My husband and I wanted an immersive experience of Russia, and we decided that a river cruise would be the best way for us to experience it. We have sailed with Regent and Crystal previously (3 ocean cruises in total) and this was our first time on a river cruise.
From our first interactions with Viking sales representatives at the London cruise show in March 2014, we were confident we had chosen a good cruise line.
The traffic in Moscow and St. Petersburg was terrible, but we used the time to listen to the tour guide, gaze out the window and watch the world go by, people watch, and occasionally we would read books that we had borrowed from the Viking library. This is a key consideration for some people, and we knew about this in advance, so I think it helped to have our expectations set.
We chose the least expensive category cabin but we had no problem at all with it. Be advised that there will be posts in some of the staterooms (there was a post in ours at the foot of the bed, as well as another in the wardrobe). Other passengers said they also had posted in their staterooms.