With the dates we had to travel our choice came down to Princess with 3600 guests or Seaborn with 400 @ twice the cost and half the time. Chose Princess and am so glad we did. While that is a lot of people we rarely ran into the same people twice and were always able to find a quiet spot on the ship, especially with the Retreat area which is adults only. There was an eclectic variety of top notch entertainment on the ship, from an amazing Beatles review to opera; always somewhere to dance or someone to listen to With the savings from choosing Princess, we upgraded to a mini-suite and will never look back. The extra space and a tub were well worth it. Food was ever changing and good, never felt the need to go into the special restaurants. We chose anytime dining and it suited us well. This was a holiday after all and we didn't want to have set times.

As for the cruise, in spite of some rainy days, I loved it. Mid June there were few children, tweens, or teens and the sun came out @ 4pm and stayed out until 10:30 each night. The 3 sea days were so welcome after intensive touring. I can't imagine 7 days straight with no break which was Seaborn's itinerary. 5 days in a row was intense!

Must commend and highly recommend TJ Travel who handled our tours in St. Petersburg. Elyena was amazing, a local who was like a historian. TJ got us into the Hermitage on the day they were closed to the public and into the Catherine Palace before the general public was admitted so we had no line-ups and great viewing. Same itinerary as Princess @ 1/3 of the cost and half the people. Did book Berlin with Princess as wanted to go into the Reichstag - Burkhart our guide-a Berlliner who was there when the wall went up and came- down gave us the most amazing tour. He made it worth the big bucks. Read more