Travel All RussiaReviews of travelallrussia.com

We like to do our own thing but sort assistance for our trip in Russia. Travel All Russia helped us organize the trip and were a great help offering advice so that we saw the essential places and they gave us our own time to explore. Drivers were on time to collect us and get us to correct trains etc which was a great help when everything is in Russian.Our guides were informative and catered to our likes and requests. The organizers were prompt to reply to my question half way through our tour and made a change in timetable. Very good and thanks for that. We had a great time even though we had a drizzly 8 degree day in Red Square (in summer), they fed us well (too well) and would recommend them to anyone.

I was hesitant to try Travel All Russia because I could not find any reviews on Trip Advisor. I'm VERY glad I chose TAR (Travel All Russia). I dealt with Ivan and endured and responded quickly to ALL my many questions and emails. My wife and I have done a good bit of international travel as well aw within the USA. The first trip I made I was told the three most important qualities for international travel were flexibility, flexibility, flexibility. I also have told people that is they want exactly what they have in the USA, stay home. We had a great room in the Marriott City Center with a limited view of the tops of Red Square. We walked to Red Square many nights. We found the Russian people to be very helpful, especially if you can ask in Russian if they speak English. We had visited Moscow in 1990 and hardly recognized the city. St Petersburg was new to us and we had a great time. We ventured out on our own in both cities with no problems. We were happy we had upgraded our train tickets to Business for the ride from Moscow to St. Pete as we were fed and had WIFI and more space than economy. I would have given the trip 5 stars except we had some confusion about a side trip that Ivan resolved satisfactorily. Our tour guides in Moscow and St. Pete were amazing in their knowledge of all aspects of the city. We came into Moscow 2 days before the tour and stayed on in St Pete three days after the tour, which I encourage anyone to consider. We took our 22 year old daughter on the trip with us and she had a great time as well. If I get the opportunity to return to Russia, the first call I will make is to Travel All Russia.

I started working with Travel All Russia 6 months before our trip to Russia in July 2014. I worked with Ivan and he was excellent. His attention to detail and responsiveness made planning this trip so easy and stress free. We traveled beyond the organized tours and found Ivans Knowledge critical to a successful trip. Our guides and transfers were always perfectly organized, waiting and ready when we arrived. The guides were knowledgeable and knew how to navigate a crowd so we were able to see and experience the maximum sites. I will always use Travel All Russia when traveling to Russia and would highly recommend them for your travel to Russia. The Value was there, their fees were more than reasonable and they made me very aware of critical timing for passports, booking theater, ballets, dinners and trains to other parts of Russia so we could get the best service, selection and seats. The instructions embedded in their emails made the processing so straightforward. WE LOVED our trip and never felt rushed yet we experienced one amazing day after another. I am ready to go back!

