Excuse me if this has been posted before but a search didn't find it.

While "cruising" around in Google Earth in anticipation of our Voyager cruise in the Baltics next year, I decided to look for the new cruise pier in St. Petersburg (we were there on the Voyager in 2003 and relegated to the industrial docks). Anyway, the image on Google Earth when you move up the Neva shows two cruise ships...and the one to the SW is the Voyager (you can almost read "Regent" on the funnel)! Furthermore, if you have Geographic Web on, look for a photo icon in the middle of the road alongside and between the ships (PICT2868)...it is a ground level view of Voyager.

BTW, anyone else going to be on Voyager departing 18 July 2010?

If you start Google Earth and go to "59.932054 N, 30.275874 E". The ship up-river (pointing to the open sea – down and to the left) is the Regent Seven Seas Voyager. Get there by pasting "59.932054 N, 30.275874 E" into the ‘To’ box in the upper left hand corner and click on the magnifying glass. The small square (photo symbol) on the edge of the riverbank off the stern is a good picture of the Voyager with the name clearly shown on the bow (the picture is obviously taken from further toward the other ship, forward of the Voyager’s bow). The other cruise ship, ahead of the Voyager, (bow to bow) is the Silver Shadow. A Russian sub is tied up inside of the Voyager, on the other side of the pier.

We're on the Voyager May 12-26, Ft. Lauderdale to Reykjavik. Anyone else going to be on board?

Count Florida,

Unfortunately, you've got it backwards. The ship at your coordinates may be the Silver Shadow (I'm not familiar with it), but it is the downriver ship that is the Voyager (at 59°55'49.98"N, 30°16'24.46"E). You can actually discern the "Regent" on the funnel...ALL the deck and side details match...and it is bigger that the other ship (as it would have to be if the other ship is the Shadow). The picture I referenced (PICT2868) wasn't taken at the same time (actually, not within years) as the overhead imagery (note the Radisson harp on the funnel on PICT2868). The overhead imagery is dated as 8 Aug 2007 which may or may not be precise, but should be close.

30+ years of photo interpretation stands behind my observations.

I think you are right Portolan, Voyager is noticably bigger than Silver Shadow, length of 670' vs. 567'. I went by the 'i' ON the ship to the lower left, over the bridge), identifying it as the Silver Shadow, and the photo tag (small box) off the port stern of the ship on the edge of the river bank, upper right, a picture of the Voyager. Who knows, the label and photo tag may be misplaced?

Terrestrial photos and other identifying tags in Google Earth are placed where their submitter located them...sometimes wildly inaccurately. They also may be correctly located in space, but not compatible in time. As well as the tag incorrectly identifying the Voyager as the Silver Shadow, the picture icon on top of the Voyager looks to be a picture of a Holland America ship which may have been at that precise location...at some time in the past (and not 8 Aug 2007). So, much of the user-contributed information is likely not to correspond in time to the overhead imagery which is generally about 2-3 years old (cheaper to license because it is a bit dated). The overhead imagery is updated at intervals so sometime in the next few years the Voyager will be gone when this patch of imagery is updated. You can use the Copy Image function in Google Earth to save a copy of the current view showing the Voyager.

Scott,
In answer to your quasi question, this year the Voyager has been docked at the Lt. Schmidt pier in the city. Who knows about next year. I was on it this year, and it is about 1/2 walk, if you have your own visa, to the large cathedral, whose name escapes me for some unknown reason. The "new pier" I was docked at in 06, and it is a solid 1 hour walk to the same place.
However, you are never sure until you dock. They try not to change it, but it can happen. There is also another pier on the opposite side of the river called the English embankment, which is about 15 minutes closer than the Lt. Schmidt. Any of them are definitely prefereable to the commercial port, and mostly it seems to be only the mega ships that tend to get docked there.
I hope you have a great time. I love the city, and always get my own visa just to walk around at my leisure.
Lynn