Chose this cruise because of prior experience with Viking and the desire to see and explore the ports and countries featured. The cruising part of the trip was excellent. Beautiful ship, great staff; delicious meals; very good entertainment; comfortable and relaxing with a variety of activities to appeal to almost everyone.

However, the "exploring" part of the trip did not live up to our expectations. The included tours were OK and covered the highlights of each port, but there was never enough time to explore on our own, unlike our previous experience with a river cruise. If your included tour started a couple of hours after docking, there was not time to go ashore before and explore, and little time after. Also, in St. Petersburg, we didn't understand the need for a Russian visa if you want to explore on your own and not as part of a ship tour or with a licensed Russian tour. As a result, we had 2 days in St P, but only got off the ship for a total of about 7 hours over 2 days. There were plenty of optional tours available, but the cost put them outside our budget, although we did spring for the Hermitage tour and enjoyed it.

There were a couple of instances where a free shuttle service was provided between the ship and the downtown area, and this was well organized and much appreciated. However, in some ports there wasn't enough extra time for this. Read more