Peregrina651

I know I saw it somewhere but cannot find it.

Cash or can you use credit card?

TF, the answer is both.

Here is how we ended up doing it, which might be more helpful than a simple yes/no. We charged the recommended amount per day per person for the entire crew on our credit card (BTW, your cc will be charged in UAH for your shipboard purchases--and once you close your account 24 hours before disembarkation, you will have to use UAH or credit card for any further transactions).

There was a lot of confusion whether our guide was included in the crew's divvy of the pot; we really had trouble getting a straight answer and were told at one point that the information in the itinerary booklet is wrong. In the end, we reduced the amount we gave our guide in cash feeling (but not knowing) that as we had been told, the guide would be included in the ship's divvy. We also gave a cash tip to the driver (not based on the the few hours that we actually used the bus but based on the idea that he was with us 24/7 since he drove the bus from place to place as we sailed). Finally, we also gave additional cash tips to a couple of individual members of the dining room staff.

Guide, driver (not included in the crew divvy of the pot)and extras were given in UAH not USD and we had to scramble to get the cash. My advice, start thinking about tips on Day 1 so that you can start to set aside cash for tips as you go from town to town.

We went through a lot of cash on this trip, which we got from the ATMs starting at the airport. We paid for most everything with cash and rarely used our credit card.

Also, when you use the ATMs stick to the choices given on the screen. Our attempts to get more than what was shown inevitably failed.

That is the Tang Dynasty show. It appears to be her leg that is sticking out

 

:)

Wow, Sean, you are right!

What we see is the pointed toe of her left foot; her dance shoes are a dark red that look very brown in the yellowish light and she has lifted her leg to waist height.

So, I am confused again. Where was this photo taken? I thought it was the opera, but now I am not sure. Do you know what that is this is sticking out of her dress below the waist? Just curious.

Hanna -- sorry for the confusion. The picture was taken at the Tang Dynasty Show. No idea what is sticking out. I hadn't really seen it until I posted it here. I can only assume it is part of her costume.

We enjoyed both the Shanghai and Xi'an shows. We did not go to the Beijing show.

 

 

Shanghai Acrobats show (photo)

 

 

 

 

Tang Dynasty Show (photo)

 

Love the photos. The one stunt I would have like to have photographed was the woman doing the pirouette while balancing on the guy's shoulder! IMHO, that was the most amazing of all the stunts they did. Does anyone know, is it still part of the act?

 

I am very grateful for this honest and extensive review. I am really appreciate the culture of a different society, after all that's what I want to experience when travelling. So your review helped me solidify my plans of going to the opera and skipping the acrobatic show. Thank you.

I'm just piping in here to clarify. There are three shows. One included as part of the program (the acrobats in Shanghai) and two optional dinner shows that you pay for (the opera/Peking duck in Beijing and the Tang Dynasty show in Xi'an).

IMHO, the acrobats in Shanghai are not to be missed, even if you have seen such shows before.

Peregrina

This is a gorgous photo and I am sure not easy to take!

Hanna, not that difficult, more lucky than anything. We were in the front row of tables and slightly off to the side, so there was plenty of light. I tried to find a seat where I wouldn't bother the people around me with my picture taking. I had the ISO set to 1600 (the best I can do) and the performers were kind enough to hold still long enough for me to shoot. It helped that I was using a DSLR--no shutter delay. One day I will learn how to correct the color balance so it doesn't look so yellow. I love digital. I can just keep shooting and shooting and hope that maybe I get something.

Pack as though you were traveling from Philadelphia to New Orleans then south of Maimi in October to give you some perspective; the latitudes of those cities are similar to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. This year the first tour experienced snow in Beijing...

 

Brace for the possibility of needing layers in Beijing; the city can be warm, but the Great Wall is at a higher elevation and subjected to some blustery winds with a noticeable wind chill. It should be much warmer on the Yangtze...we only needed jackets when it was raining in March.

