We traveled on Viking's Waterways of the Czars river cruise on the Viking Kirov, starting in Moscow June 12th, 2011 and ending in St. Petersburg on June 24th. We have only done one other river cruise, which was on the Danube with another company a couple of years prior, but let me say that Viking really did an outstanding job on this cruise. The ship was first rate, the crew was extremely professional, the food was superb and the tours were well organized. The onboard activities, such as the history and language lectures, were excellent. That's not to say everything was perfect, but rarely is that the case when it comes to travel. Now, let's get into the details.

We were not entirely satisfied with the Viking air travel department because they put us on a really tough and tiring itinerary to get over to Moscow, with crack-of-dawn departures, less direct routes and long layovers, which left us pretty wiped out by the time we got there. The lesson here is to stay on top of things and make sure you get the arrangements that work best for you. The pickup and transfer in Moscow was flawless, however, and we got settled on the ship in no time. Even though we arrived well after 9 p.m., the dining room stayed open so we could have dinner before unpacking and getting to bed.

One of the drawbacks of the docking locations in both Moscow and St. Petersburg is that they are quite far from the city centers. This is not peculiar to Viking as all the river boats dock in the same area. However, this means most bus tours start and end with almost an hour in horrible traffic moving at a crawl. This also means you will see the outer regions of those cities and their enormous number of dilapidated Stalin-era buildings, thereby providing a very bad first impression. In my opinion, the river cruise lines should put their passengers up at city center hotels to avoid these issues. Having said that, I have to give our guides major kudos for utilizing the travel time to inform and entertain, so it's not just wasted time. Read more