Was anyone booked on a St Petersburg Cruise?

[2chiefs]

Since Royal is no longer going to St Petersburg....

If booked, I was wondering how Royal was handling the bookings? Are they simply modifying the itinerary or are they offering some sort of offer for re-booking a different cruise?

 

[CatLadyFemme]

We were given the options to get FCC, shift to another cruise (but at current rates), or accept the new itinerary (each one is different; our cruise is going to do an overnight in Stockholm, other, longer ones are adding stops. There are a few threads on it here 💜

[wdw531]

We're sailing on Voyager of the Seas on May 1. We got an email on March 1 confirming that the itinerary was modified to remove St Petersburg and add a second day (including overnight) in Stockholm instead, which also had the effect of moving our stop in Tallinn one day later.

 

We are choosing to remain on the sailing, but if we wanted to, we have the option until March 15 to cancel and receive a full refund of any paid portion of the cruise fare to the original form of payment, including non-refundable deposits, and any pre-paid amenities refunded to original form of payment within 30 business days.

 

Our old cruise title "7 Day Scandinavia & Russia Cruise" is still showing in some places, but other places now display "7 Day Best of Scandinavia Cruise." St Petersburg shore excursions are supposed to be refunded automatically, but I haven't seen the funds come through yet. Tallinn shore excursions are supposed to be automatically rescheduled and our new tour information will be emailed to us "in the next few days." Haven't seen that yet either, but it's only been 5 days.

 

The cruise planner is no longer showing St Petersburg but hasn't been updated yet to show options for the second day in Stockholm, and Tallinn excursions are still on the wrong day. We're watching excursions closely because we are traveling with an unvaxxed infant and under the current rules she can only do Royal Caribbean excursions (although the final regulations for Europe haven't been released yet). Not that we'd leave her behind anyway, but Voyager's nursery doesn't offer drop-off, so if she can't get off the ship, neither can we. Unless a baby vaccination comes out in the next couple of weeks, giving us enough time to get her fully vaxxed before the trip - still keeping our fingers crossed!

 

We're hoping Royal Caribbean adds some interesting, baby-friendly evening excursions for the overnight (maybe a boat ride? night visit to Grona Lund?). During the day, we have "Stockholm On Your Own" booked for the first day and will probably do the same excursion over again on the second day and just do different things during the "on your own" portions. For example, Vasa Museum one day and Skansen the next day; shopping in Old Town one day and sightseeing the next; etc. We are still very excited for our cruise!

[flamingos]

We are on Voyager in August, and they have replaced St. Petersburg and Tallinn with an extra day in Stockholm and a day in Kotka, Finland. Helsinki had already been replaced by Visby, Sweden some time ago.

 

We are still going.

[Sunshine3601]

We were booked from a L&S from 2021 to Voyager Aug sailing. We only had paid our $1000 deposit and were planning on cancelling anyway.  So we took advantage of their offer for full cash refund instead of getting Fccs if we cancelled right before final payment.   Worked out good for us.  

Someone may be happy our JS opened up the other day!

 

Prayers for Ukraine and everyone impacted by this horrible mess.

[barb in ga]

We were scheduled for the 10 night sailing July 31, but we have cancelled. As above, we had the choice of a revised cruise on the same dates, an FCC, or a refund. We elected the refund, and may reconsider in the future, but are not eager to rebook now.

Barb

[Jimbo]

9 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

We were booked from a L&S from 2021 to Voyager Aug sailing. We only had paid our $1000 deposit and were planning on cancelling anyway.  So we took advantage of their offer for full cash refund instead of getting Fccs if we cancelled right before final payment.   Worked out good for us.  

Someone may be happy our JS opened up the other day!

 

Prayers for Ukraine and everyone impacted by this horrible mess.

Curious why your Junior Suite was a $1000 deposit and not like the $500 deposit that we have on our Owners Suite for Wonder that we most likely are going to cancel? Someone is going to be super excited to get our OS.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Jimbo

[xxHadleyxx]

We're keeping our June Voyager cruise (St Petersburg replaced by a second day in Riga and a day in Warnemünde and Helsinki dropped due to port traffic and replaced with Aarhus).   It's not an ideal itenerary, but it's still nice...and if we can spend more on shore than normal and help struggling local businesses in Tallin and Riga through now a third season if greatly reduced travel in their region, we'd like to do that. 