The problem is figuring out 'Philadelphia' :D, which can be chilly in October or it can be experiencing 'Indian Summer' with mild temps and gorgeous sunshine. Even worse, last year's weather is no indication for what this year's will be.

In other words, as they say on those investment ads, past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

Looks comfy! Is it possible that the single cabins are larger than the standard doubles? I think the website or the brochure shows them as having more square feet.

!

I just checked the website and they are basically the same size as the standard C rooms but bigger than the standard D.

Peregrina651: Just wondering -- is there a movie channel on the TV? Or just news, sports, etc.? How were the evening activities? Thanks for reminding us about the wake-up "knocks". We're bringing a small travel clock, as well as a travel coffee mug. What optional excursions did you take and were they interesting? Marsha

Marsha, I gotta tell you, I have no idea what was on the TV. We never turned it on the whole time we were there. As for a travel mug, don't bother. There is a coffee station just down the hall that is available 24/7--and you don't have to wash the mug.

Evening activities were fun. There was a 3 piece band on the ship who played most nights in one of the bars (but we never went to listen to them, mostly because we were asleep already). There was a crew talent show one night, a vodka tasting ($$), a Ukrainian music concert and maybe a lecture or two (but I don't remember off hand). In Odessa, Kyiv, Sevastopol and Yalta, you can leave the ship to check out the night life. We went to the opera in Odessa and promenaded along the strand in Yalta. But, most of the nights, we just crashed.

T'Fools, there are more pictures coming. Have your TA check as the cruise gets closer to see if any cabins have opened up in the category you wanted or at least in a higher category. You will probably have to pay for the upgrade but it is what you wanted in the first place. There are always last minute cancellations (even of full paid bookings) and it can't hurt to keep asking.

GVC, I was looking at my b-i-l's Nikon super zoom this weekend and I am definitely suffering from camera-envy. It is not a DSLR but the little I saw was, well, enviable. It is lighter than my DSLR+lens, has more zoom (to 800mm, I think he said). He reports great battery life (maybe because it doesn't have to keep retracting the lens??).

Optional excursions:

Opera in Odessa (530UAH pp) -- As opera lovers, we loved sitting through Don Giovanni--even though it was 3+ hours long. I am sure that we over-paid for back of balcony seats--and that we could have gone to the box office ourselves and gotten the tickets for much cheaper. However, we paid the Viking price to avoid the hassle of trying to buy tickets in a foreign language and to avoid having to arrange for transportation. Going with Viking, Viking took care of all the details --including finding the time to buy the tickets. On the other hand, I expected much, much better seating options from Viking so don't get me started on just how lousy our seats were. Super-titles are in Cyrillic (yes, just stating the obvious) but at least we were give a synopsis of the opera. (BTW, folks who went to the ballet the next night reported much better seating on the floor--and it wasn't as long as the opera either.)

Jewish Odessa (???UAH pp)-- Interesting tour but since it was done on a Saturday we could not go into any of the synagogues. According to the itinerary we received with our docs, that tour was scheduled for Friday afternoon but for some reason, the schedule was changed to do both included tours on Friday and the optional tours on Saturday. (Guide: local)

Chersonese (325 UAH pp) -- AMAZING but far too short. I'm a sucker for the antiquities, especially if you throw in a theater. However, we really didn't have any time to investigate the theater or to wonder off on our own. The tour includes a visit to the newly built St. Vladimir's Temple (don't ask me about it because I was too busy soaking in all the details and taking pictures to remember a word that Natasha told us about the building or why it was built in this location). The interiors are not to be missed; I wish I had a better visual memory because no pictures were allowed inside. Ladies, bring a head covering. (Guide: Natasha)

Black Sea Fleet Band (530 UAHpp) -- WAY, WAY, WAY overpriced. The dancers were the best of the lot. The singers were okay but there was no program so you had NO IDEA what they were singing about--a teaching moment gone to waste. The Russian folkloric show we saw when we were StP a few years back was much, much better. Afterwards, they were selling BSF Band CDs for $15 or $20 a pop--again, way overpriced. If you want local music, get the CD that the ship's trio sells. IMHO, don't waste your money; take a stroll along the strand or check out what is playing at the theater or check out a local bar.

