Saturday, June 13, 2015
Clay was up early again this morning because the Internet
was too slow last night to upload the photos. Also the Currents advised to
expect Internet interruptions in Russia over the next 3 days. He got up early
to get them posted before we entered the Russia area. Success and quickly.
Breakfast started at 6:30am today even though they did not
expect the ship to be cleared to go ashore until 8:20am to 8:30am. It wound up
being about 10 minutes earlier. We saw what looked like the clearance officers
departing the ship via the deck 4 gangway and headed down. As we reached deck 4
Julie announced that we could start going ashore and we walked right out. First
ones again! They were still working on the gangway of deck 5 and it had not
opened by the time we cleared immigration. There was a big crowd waiting there
on deck 5 in front of the starboard door as the elevator went by. I don’t know
why they did not just go to deck 4 especially after Julie made the shipwide
announcement that the gangway was open down there. Anyway. We were early and
checked in with the Alla Tours representative and waited for our group and
guide to appear. Clay used to the time to get rubles from the ATM right by the
exit from Immigration. He asked for $100 and got a single 5000 ruble note. He went
back and withdrew $20 and got a 1000 ruble note. This wound up being a problem.
We wound up with Svetlana and 14 people in our van with a driver named Dmitri.
Our itinerary was slightly altered. Here is what we did in
order. We drove into the city from the new Sea Terminal which is out on Vasilievsky
Island. We drove by 3 other cruise ships docked right in town on the Neva
River. They had a spectacular view! We have a view of the roof of the cruise terminal
building. So, we saw the Fred Olsen Boudicca again on the Neva, Silversea’s Silver
Whisper. We watched Ponant’s Le Soleal sailing in with us and heading off to
the right while we went left and she was the 3rd ship we saw docked
on the Neva. We are the only cruise ship docked out here alone at the new Sea
Terminal. Svetlana told us it was built to accommodate more ships! We had a
photo stop on the Neva by some sphinxes. Then we had another photo stop on St.
Isaac’s Square. Our first big stop of the day was early admission to Yusupov
Palace including the Gregory Rasputin exposition. Photo permission here was an
extra charge. It was either 100 rubles (they didn’t have a lot of change!) or
$3USD. Clay fortunately had 3 one dollar bills on him so that worked out.
Svetlana advised that when we got free time on Nevsky Prospect that we try to
break the big bills because it was not going to be easy. By the end of that
visit we were already in palace overload and it was nothing! Next we drove to
Nevsky Prospect and visited Kazan Cathedral and then Svetlana walked us about a
block down Nevsky pointing out things like the former Singer Sewing Machine
headquarters and Starbucks. I got a mug! That is where after some negotiating,
they finally accepted the 5000 ruble note and gave us change in smaller money.
After that 20 minutes of free time, we all met back up at the appointed time and
place and Svetlana walked us to the Stolle Pie Shop. She said she usually goes
on day 2 and has already taken our orders and they are ready for us. She wasn’t
clear then why we were going on day one. Something to do with the 3-day Russia
Day holiday weekend. Friday was Russia Day. We each got a drink, a meat, fish
or veggie pie and a sweet pie for lunch. We weren’t rushed. Clay and I both got
meat. I had a black currant for dessert and Clay had apple. Mine was very tart.
We didn’t love the pies. After lunch we drove for about an hour to get to Tsar’s
Village, aka Pushkin to visit Catherine Palace with the Amber Room (OMG) and the
upper gardens. Svetlana collect payments from us all during the hour-long drive
back to the ship via Alla Tours’ Alla who wanted to greet us all personally. We
wound up getting our $30 discount that we had earlier been denied. Our Cruise
Critic group had all been offered a discount for booking 5 cities plus St.
Pete. When we didn’t automatically get it, we asked for it and were denied. We
printed out our invoice as requested and brought it along with our USD cash
payment today but Svetlana gave us back $30 as her paperwork indicated we owed
$1520 and not $1550. OK! Svetlana all day kept indicating how lucky we were
that there were no crowds. You could not have told that by me! I would hate to
see St. Petersburg when it was crowded if it wasn’t today. It kind of makes us
cringe about our return visit. We have private tours booked then since we are
going to Moscow on day 2, but now we’re a little worried.
We had dinner in Terrace tonight. They had Beef Stroganoff.
We saw the former Stroganoff mansion on Nevsky Prospect today! Svetlana had
told us it was where the dish was invented and first served. I never had it
with beets in it before!
We’ll go to bed early today. We will meet our same driver,
guide and group again tomorrow and the next day at 9am. The end is in sight. We
are thinking about getting packed up and Clay has prepared a final load of
laundry to be sent out tomorrow so we’ll be sure to have it back in time to
pack on Tuesday night.
