This cruise was a special anniversary celebration. We boarded at Dover - did not use the airport to ship transfer as we had been in Paris for a pre-cruise celebration. Our A cabin was close to midship and was fantastic! We did not spend a lot of time in the cabin but tended to "cruise the ship" while on board.
This is definitely not a relaxing cruise it is very busy and most of our shore excursions left the ship between 8 and 9 AM. We took a lot of longer excursions which included at least one meal in a local restaurant.
Highlight was definitely St. Petersburg and one day trip to Moscow. Most other cruise lines give you 2 days in St. Petersburg, others only 1, we had 3 (including excursion to Moscow). Tours were well run and in both Moscow and St. Petersburg the tour leaders provided us with audio receivers and we had no problem hearing our tour guides. It was interesting to watch other cruise tours who did not provide this service.