Vodka Tasting (150 UAH pp) -- What a fun, fun hour and a half!! You toast, you taste, you sing and laugh out loud--and you get to sample 6 different Ukrainian vodkas. Don't eat the onions! You will be unapproachable for days.

These are the only optionals that we did. Also, go back to my earlier posts during the cruise because I may already have made other comments about the tours.

Okay, let's try this again. Welcome to Cabin 337.

I've just started to sort pictures. Since this thread is about the ship itself and the details of the cruise, I thought I would post pictures of the ship right on the thread. In case the picture doesn't show up below, I'll add a link to my 'Footsteps of the Cossacks' site and promise that over the next few days I will be adding more pictures.

Cabin 337 is a standard cabin on the middle deck, category C. It has Pullman beds (narrower than a regular twin) and a yacht-style shower. There is A/C in the room which kept us comfortable--and we like it on the cool side. There is a TV, which we never once turned on, but no phones in the rooms. Wake up calls are done the old-fashion way, a knock on the door.

Edit--yup, I was right, I can't link to an image on S'fly, so there is no picture and I will have to try again later using a different site for posting the picture. I don't want to post it directly to CC because it is a huge image.

 

The Tang Dynasty dinner theatre --- below mediocre food, everyone at our table thought so. The show itself struck us as completely made up for tourists, a bit dull, some of it was interesting. I know we are in the minority here in not raving about it, but it was the one truly disappointing evening of the entire trip. In hindsight, I would much rather have used the time to see the old City Walls in Xi'an than spent the evening on this (but that wasn't a choice).

 

Have a great trip. China with Viking is extraordinary!

On the other hand, DH and I really enjoyed the evening even though we knew that it was a tourist show (much like the flamenco tablao shows in Madrid). We also had no complaints about the food; it was dinner show food and we weren't expecting Jacques Pepin. That Viking continues to offer the show means that enough passengers are choosing to go and that there have not been many complaints on the evaluation forms.

So you see that opinions about the various shows and whether you should attend range across the board. If you go back through the posts, of this thread and part 1, you will see that the go-no go discussion has been pretty much divided since Viking made the Opera/Duck and Tang Dynasty optional excursions. Which means ultimately that you still have to decide for yourself what to do. Reading some -- not all-- of the past discussion will help.

I will, however, agree whole-heartedly with Turtles, China with Viking is extraordinary!

 

I met someone from the State Department today, who was just stationed in Ukraine for 2 years. I decided that was fate - I'd ask him what he thought of me going to Ukraine by myself, didn't tell him how old I was, but he could look at me and make his own judgement, told him that I would be picked up in Kiev, put on the ship, that I wouldn't wander off the tour, and that I'd be taken to the airport in Odessa, mentioned Viking specifically - and if he told me that he thought it wasn't safe, I'd cancel. Instead he told me that his parents, who are in their 70s came to visit him while he was there and they went off by themselves from Kiev to Odessa, without a tour and did fine on their own.

I have never felt so safe wandering around. NYC is freakier; Rome is the only city where we have actually had someone try to pick our pockets. In Kyiv and Odessa, you really only see a very small area of the city--like going to NYC and just hitting midtown Manhattan without ever getting to Brooklyn, Bronx or Queens (you really don't see much of a vast city). Everything you want to see in any of the cities is in a compact area and you don't really get out into the residential neighborhoods unless you get into a cab or onto a trolley and go. The areas accessible by foot from the ship (or from the Radisson Blu), were all middle to upperclass neighborhoods. The docks are all in nice, well-kept areas and going to and fro is anything but creepy, even at night. The street vendors were outgoing and friendly but never got nasty when you walked on without buying. Yes, a little pushy at times but that is understandable since they are trying to make a living. From what we experienced, a single woman traveling alone could do far worse for choice of destinations.

