We do not do cruises. Going to sea in a floating hotel has absolutely no appeal, and having to dress for dinner while on vacation is definitely not something we want to do. On the other hand there are some trips that make more sense when done by ship than by any other means of transport, and St. Petersburg to Moscow (or the other way around) is one of them.
We had previously done only one other river cruise and that was on the Nile (not a trip offered by Viking) where the lack of suitable alternative accommodations made the ship essential, at least for Westerners accustomed to a certain level of comfort, health, and safety. While infrastructure in Russia and Egypt are vastly different the waterways make this a good way to travel in this part of Russia.
Although Viking offers to arrange for air transport to the port of embarkation we elected to make our own arrangements, but we did take advantage of Viking's airport to ship transfers. Unless you can read Russian words in Cyrillic text it's probably best to take Viking's transfers both to and from the ship because the airports are a long distance from the docks, none of the road signs are in Roman text, and from what we heard, many taxi drivers have limited or no comprehension of English. One thing to consider when meeting a cruise ship or any other organized tour with a scheduled departure, is allowing sufficient time to get to the starting point. This was made obvious to us when our initial flight from LAX was cancelled when the aircraft was found to be not airworthy (after all passengers were aboard with seat belts fastened). Our original itinerary included a change of planes before leaving the US and we would have missed that connection because of the cancelled flight. A second connecting flight likewise became doubtful when weather at the connecting city delayed flights there. Finally, after almost 12 hours at LAX we departed on a non-stop flight to London. Since we had planned a short stay in London there was never any doubt that we would get to St. Petersburg a few days later in time for the ship's departure but had we planned to arrive just in time for embarking on the cruise we may have "missed the boat." Lesson learned.
Our top deck stateroom was sufficiently roomy that we never felt cramped for space even in the head. Some travelers have probably stayed in hotel rooms in certain countries that were smaller than the staterooms on the Surkov. All staterooms have large windows but no balconies. Crew quarters are separate from the passenger decks with officers quarters located behind the bridge and the rest of the crew located in cabins that are partly below the waterline. The Viking web site honestly represents the staterooms, and everything else about the ship.