 

We were a little surprised that RCI didn't offer any small incentive to keep the booking.   But that's ok.  They probably figured everyone's minds are made up and a 100 obc wouldn't sway enough people to make it worthwhile.

[alanstarr]

I'm keeping my July 7-day cruise; two days in Riga instead of St Petersburg. 

Between two years of cancellations and ship changes, what started as a balcony became a Jr suite, and then an owner's suite! Since I'll never splurge on that kind of luxury for myself (and FCC would never cover the cost to buy it on a different cruise). I'm keeping my itinerary. 

[Idareu1970]

We are booked on the 1st of May sailing, we were super excited to be going to Russia but completely understand the need to amend the itinerary in light of current events.  I only wish they had given us another port rather than 2 days in Stockholm

[dritan]

I've actually moved my Voyager of the Seas from the 10 day  on 31st July to a 7 day on 24th July.  I didn't like the amendments made ( extra night in Stockholm and Riga and addition of Aarhus) and noticed the shorter cruise has many of the same stops with the added advantage of Gdansk.  So my inside cabin for 3 has become a large corner aft balcony for 3 for a similar price.   So i'm happy. 

[Oceansaway17]

On 3/6/2022 at 1:36 PM, flamingos said:

We are on Voyager in August, and they have replaced St. Petersburg and Tallinn with an extra day in Stockholm and a day in Kotka, Finland. Helsinki had already been replaced by Visby, Sweden some time ago.

 

We are still going.

I have heard that Visby is a nice island off the mainland of Sweden and is quite interesting. Not many ships go there your now yours will.  

enjoy

[Saab4444]

12 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

I have heard that Visby is a nice island off the mainland of Sweden and is quite interesting. Not many ships go there your now yours will.  

enjoy

Visby is a city on the isle of Gotland. It has a very nice medival city centre within walking distance from the port. Since they have a pier for docking many bigger cruise ships are coming. Gotland is also the closest point to Kaliningrad which is the main port of the Russian fleet in the Baltic. Because of its location Gotland is a key to control the waterways in the Baltic and has now a hudge military presence from Sweden.    

Edited March 11, 2022 by Saab4444

[Oceansaway17]

10 hours ago, Saab4444 said:

Visby is a city on the isle of Gotland. It has a very nice medival city centre within walking distance from the port. Since they have a pier for docking many bigger cruise ships are coming. Gotland is also the closest point to Kaliningrad which is the main port of the Russian fleet in the Baltic. Because of its location Gotland is a key to control the waterways in the Baltic and has now a hudge military presence from Sweden.    

aw interesting.  I was supposed to have stopped at Visby on a cruise last year that never happened.

I think there are a few ports of interest that those not going to Russia will be happy with.

[Idareu1970]

Has anyone received their refund yet, from their cancelled St. P tour?

[John&LaLa]

On 3/6/2022 at 11:57 PM, Jimbo said:

Curious why your Junior Suite was a $1000 deposit and not like the $500 deposit that we have on our Owners Suite for Wonder that we most likely are going to cancel? Someone is going to be super excited to get our OS.

 

You're really going to give it up?

 

Didn't think you were going to St Petersburg though.

 

FWIW, our deposit was $900, so our cruise is allready half paid off.

Edited March 13, 2022 by John&LaLa

[John&LaLa]

Our 11 day Voyager had an overnight, So we get a few more stops. Laura wasn't thrilled with St Pete anyway, so a win for her. We lost a sea day, but added 3 ports.

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by John&LaLa

[Tin can]

28 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

Our 11 day Voyager had an overnight, So we get a few more stops. Laura wasn't thrilled with St Pete anyway, so a win for her. We lost a sea day, but added 3 ports.

 

 

 

It was a few years ago that we did our Baltic cruise, SPB is great but there is the issue of the first morning passport control which is long and tedious. You also can't go off on your own, there are some great sights but you don't get to fully immerse yourself in them.

 

Talinn was our favourite port and we have recently come back from a land holiday in Riga and the old town is simply stunning.

 

For those still booked our baltic cruise is up there as one of our favourites. 

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, John&LaLa said:

 

You're really going to give it up?

