Seriously thinking of Russia River Cruise but.....

[Coral]

3 minutes ago, napoxoguk said:

I would assume ANY major Russian company offering cruises to foreign tourists (vodokhod, mosturflot, infoflot) would have no problem selling you "just the cruise", which one could modify with pre- or post-cruise extensions as they see fit.

 

As to pulling out due to "lack of business" - I do not have any insider knowledge of the industry, but I would assume all of the "boutiquey" lines found out they could not effectively compete with Viking and the Russian lines - their business model was based on renting out refurbished Russian ships and crews from Russian companies and adding little to no value, while charging an arm and a leg. Hardly sustainable in the long run...

Viking, on the other hand, seems to be doing just fine...

There used to be companies that would not lodge people in Moscow and St. Petersburg but used hotels instead. I don't know of any companies who do this.

 

A friend had a chance to speak with the head of one major River Cruise Company who used to be in Russia. He said they could not fill the ships and stopped offering sailings due to this. Sounds like lack of interest to me. They were losing money on their Russian ships.

 

Viking has reduced the amount of ships they used to have in Russia compared to when I went.

[Floridiana]

56 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

don't think that this (which I interpret and pre- or post-cruise hotels) was what @Floridiana meant. At some point I am sure that I read of cruise companies that on arrival (or departure) from Moscow and St. Petersburg put people in hotels instead of busing them back and forth to the cruise ship. This meant that only the actual cruise portion was on the ship.

 

That's exactly what I meant. That's what we had on our Mekong River cruise. Hotels at both ends. Our next 3 trips are ocean cruises, but I would look at a Russian river cruise if it were organized like that. 

[napoxoguk]

Perhaps - but even this summer I kept seeing group after group of river cruisers both in Moscow and in St.Petersburg, not all of them Viking - and not all of them speaking English.

 

Still, for the purposes of this thread, I think it may prove useful to remind potential cruisers that Viking and Volga Dream are not the only option available: the three major Russian lines are Vodohod (www.bestrussiancruises com), mosturflot (https://booking.mosturflot.ru/rivercruises/tours?language=en-US), and infoflot (https://russian-river-*****/?roistat_visit=4579039).

[Floridiana]

You answered my question here, excellent.

In what way is the stretch upriver from Moscow different from the stretch downriver?

 

How comfortable are the cabins on a ship geared to a Russian clientele? I am thinking of some of the Chinese ships on the Yangtze that are sold to Chinese only. We were on one with about 40 westerners from 3 different travel agencies (Swiss, British, American), all others were mainland Chinese. Cabins had decent western standard, everything else was geared to the many Chinese passengers. One of our American co-patriots had been on a Russian river ship and loved it, but he spoke Russian. The ship, however, he said was not very comfortable.

[napoxoguk]

4 hours ago, Floridiana said:

In what way is the stretch upriver from Moscow different from the stretch downriver?

Well, the only navigable river in Moscow is the Moskva, which connects to the Volga via a series of locks on the Moskva-Volga canal. Where the canal meets the Volga, there is a large reservoir, which, on an overcast day, looks like the image below. The Volga proper, however, is maybe three to five hundred meters wide there - a far cry from the lower Volga, where it can easily reach a couple of miles in the cities of Kazan, Samara, Volgograd, or Astrakhan.

 

As to the cabins - first off, some of the Russian vessels have been reviewed here on cruise critic under their pretend Western names (eg. AMA Katarina is MS Mstislav Rostropovich, Uniworld River Victoria is MS Griboedov/Knyazhna Viktoriya, and Tsar is, iirc, MS Alexander Grin).

Also, there's this site that I found super helpful for photos of the interiors of various Russian ships:

https://riverforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=33

[daveispar]

On 8/19/2019 at 5:16 AM, Floridiana said:

 

That's exactly what I meant. That's what we had on our Mekong River cruise. Hotels at both ends. Our next 3 trips are ocean cruises, but I would look at a Russian river cruise if it were organized like that. 

