Visa for Vladavostok only???

[GottoCruise]

We are stopping in Vladovostok - it is our only Russian Port. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who has stopped in this Port. What ship's tours wre offerred? Did you take the ship's tours or go on your own?

Did you get/need an individual VISA if you did not take a ship's tour?

Appreciate help with this. Thanks. GFotToCruise (aka Renee)

[stanj]

[quote name='GottoCruise']We are stopping in Vladovostok - it is our only Russian Port. Would appreciate hearing from anyone who has stopped in this Port. What ship's tours wre offerred? Did you take the ship's tours or go on your own?

Did you get/need an individual VISA if you did not take a ship's tour?

Appreciate help with this. Thanks. GFotToCruise (aka Renee)[/QUOTE]
Hi Renee
I've never taken a cruise but have been to Vladovostok. If you want to avoid a visa, you probably have to take the ship's offering. I do not know of a cruise ship support specialty service like we have in St Petersburg. A search of Google did not turn up one. If you did want to explore on your own or use local agents or guides you will need a tourist visa. Whether that is practical depends on how long your port call will be. Stays less than 3 days and I would suggest a visa would not be worth the expense. There are guides and tours for the city however and I would suggest contacting Primorsky Agency at 17, Posijetskaya Str. Vladivostok phone:+7 (4232) 222581 because I used them a few years ago with good results. One well known old Soviet era tourist service is Inturist-Vladivostok , email [email="vlintour@stl.ru"][color=#0000ff]vlintour@stl.ru[/color][/email] , web [url="http://www.intourist.stl.ru/"][color=#0000ff]www.intourist.stl.ru[/color][/url] and they have day tours around the city. Write to them and see if they can provide a tour group visa for single day port calls. I used their offices years ago when visiting Moscow and Leningrad as St Petersburg was called back then.
For my own interests, I really enjoyed the Submarine Museum and river/harbor cruises. They offered a variety of tours.
The most facinating aspect of visiting is not the city itself but the surrounding area, particularly Kamchatka and the Amur River.

Stan

[GottoCruise]

Stan - Thank you very much for that informative post - I will look into the tour offerrings if we are able to get off the ship without an individual Russian Visa. Otherwise it may be too costly for just the one stop. I have posted to the Roll Call and hope that others will be interested with me. GotToCruise (aka Renee)

[nny92825100]

Out of curiosity, what cruise line are you using and what is the itinerary. We want to go to the far east and also hit Japan and Vladivostok? What month are you going?

[GottoCruise]

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[nny92825100]

I was just looking at that cruise a few days ago. Got a flyer in the mail on it. I think I will look at it and see if we can swing it. Have a teenager who is in school at that time and not to sure I want to leave him by himself yet. He has girls on the brain big time.