Thank you for mentioning me alongside the amazing Peregrina

Oh, no, my friend, you are the ones who are the amazing travelers. You are so much better at interacting with your travel destinations; you are so much more outgoing than I will ever be. More of us should take a page from your travel manual.

 

I'm thinking that if I go, I'm going to skip the Kiev extension. I'd have to hire a car and driver to get to the town where my maternal grandparents were from and i don't know if anything from 100 years ago would be left. :confused:

Well, you still have time to add the extension later if you are doing your flights through Viking, which if you can swing it, I say do it. As for heading out of town, we didn't either, mostly because as you said, we had no idea what would be left from 100 years ago. Still, we loved wandering around Kyiv and felt that the half day on the ship's itinerary just wasn't enough. In fact, we would have loved a three night extension.

 

With all food, beer and wine included and not being much of a hard liquor drinker, what else is there to buy on the ship? Do they sell the nesting Russian dolls? (I have 3 grandaughters!) If so, what do they cost?

 

Wine and beer are included with meals in the dining room for English speaking passengers. Except for water, all drinks served in the bar cost--hard and soft alike

[FYI, just in case we have any German-speaking passengers reading this thread, Viking's German-speaking market pricing does not include wine and beer at meals.]

As for on board shopping, the ship has a lovely but small gift shop and they do carry matryushka dolls in both the Russian and Ukrainian styles, which I did not price since I wasn't buying any this trip. I thought the prices were reasonable (in US terms if not in UA terms) and we actually bought a number of items in the shop. IMO, shopping there was convenient, easy to accomplish and of decent but not necessarily high-end quality. You could easily spend your on-board credit in the shop.

Can anyone please tell me if Viking supplies maps of the towns ?

If not I plan to print some off the computer before we go.

Yes, there were maps for Odessa, Sevastopol, Yalta and Kiev--any place where we had free time to wonder on our own.

 

Edited to add: my paternal grandparents somehow made their way up river to Bremen, Germany and sailed to the US from there, I do have the ship's manifest for their journey.

They may have gone by train, which is how my grandmother's family went from Kyiv to Bremenhaven. They made a few stops along the way to visit family (I don't remember in which towns).

I have a DSLR, canon EOS Rebel Xt with a 70-300mm ultrasonic image stabilizer lens.

One lens, no wide angle and not even normal--that would drive me crazy.

 

How did your packing scheme work out? Did you need more of anything or were there items of clothing you packed and didn't need? I know it all depends on the weather and we're sailing south from Kiev so it should be warmer as we go.. How about the daily tours? Sneakers/walking shoes every day? Or can I get by occasionally with comfortable rubber soled velcro-strap sandals (not flip flops). I plan to wear my heaviest (weight) clothing on the plane and am taking 2 pr. long (to the knee) bermuda shorts for day (plus the capris I'm wearing) with 4 sleeveless tops and 5 T-shirts (plus sweater and windbreaker) for days.

 

Well, I can't say that my packing was perfect. If I had tried on the tank tops before packing them, I would have left them home. :p When it turned 50 I was glad that I had thrown in the extra layers--and the jeans. Comfortable shoes are really important and I alternated between a pair of flats and sneakers. I am not one who dresses up for dinner and even for the Captain's Dinners and the trip to the opera I was in my comfy clothing. I have to say that there were only three things that I packed and never wore and those were layering type things for extra warmth.

DH wished he had packed a pair of shorts; there were a couple of days when it was quite warm. One pair of pants is probably all you need for church visits and fancy nights. Beyond that be comfortable -- although as altiva points out, track-type shorts are probably not a good choice. DH also regrets not having brought sandals and he is generally not a sandals kind of guys.

I am providing the link to the official Odessa Opera House site:

http://opera.odessa.ua/ru/repertuar/tekuschiy-repertuar/

 

insert this link into a Google translate for translation.

There is NO programme for June. More so, in the Opera House book

office they confirmed today, that they do not yet know the programme

for June. Yet, this travel agency, situated many hundred kilometres

from Odessa, knows it!

WOW! Do you really think that this agency is trying to rip people off by selling them tickets to non-existent events? That is what you imply.