This question is not about Russian River Cruises, although we did do one on GATE1 in 2013.  It was great, the ship was old and we got stuck in a storm going through the giant lake to St. Petersburg at night in September and the ship almost flipped over !  We slept in our clothes, shoes on, life preservers on !  But, except for that a great trip !  And a great story !  Anyway, my question, my Wife and I would like to do that Mekong River Cruise, but, I'm worried about water levels.  Do they have that problem ?  How would they handle it,  if they did .

Thanks in advance. 

Dave & Lee

[Floridiana]

The cruise was on the lower Mekong from Saigon to  the Tonle Sap upriver from Phnom Pen, then a bus ride to Siam Reap. I asked about the Tonle Sap Lake. It is most often too shallow for the hotel boats. The bus ride was not bad. There was one interesting pit stop and our (female) guide in the bus gave lots of insight into the country.

 

We had also booked a river cruise on the upper Mekong in Laos, but it was extremely low water that year and the ship crashed on rocks before we got there. I think you can still book river cruises up there but I am not up to date on the information.

[Floridiana]

55 minutes ago, daveispar said:

the ship almost flipped over !

 

Oh no, thank goodness, you came out ok.

[pbenjamin]

On 8/13/2019 at 3:39 AM, 4774Papa said:

We did the Russian River cruise with Vantage World Travel, which provided five star hotels in Moscow and St.Pete.  We loved the river cruise portion, especially Kitzi Island in the north.

We met more Russian people on the river cruise than in the big cities.

Vantage doesn't offer this cruise anymore, but there are several that do, I think Viking for sure.

Here is my review:

 

Russia, Kiev and Baltics

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1478384

 

 

I am looking at Vantage and seing this:  https://www.vantagetravel.com/ourjourneys/deluxe-river-cruises/european-river-cruise/rmsxx/2020/itinerary

 

Is this not what you described?

[4774Papa]

4 hours ago, pbenjamin said:

 

I am looking at Vantage and seing this:  https://www.vantagetravel.com/ourjourneys/deluxe-river-cruises/european-river-cruise/rmsxx/2020/itinerary

 

Is this not what you described?

pbenjamin,

Yes, apparently Vantage has resumed its Russian River cruises, but for some time they didn't have one.  We had a great trip in 2011.  We also did the pre-Russia four day in Kiev and the post-Russia six day in the Baltic Countries.

[CruisinGirl777]

There is an amazing deal on this cruise and we are considering booking. Anyone else? 

[4774Papa]

On 11/11/2019 at 1:07 AM, pbenjamin said:

 

I am looking at Vantage and seing this:  https://www.vantagetravel.com/ourjourneys/deluxe-river-cruises/european-river-cruise/rmsxx/2020/itinerary

 

Is this not what you described?

It looks very similar to our cruise in 2011.  The reasons we booked with Vantage and not Viking or another line was that Vantage provided five star hotels in Moscow and St. Pete, instead of staying on the cruise ship.  That avoided the commuting that took up more of your time.  The itinerary doesn't mention the hotels, but is similar to what we did.  Hotels are found on a link.  Not the same hotels we had, but seem nice.  We did the cruise from Moscow to St. Pete as well as the pre-cruise four day in Kiev, Ukraine and the six night Baltic countries after the cruise.  It was a great trip.

[catnt2]

I know this was a few months ago, but a group of us are going on the Strelka Travel Russian river cruise. Vodohod - Mustai Karim 2020 Russia River Cruise.pdf

[CruisinGirl777]

On 2/16/2020 at 11:38 AM, catnt2 said:

I know this was a few months ago, but a group of us are going on the Strelka Travel Russian river cruise. Vodohod - Mustai Karim 2020 Russia River Cruise.pdf

 

It says that the attachment is not available and may have been removed. Can you re-post please. I would like to have a look, thanks.