Arrived at St Petersburg one day early, took a cab to the hotel we booked online, then took a cab to the boat dock the next day. No problems and STP is easy if you are within walking distance of the City Centre, as we were. English widely spoken. If you are using taxis, write (or have somebody write) the address in Russian. Even better, spend part of a week learning Russian Cyrillic before you ...
Impressions of the ship: It is brand new inside - refurbished from head to toe. The outside, however, is the same (oldish) ship that every other tour company uses. It seems that the Russians built one basic hull for this purpose, and there are many in service on the rivers. I didn't feel that any of the Viking or Grand Circle ships that we saw docked alongside ours were nicer in any way. One ...