Sonia

The guides were very knowledgeable and helpful. We enjoyed the trip very much...Sonia Mercado

Both guides were very knowledgeable and helpful. We enjoyed the trip very much and on our free day we got a map and walked for over six hours. Every time we turned a corner we would find something interesting. The only thing that might help your future travelers would be a trip tip list, for example,

1. We did not realize they would not take US dollars but were able to exchange for rubles at our first hotel but ran out of cash quickly due to so many places not willing to take credit cards; our lunch on the first day cost 4,200 rubles at a Georgian restaurant where we ordered three pizzas and two orders of kabos so we were a bit surprised at how quickly we would run out of cash. We found a CitiBank so we were able to use the ATM in English. The places which did take credit cards would not allow us to add a tip to the card so we would have to use cash for tips.

2. We did not know what was the appropriate amount to tip our driver and guides. It would have helped to have a guideline per day or something like that.

3. Since none of the hotel rooms have clocks in them, we were depending on our cell phones for the time and alarm clock but could not find a converter anywhere to recharge our batteries and the hotel reception desks did not have any either. We tried every electronic store and mall we came across. Maybe let people know to take one from here. The issue of not being able to recharge batteries hit us hard when the digital camera we took ran out of battery.

4. Planning for the very long amount of time where you don't have a hotel room is also an issue. In Moscow it was not a big deal, the weather was beautiful so we took a boat ride and went to a park until around 9pm. In St. Petersburg, however, it was raining when we arrived and when we got to our hotel after the tours on the first day at 11:30am they would not let us in the room until 2pm. We were tired from the train ride and trip since we had checked out of the hotel room in Moscow over 24 hours before but had to sit on the stairs and on the last day we were done with tours around 1pm but were not being picked up until 10pm with no room and it was raining out.

5. Realizing that we might have a communication issue, we always took the hotel name and address written down with us in case we got lost. We did not see any taxis so we could not venture to far from our hotels that was not walking distance.

We truly enjoyed our trip and would recommend Russia as a vacation destination. The items I mention above would be to consider a list you can give future travelers.

Sonia Mercado