Since I can't believe that the Opera House management doesn't know what will be playing on its stage in the coming month, I find it harder to believe that the box office can't provide that information. So, yes, I do believe that someone situated many hundred of kilometers from Odessa knows the schedule because that person is obviously talking directly to Opera House management and not relying on the box office for the very little information they seem willing to share with callers. What I don't understand is why OH management is reluctant to put information about future production dates on its website. I guess that is my cultural bias.

Even more so, the info given is false.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the information given is incomplete, since it is entirely possible that the company whose website we are talking about is not handling tickets for the International Arts Festival and therefore it is not listing that information on its website. Incomplete information is not false information; it is just incomplete.

Even more so, they are NOT ticket sellers. They charge you for

buying you tickets! If you want tickets to the Opera House, you can

buy them yourself on-line for the same price, as in the Opera,

without any additional charges! Real ticket sellers have an

agreement with the Opera House, and they sell the tickets for the

same price, and get the commission from the Opera House, not from

you! You can buy the tickets yourself on-line, using the real Opera

House programme.

Perhaps 'ticket seller' has a specific meaning in Ukraine but I think that native English speakers understand that I was using a generic term for anyone who sells tickets to an event regardless of how he makes his money off the transaction. Most of the readers here, after visiting the website, realize that they are not dealing with the Opera House box office but with a value added agency that is making its money off the ticket buyer by providing value added services and by adding to the price of the ticket. Nevertheless, we appreciate your explanation of the ticket selling industry in Ukraine. Just let me repeat, no one ever said that it was suggested to buy tickets through this website or that the website was an Opera House website. It was suggested merely as a source of information in English that seems easier to deal with that trying to find things on the Opera House website.

If you are lucky, the church was not destroyed by the ****s as was a lot of Odessa. You should be able to find the church on the current map if it is still standing.

Well isn't that interesting, on Cruise Critic you can't use the name of the party running Germany during WWII, as if it were one of the 7 words you can't use over the airwaves!! What makes me sad is that such censorship must take place at all. I can understand it for names of companies whose names violate the CC terms of use but for a legitimate historical entity, I am saddened.

 

Ukraine had part of the Czarist Empire for a while at that point and there were many Russians living there who continued to identify as Russians. The far Western parts of the country kept flip-flopping their borders and were parts of various political entities over time, including Russia and Poland.

Ukraine had been

Sorry, my brain moves faster then my fingers, which don't know how to type in the first place and my eyes don't always see, even if I do proofread.:D

I've lost track. Who goes next?

 

My dad left Ukraine in 1914, he married my mother in the US in 1949, so I have that marriage certificate. It would be wonderful if I could find the one for his parents in Ukraine.

 

.

If you are lucky, the church was not destroyed by the ****s as was a lot of Odessa. You should be able to find the church on the current map if it is still standing.

Do you have the ship's manifest for your grandparents' arrival in the US? There is always helpful information to be found there--and also sometimes on the 1920 census. Ancestry.com is very helpful. I found my great grandfather listed listed on the Duma voting lists for Kiev. It always helps if you have a somewhat uncommon surname.

Ukraine had part of the Czarist Empire for a while at that point and there were many Russians living there who continued to identify as Russians. The far Western parts of the country kept flip-flopping their borders and were parts of various political entities over time, including Russia and Poland.

I just booked this river cruise for May 24 2013 and after reading the posts here I can wait to go. I am a solo traveler that has gone around the world 3 times and am now looking for a more in depth traveling in specific parts of the world. I have done the China trip with Viking in 2009 and was very pleased with the experience. For me the people are the most pleasant part of the trip. If any one else is going on this trip I would love to hear from you. Solo or double travelers welcome.

Hello, oofroogie, and welcome. Glad you have joined the chit-chat.

There were a number of solo travelers on our cruise-- not all of them were in the single cabins. The lady next to us was in a double; she, too, is a frequent traveler. She says she just calls up Viking and tells them where she wants to go.