A few questions

[venicia]

Hello again,

 

you all have been so helpful in my previous questions, I thought I would bring these to you for some guidance.

 

We are sailing on Voyager on 08/23/16/ Northern Europe cruise.

Question 1.

 

We booked the Regent tour to Moscow via train. Could you provide some comments about this tour? I suppose we should get Rubles (?) while in St Petersburg for spending in Moscow? We have never been to Russia so this is an adventure for us and looking forward to it.

 

Question 2.

 

We will fly to London and stay at the Conrad, I've researched the distance from London to Southampton to board the ship and it appears it is not "just around the corner." Does anyone have an idea what time we will be transported there on the 23rd (the beginning of the cruise) ? The reason I'm asking is we love London and want to enjoy as much of it as we can. I was wondering if we would have time to run around on the 23rd before transporting to the ship.

 

Thank you in advance for answers to my questions. We are absolutely excited about this cruise and I'm sure as the time gets closer we may have a few more questions for the experts!!

 

Happy New Year everyone

JB

[RachelG]

As far as rubles, I got mine from my bank here ahead of time. In St. Petersburg, unless you get a private visa, you can only go off the ship as part of one of the ship's tours or with a private tour company. You can't just walk around on your own. There may be a ATM machine in the new cruise terminal or currency exchange, but I don't remember seeing one.

 

Southampton is quite a ways from London. I suspect they will pick you up for transport in mid morning. You wouldn't have time to do any sight seeing that day, so if you want to spend time in London, you will need to fly in a day or two ahead.

[Mudhen]

As Rachel suggested, try to get your rubles from a bank at home. We did that for our Baltic cruise a few years ago. I do the same with euros. I find it so much better to "hit the ground running", rather than to have to hunt for an atm, then figure out how to use it, etc. If your local bank doesn't do currency exchange, I'm sure they can tell you what one(s)do.

[venicia]

thank you both for your responses! We will be getting our euros from our bank, and don't know why I didn't think of the rubles as well.

 

We are flying into London a day ahead and will have time to explore. When I noticed the distance to the ship, I had a feeling we would not have much time on the date of sailing.

 

again, thanks for the info

 

JB

[gnomie1]

If you follow the international monetary market, you will notice that the value of the ruble continues to drop as the dollar gets stronger. I would not be in any rush to obtain your rubles just yet because the likelihood of the ruble continuing to drop in the near future is quite strong - you will be losing money if you obtain your rubles so far in advance.

 

FYI - I have traveled to Russia many times, three times by cruise ship. There will probably be at least one working (and the key word here is working) ATM at the train stations in both St. Pete and Moscow.

 

Right now almost any merchant in Russia would rather have greenbacks than rubles - I know that the McDonald's around the corner from the Moscow Ritz-Carlton will now gladly accept dollars when before that was not the case.

 

gnomie :)

[Travelcat2]

We have been to Russia twice and they love the U.S. Dollar. We have never purchased rubles!

[Mudhen]

We did not purchase a lot of rubles but the few we had came in handy for tipping. Regardless of liking it or not, that's what our guides, drivers, docents, etc. got! I think we got something like 100$ worth of rubles and only came home with a few....

[RachelG]

I didn't get a lot of rubles either. I think just $20, but wanted some in case I was someplace that wouldn't take dollars.

[venicia]

again, thank you all so very much for your responses!

 

here is wishing everyone a very, very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

JB