 

Didn't think you were going to St Petersburg though.

 

FWIW, our deposit was $900, so our cruise is all ready half paid off.

Most likely yes, my wife still doesn't want to go to  Europe at this time.  Our's is a Western Mediterranean cruise so we weren't going to St. Petersburg anyway.

My wife has a immunocompromised immune system  and if something should happen we don't want to be that far from home. She is still a little freaked about Covid, but getting better. 

Once the final deposit get's close I'm going to cancel using the CWC(good up to 9-30-2022)(our cruise is September 22nd) clause and move it maybe to  the Wonder of the Seas leaving from the US in March 2024. Would be a Caribbean sailing, not from Europe. Wonder doesn't sail from Europe next year.

Hoping maybe I can get Royal to Price protect our Owner's Suite, but not counting on it. I know they could sell that Owner's Suite for much higher then we were paying for it......... But  going to give it  a shot never the less. Otherwise we would just book a Balcony facing the ocean. 

All we have paid on the cruise so far is a $500 non-refundable deposit on the  OS. This is for a 7 day cruise, still not sure why some have a $900 deposit.

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Jimbo

[John&LaLa]

58 minutes ago, Tin can said:

 

It was a few years ago that we did our Baltic cruise, SPB is great but there is the issue of the first morning passport control which is long and tedious. You also can't go off on your own, there are some great sights but you don't get to fully immerse yourself in them.

 

Talinn was our favourite port and we have recently come back from a land holiday in Riga and the old town is simply stunning.

 

For those still booked our baltic cruise is up there as one of our favourites. 

 

We loved Tallinn as well. It was a huge surprise. Hoping some of the other little ports this trip are as nice

[John&LaLa]

5 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Most likely yes, my wife still doesn't want to go to  Europe at this time.  Our's is a Western Mediterranean cruise so we weren't going to St. Petersburg anyway.

My wife has a immunocompromised immune system  and if something should happen we don't want to be that far from home. She is still a little freaked about Covid, but getting better. 

Once the final deposit get's close I'm going to cancel using the CWC(good up to 9-30-2022)(our cruise is September 22nd) clause and move it maybe to  the Wonder of the Seas leaving from the US in September 2023. Would be a Caribbean sailing, not from Europe. Wonder doesn't sail from Europe next year.

Hoping maybe I can get Royal to Price protect our Owner's Suite, but not counting on it. I know they could sell that Owner's Suite for much higher then we were paying for it......... But  going to give it  a shot never the less. Otherwise we would just book a Balcony facing the ocean. We might have a chance since we would be booking a cruise smack dab in the middle of hurricane season we some people don't want to cruise.

All we have paid on the cruise so far is a $500 non-refundable deposit on the  OS. This is for a 7 day cruise, still not sure why some have a $900 deposit.

 

 

Goid luck with getting price protection, but please don't come back here and complain when you don't. 😉

 

BTW, did you book it direct🤔

[Jimbo]

11 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Goid luck with getting price protection, but please don't come back here and complain when you don't. 😉

 

BTW, did you book it direct🤔

I have a travel agent, but I by passed her last time and I dealt directly with Royal last time when I got my booking price protected and at that time they weren't allowing either but they did it for us. 🙂

My wife write's beautiful letters. 🙂 and I wouldn't come back here and complain if we didn't get it price protected

Edited March 13, 2022 by Jimbo

[Idareu1970]

1 hour ago, John&LaLa said:

Our 11 day Voyager had an overnight, So we get a few more stops. Laura wasn't thrilled with St Pete anyway, so a win for her. We lost a sea day, but added 3 ports.

 

Love this itinerary!  Looks like an amazing cruise

[ginnyks]

We are also on the Aug 10 cruise on the Voyager and are very happy with the current change of ports even without St Petersburg.  Somewhat uneasy about going to the Baltic nations with the current situation but also need to use FCC .  We had planned a similar cruise in 2020 with Klaipeda (Memel) and was so looking forward seeing that port as my grandfather had immigrated from the region in 1913. 

 

 Another cruise leaving from the US looks more an more attractive every day  

 

 

[ginnyks]

John&LaLa .... have you been checking the Voyager Aug 10 roll call?  We definitely need to revive it!