Another quick update St Petersberg day 1 (11:30pm..Doug is in bed and I am still wired)..

Haven't found any fur hats to enhance my beauty, but have found some very nice VIKING hats to enhance Doug's...

Gil, I didn't notice the plaque in the WASA, but did notice some notices about the listing of the WASA due to some off balance guy from LI.

Judy and John, have a safe trip...you will have a spectacular time. I will try to price faberge eggs for you tomorrow. There are faberge copies and Faberge company eggs. There are so many qualities, that it's hard to find out what's good and what isn't. Knowing you a bit, I saw some perfectly beautiful religiously oriented lacquered eggs and boxes you might want to consider and they are on the ship. Check back here tomorrow and I will try to have some prices for you. Some stores are the Hermitage and Red October. Quality is all over the place, so pricing may be hard.

John and Kim, Wish you were here with us! We think of you often and toasted you tonight. Gretchen, Greg and Sarah are really terrific folks and we wish you were here with us. We had two spots in the van for you.

We ate in Latitudes tonight. I was not enchanted with the menu and liked it the least of the restaurants, but everyone else at the table liked it a lot. Most other folks I talked with liked it the least of all the venues. Latitudes does not change menus for the entire week. Everyone has been very pleased with La Veranda. The service has been excellent in all the restaurants.

The shows have been excellent as well. Tonight, we had a Russian folklore show and a vodka party afterwards. Loads of fun and very entertaining..the quality of the entertainment on the PG. Folks were all pleased with the tours whether they were mass bus tours with Radisson or private tours with Red October or arranged by Radisson with Red Baltic. I heard absolutely no complaints.

There are a few areas for improvement on the ship. One area on this ship where we have seen issues is that the room service comes 1/2 hour earlier than you want it to and, when the steward comes to your door, he says he is there because he has too many orders. We are all up touring from 8 and running until 11 and losing hours because we are moving east and are running on no sleep. We need these extra 30 minutes.

The other area is dry cleaning. Clothes have been coming back damaged with notes " stains unable to be cleaned" and there were no stains there originally. With my initial issues and now this, they need to "clean up" this area as well.

A pleasant note is that we have 40 children on board and there is a children's program with 2 counselors. The children are barely perceptable on board. Perhaps a baby is whisked by in a carriage. The teens are sometimes seen on the computers, but that is it. They are all well behaved, pleasant and interact well with all adults. This was a third person travels free cruise.

The problems I mention are minor. This is a perfectly lovely cruise. I wish it were longer. The people are lovely. Just about everyone has turned in by 11:30pm. It is not a cruise for nightowls.

We have only met a few folks...everyone seems very nice. Not VOF, but a different sort of cruise altogether.