive and negative. I believe this is what readers of Cruise "CRITIC" want to read. I did not expect any compensation from Viking. They reached out to me to ask some specific questions regarding the negatives I had writing about. It was all very cordial. At the end of our conversation they offer me $1000 ($500 per person) off of a future cruise, to be taken within 12 months. This was not possible for us for a variety of reasons. Remember, this was not our first Viking River Cruise and I had written a very positive review of our first cruise, so I think Viking wanted me to know they valued my opinion since we were repeat customers.

 

I have to tell you, I'm impressed with the customer relations you refer to in your post - specifically that of receiving compensation from Viking (let alone $1k!) relative to some of the trip review items you must have shared with them. We just got a letter from Tauck as a follow up to our survey (which had to be done on the boat by the way, before the cruise ended - I don't agree that this is the best way to solicit input since you're still busy planning activities, etc. that are still ongoing before the journey ends.....why not allow a few weeks once back home to really have time to reflect on the trip and then offer suggestions?). Anyway, the letter shared that they are concerned with some of the items we mentioned, but it didn't go much beyond them saying that they apologize for anything we weren't totally satisfied with and "hope they will continue to earn our trust" (or some such jargon) relative to doing future trips. All well and good, but also the sort of generic stuff you'd expect from the front office and not near as impressive as they way Viking followed up with you. It makes me even more tempted to try a Viking trip. I'm still not sure why one of my travel agents always told me to not go with them. He never explained much about what he was basing that advice on. People on our Tauck boat occasionally mentioned that Viking "packs many more people on the boat". Well, for that matter, so does Royal Caribbean and Celebrity - but I've enjoyed going on those cruises also.

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  • 7 months later...

Hi We will be on the Viking river cruise( St Petersburg to Moscow) in July and we have previously seen most of the excursions Viking offers when we were on a Baltic cruise several years ago. Does any one recommend seeing any other sights? If so what company did you use?

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Hi We will be on the Viking river cruise( St Petersburg to Moscow) in July and we have previously seen most of the excursions Viking offers when we were on a Baltic cruise several years ago. Does any one recommend seeing any other sights? If so what company did you use?

I have spent a significant amount of time in Russia over the past eight years. Only my first visit was via cruise - all other visits were for extended stays - usually in St. Petersburg. Several times I have utilized the services of a fantastic local operator: Alla Tours (she routinely receives rave reviews on Cruise Critic and TripAdvisor).

There is much to see in both St. Petersburg and Moscow and, as I am sure you are aware, these 2 cities are quite different from each other. Much you can do on your own provided that you have a visa. If not, Alla will provide the visa waiver.

Not sure what you saw on your previous tours but, to get you started, I would recommend checking-out the following (in no particular order):

St. Petersburg:

Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood - make sure you have a guided tour of the interior

Hermitage

Eliseyev Emporium

Peterhof - there are many venues to visit in this fantastic park. Other than the Grand Palace, the Cottage Palace and Montplaisir are my favorites.

Catherine Palace

Grand Maket

Faberge Museum

Cabin of Peter the Great

Peter/Paul Fortress/cathedral

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Kazan Cathedral

- Excursion to Alexander Nevsky Monastery,Necropolis of the Russian famous art dealers of the 20th Century (Dostoevsky,Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky etc.)

- Museum of the Siege of Leningrad

- Museum of the Political History ofRussia

- Erarta, museum of Russian contemporaryart

- Hermitage restoration and storage departmentin Staraya Derevnya - requires advanced booking

- Hermitage department - Museum of porcelain inPorcelain factory

- Winter palace of Peter the Great (part of theHermitage museum complex)

- Suburban estates: Pavlovsk, Cottage palace inAlexandria

- Literature museums: Pushkin museum (if you know the poet) or Dostoevsky museum

- Walking opportunities, visiting metro, fleamarket, farmer's market

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continuation of previous post ...

Moscow sights:

Red Square (visit St. Basil's, Lenin’s Mausoleum & the Gum department store).

