St Peterburg - CLOSED?

[shedevil]

As of right now...it appears the Summit won't impact the July 19-21 docking of the Insignia in St. Petersburg. It seems that the important thing will be that Tony Blair and George Bush need to go home right after the G8 Summit. So, i have crossed my fingers and I am repeating ......fly home politicians, fly home politicians.

I hope the other cruiselines with folks visiting during the summit are able to have their agenda worked so they can visit St. Pete's.

 

 

Below is the reply I got from the Oceania Destinations Services Manager on May 9th:

 

“We were advised by our ground operator that the port will be closed from July 13-17 and it would not affect our cruise. We are waiting for something in writing from the ground operator regarding this. The actual summit takes place from July 15-17 so it shouldn't affect us. The question is if some heads of state decide they want to visit some of the sights we go to, they may close it off to the public and there is no way we can predict that. I will try to verify the closure dates for the port again and keep you posted.”

 

Presently, we had been advised by our ground coordinator in Russia of the prospective closures of the port based on the G8 Summit, but would not affect any of our sailings. However, depending on what the different security measures will be imposed at that time, we have no assurance from Russia at this point. If certain itinerary with in the sailing had to be changed, we would try our very best to advise our travel agents/guests as soon as possible. We will then offer alternative itinerary/shore excursions.

 

Finally, there are no changes in the itinerary at present, but we are monitoring the situation closely.

[rustguy]

Good news for Amsterdamers. HAL has been able to shift ports around and still keep St. Petersburg. This is the new schedule on their web site.

 

0 Copenhagen, Denmark 5:00 pm

 

1 Warnemunde, Berlin 7:00 am 11:00 pm

 

2 Visby, Sweden 1 3:00 pm 9:00 pm

 

3 Stockholm, Sweden 8:00 am 6:00 pm

 

4 Tallinn, Estonia 10:00 am 8:00 pm

 

5 Helsinki, Finland 6:00 am 6:00 pm

 

6 St. Petersburg, Russia 2 7:00 am

 

7 St. Petersburg, Russia 3:00 pm

 

8 At Sea

 

9 Arhus, Denmark 1:00 pm 8:00 pm

 

10 Copenhagen, Denmark 7:00 am

[sazzle99]

This may be of interest

 

http://www.inyourpocket.com/russia/st_petersburg/en/feature?id=55962

[Juliadlf]

Thanks for the article sazzle99.

Looking forward to our visit in August...:)

 

Julia

[jstroose]

This may be of interest

Hi - I just spoke to my travel agent who spoke to Regent this afternoon. She said that they confirmed a minor itinerary change. We will go to Helsinki first and arrive in St. Petersburg on July 18 for three days. I'll see you on the ship.

 

 

 

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[sazzle99]

Thanks for that - I wondered whether they would do something like that.

 

I think in the light of the possible uncertainty and not knowing whether or not the G8 could cause any other problems, we will probably play safe and book excursions with the ship

 

See you there - really looking forward to this!

[mmmmm]

I've been worried about the G8 junior summit at Pushin July 7 to 18 that someone mentioned might affect Catherine's Palace, because our ship is there 7/8 & 9, but this web site: http://gipfelsoli.org/St.Petersburg/hugo_braun.htm gives the dates at 17-18, which makes more sense, so I'm hoping the other one is a typo. Does anyone know for sure?