Pros & Cons Pros – For the 1 night prior and the 1 night following the cruise, instead of staying on the ship, which is docked one hour plus outside the city, you will stay at a hotel within Moscow and St. Petersburg. The hotels may not have the best or even in the best location, but it will be a lot closer than if you stayed at the dock. The capacity of the ship is under 100 people, which was a positive for us For the most part, the guides were very good, with one or 2 exceptions Programs on the ship such as: speakers, cooking class, etc. were plentiful and excellent The service in the dining room is excellent and the rest of the service is good Cons – The ship is not luxurious in any way The cabins are minuscule and poorly appointed. The furnishings are bare bones and right out of IKEA. The ship is much more 2 stars than 5 The cabins are dark, depressing and poorly lit. We had to use our own flashlight to even find our clothes in the wardrobe The curtains are so thin that they offer no privacy or any means of blocking out the daylight The shower is so tiny, you can barely wash yourself There are a few meals which are very good, but for the most part, they are mediocre at best. They were more quantity than quality and certainly not fine dining in any way Except for the “Russian Night,” there are no Russian specialties on the menu or at the buffets. It is over cooked and dried out paella, bbq ribs and lasagna. Since lunch is a buffet, why couldn’t one of the choices be Russian? In the evening there is No local or folk entertainment, except for games played by the staff The hotels the utilize in Moscow and St. Petersburg are far down on the scale of 5 star hotels and the one in Moscow is 2 miles from Red Square Of course no one can control the weather, but the following issues must be considered prior to booking - You may think that taking a river cruise, it would be smooth sailing all the way, which was not the case. When crossing one of the large lakes, we were caught in a terrible storm and the ship was rocking and rolling. In fact, the water poured out of our shower and drenched the carpeting in the bedroom. Because of this we had to be temporarily relocated to another cabin. Also because of the weather, we had to totally skip one of our ports and on the final morning, the ship could not reach St. Petersburg. We had to dock 4 hours outside the city, get up at 4:30 in the morning, in order to board buses for the 4 hour bus ride into the city. This was certainly not what we expected If we had been on a larger ship would the situation have been different, I don’t know.

Super The trip to Russia with Volga Dream was a success across the board. Very good hotels, competent guides, nice rides The stay on the ship was extremely pleasant. The staff were very obliging and friendly. The meals on board were excellent. The lectures and other activities on board very pleasant and instructive. I would VOLGA DREAM recommend to anyone who wants to visit Russia,

A five star plus holiday We enjoyed every single minute of the holiday the hotels were situated centrally we could walk around easily being able to walk into the square where the Hermitage was just around the corner from hotel was amazing the boat was a lovely experience the staff were very attentive food was excellent trips from the boat very interesting good guides The Kremlin was so interesting Thank you for a wonderfull experience

Terrific experience/ the Volga Dream. My wife and I and four friends wanted to do a boat trip between Moscow and St Petersburg and didn’t want one of the fleets of ships with 200 passengers. And in addition to size we found a number of negative TripAdvisor reviews on many of those larger ships. We found the Volga Dream which takes only 100 passengers and which is privately owned by a Russian family. It could not have been better. The crew was exceptional in their friendliness and professionalism, and the boat itself was in wonderful shape and exceptionally well maintained. Despite having 100 passengers, we never found anyplace too crowded to do exactly as we wanted. The shore excursions were very well planned and executed. And the food was excellent. We would warmly recommend the Volga Dream to anyone wanting to do either Moscow to St Petersburg or the opposite direction. We made arrangements through Travel All Russia which included also some days in both Moscow and St Petersburg, and in every aspect those arrangements were superb. Rather than staying on the boat for those periods, we enjoyed wonderful center-city hotels and restaurants and superlative guides. That we would also warmly recommend.

Wonderful first time experience of Russia's culture, history and scenery We chose Platinum Class for our first experience of a river cruise, and it was well worth the extra.. We really felt treated like special people. Small group (6 of us!) for cultural visits in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with excellent very knowledgeable guides who steered us through the museums. Sadly in the Kremlin we had very little time to look at the beautiful historic churches and rather too long looking at royal wedding dresses and diamonds. The on-board experience was wonderful, with tasty and varied food , lots of things to do, so no time to get bored, even in the rain! Prof.Ludmila Selezneva's talks on modern Russia and history of art were wonderful and so enthusiastic. We really learnt a lot. The crew were super-efficient and friendly too, Just one point of criticism of what was otherwise a marvellous trip. The diningroom on "Volga Dream" with its low ceiling and small portholes felt a bit claustrophobic and the acoustics were so bad that everybody had to shout. Not so good for conversation with your neighbour at table. Perhaps that part of the vessel could be refurbished (?)