State Historical Museum

Kremlin - make sure to visit the Armoury & Diamond Fund (I have also visited all 5 churches within Kremlin walls and, imho, all are worth a visit)

Tretyakov Gallery

Arbat street

Gorky Park

Sparrow Hills

Gulag History Museum

Novodevichy Convent

Izmailovsky Market

Danilovsky Market

Tsaritsyno Museum

Bolshoi Theater

Pushkin Museum

take a few rides on the Metro - the stations are richly decorated

Moscow river cruise

Patriarshie Prydy - very nice stroll or picnic lunch along the pond

Izamailovo Kremlin

Kolomenskoye - if you want an idea of what Moscow was like 200 years ago

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We returned from Waterways of the Tsars a month ago and we enjoyed it completely. I was a little worried based on some of the reviews, but we didn't experience any of the negatives people had previously mentioned. We were on the Ingvar and it was clean and modern. It isn't lavish luxury, but new and comfortable, which we much prefer. After walking through other boats that we were tethered to, we were very glad to be on a Viking boat as compared to the boats we walked through.

The staff was very attentive and worked hard to make it enjoyable for everyone. The food was great and being gluten free, I never know what to expect. Chef Joachim didn't just take away the gluten, but he prepared a dish similar to the one described on the menu but without gluten....big difference! Our Maitre D' Daniel checked in with me every morning to make sure I had everything I needed. Even our meals away from the ship were gluten free and well prepared. We did not do a drink package. We had more than enough wine at meals and an occasional cocktail before/after dinner. Many people did enjoy it though.

 

We especially liked the educational part of the trip. We loved the one hour talks provided by the staff during the slower days on the boat. They were informed and interesting and open to all questions. There was generally no problem with seating, since they offered two time slots (even/odd numbered rooms) per discussion.

 

Without exception, we had wonderful guides. Some were a little more talkative on the buses while stuck in traffic, but we liked it for the most part. They all spoke great English and presented themselves in a professional manner. It's a tough job dealing with all these people day in and day out and we were very impressed.

 

The traffic is horrible especially in Moscow, but it is what it is. We went to Sergiev Possad and while it was a great experience, it's too far to go given the traffic. I think our time would have been better spent in Moscow especially since we saw many other Monasteries. We loved the Kremlin Armory Tour, Moscow By Night. The groups are about 20-25 people which is on the bigger side of ideal, but overall it wasn't a problem. We enjoyed the evening concert in Moscow, but didn't do the Folk Music night in STP although everyone we spoke to enjoyed it. We were ready for a quiet night, so enjoyed a quiet night on the upper deck. We did the extended tour in the Hermitage, which we didn't sign up for until we got on the boat. It's very expensive and I just could see spending that kind of money, but in the end we were so glad we did it. The Impressionists are not in the Hermitage anymore, but in a different building with a different ticket. We were able to see them and also had a very nice lunch. Going into the Hermitage "storage area" was so interesting and it was great to see the clothing and carriages (although you do see some of these in the Kremlin Armory Tour).

 

The list given by the previous poster is a great list. After having been to Moscow and STP now, I feel like we could manage very well on our own. Very little is in English, so it's a little tricky figuring out where you are on a map. We brought a map with both English and Russian and that helped a lot. The subway is pretty easy to figure out if you spend some time mapping it out in your head.

 

After the fast pace in Moscow, we enjoyed the slower pace on the boat. The stops were all interesting and a nice contrast to the bigger cities of Moscow and STP. The sun stays out late and up early, so we enjoyed the sunset every night on the upper deck.

 

I expected to love STP, but was surprised I like Moscow so much!! If you have the chance, I would recommend going in a few days early. We had planned to go to Moscow three days early, but our originating flight was cancelled by United and we lost a full day. I was grateful to have booked our air through Viking because after being rescheduled eight times and actually ticketed four times at the airport before we even got on a plane, some one accidentally cancelled our return flight. Of course, we didn't even realize it until we went to print our boarding passes. We were in STP and we found out we had no flights home!! I called Viking and luckily they were able to get us on flights, but they were completely different than what we had planned. I'm glad it was one phone call, rather than an extended panic situation. We flew home on LOT Polish Airlines and we had great connections, great big new planes....I think in the end it was an upgrade!!

 

We had tours in Moscow planned with "Tours By Locals" and they generously refunded the day we missed of our tour. Our guide Daniel, was informative, engaging and fun. He met us at the hotel, we checked out before leaving with for the day. Viking took our luggage to the boat and Daniel took us by metro to the boat at the end of the day. It worked perfectly!

 

I would highly recommend this cruise. It was a great way to experience a small part of Russia and prepare us for another visit on our own. It was safe and interesting and it made us realize what a great destination it is. We learned a lot and enjoyed every minute.

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