We are glad we decided to take the Trans-Siberian

We are now back in New Zealand from our Imperial Russia trip. And everything arranged by Travel All Russia for us worked out as planned.

Our guides and drivers in Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Shanghai were all excellent and everyone appeared where they were meant to be at the correct time.

The Trans-Siberian section of the journey was extremely memorable, even though the train itself failed to meet our expectations of ”luxury”. The rail cars on which we travelled were clearly not recently refurbished and showed great signs of wear and tear.

We went for 2 days without a hot shower, for example, and had to find the attendants to replace toilet paper and tissues on several occasions. All in all we were disappointed with the train itself.

However, the experiences we had in all the cities we visited were extremely interesting and gave us a fascinating insight into the history and present-day life of Russia, Mongolia and Beijing.

Best of all, the tour leader was superb. She and her two volunteer assistants made sure that all arrangements took place and that we were all fully briefed several times each day.

I became unwell on the train, as did most of the other passengers and she arranged for me to have an extra night in the hotel in Ulan Batar instead of in a yurt, at a very reasonable rate. She was always on hand to answer questions and deal with any issues that arose.

All in all we had a wonderful experience and are glad we decided to take the Trans-Siberian.

As I say, the only issue that concerned us was the failure of the train itself to meet the expectations which the advertising material created.

Finally a big thank you to the staff at Travel All Russia for the attention to our needs and for the considerable logistic arrangements you took care of so well.