So, many people winced this summer when I told them my daughter and I were going to Russia. This was during the height of the Ukraine..Russia tensions. We were not afraid and always felt very safe. My daughter was adopted from Russia in 1993 and, as a 25 th birthday present, wanted to visit the city and land of her birth. My visa application went very smoothly, however, my daughter had extra challenges, as Russia still considered her a citizen. Luckily for us, the visa department was magnificent and explained what we needed to do. They made extra trips to the Embassy for us, too! The Moscow part of the tour started on Sunday. I would suggest arriving on Friday, in order to do many things in Moscow that are not scheduled on the visits. I would have to say that, had we not gone early, we would have missed so much. Perhaps in the future TAR will build in an extra day. We were on our own, which was a bit challenging, but doable. I could read the Cyrillic alphabet and we knew some phrases, so we managed. During our time, we walked around Red Square and experienced the long lines for ice cream at the GUM. We went to the underground mall to look for clothes, as my suitcase was delayed in arriving. Eat at MY MY, a reasonably priced self service cafeteria. The next day, we took the metro to get to a two hour river cruise and saw Moscow by water. We walked back to the hotel via Arbat Street. The Marriott Courtyard was lovely. If you start your tour on Sunday, make sure to go down the street a bit and attend an Orthodox Church in the morning, even for a few minutes. It is a cultural experience not to miss. Our tour was small...only 13! Our guide , Elena, was intelligent and well spoken. We visited the Tretyakov Museum, St. Basil's and Red Square. There was a traffic problem, so, Elena and TAR reps wisely flipped our morning and afternoon schedules. The lunch at the restaurant that day was excellent. The welcome dinner that night also pleased us. My only suggestion would be to have the welcome dinner the night before. That way, you could meet the other travelers prior to the first tour. Also, it made Sunday a heavy food day and the next day, Monday, very sparse. On Monday we visited the Kremlin and Armory. It was a long, fact filled visited, with lots of walking and standing. We then had a tour of several metro stops on our way to the SAPSAN, high speed train for St, Petersburg. We arrived at the train station with a small amount of time to grab a late lunch, like at 3 pm. TARA reps took care of bringing our bags to the station and we took them to the train. The train is the cleanest train ever. We also had a beverage in the dining car. I would suggest bringing snacks or food for this day of the trip, as food was hit or miss. We arrived in St. Pete at almost 9 pm, but, due to the position so far North, it was still light outside. Diana Ljung, our guide, was friendly and welcoming. She and my diagnosed hit it off great. She shared knowledge as well as some personal information, such as how much she pays for apartment rent and Internet, for instance.We got to our hotel and went right to bed. I would suggest bringing your luggage upstairs as ours was not delivered to the room until 11 pm. This was a long day. Our Hotel Angleterre was perfectly placed. We visited the Hermitage, had a tour of St. Pete and visited Peterhof. We saw many churches. One of my favorite places was St. Peter and Paul's Fortress where we saw the plaques honoring the Romanov family. What was enjoyable about the beauty of this former capital city was the free time we had to explore. One night we attended Feel Yourself Russian, a folklore show depicting all regions of Russia. It was delightful. Sit in the last row so you can get the best photos and make sure you leave something on your seat to save it, or it will be gone! The finger foods were sparse. I would recommend eating prior to attending. Another great activity was the boat ride to see the bridges being lifted at 1 am. It was dreadfully cold and rainy that night. Our guide urged us to bring a blanket from the hotel to keep us warm. At first we did not believe her,but we're glad we did!!! Others went to the ballet and opera, but I did not hear stellar reviews of either. We had high tea at the Hotel Astoria, next to our hotel. It had historical significance as that was the headquarters of the Revolution in St. Pete. Visit the souvenir shops. My daughter's suitcase had been damaged during the trip, so we went to their version of a shopping center, right on Nevsky Prospect, called Gostinny Dvor. The last night there, we heard there was going to be a military celebration and that it was setting up on In front of the Hermitage, a short walk from the hotel. We saw tanks on display and dancers rehearsing for the following day. Transportation to and from the airports and train station were flawless. Everything is well organized and punctual. Probably the least safe we felt was when the driver from Moscow Sheremetovo Airport to our downtown hotel was texting and driving in the rain. I highly recommend this trip. The suggestions TAR makes for additional excursions are very good. Go!!!

Travel All Russia did an outstanding job on their part of the trip. The river cruise was farmed out to a 3rd party and they were terrible. If you expect Gluten Free at every meal do not take this river cruise. Find someone else or just see the 2 big cities and forget the river.

My family and I visited Moscow and St. Petersburg this last May through Travel All Russia. I communicated (daily it seemed) with Ivan Shirakov who helped me get the necessary paperwork and travel arrangements together for our trip. There were lots of details to work out, and Ivan was professional and thorough as we made our plans. The hotels we stayed in were both first class and our guides in both cities were very knowledgeable and experienced. We had very organized tours of all the important things we needed to see in both cities. I would definitely plan another trip with Travel All Russia. One last note -- I left a valuable package in our St. Petersburg hotel. Because of the nature of the item (I'm embarrassed to admit it was an expensive night guard to keep me from grinding my teeth!) it wasn't able to be shipped through customs. So, when a representative from the Travel All Russia office was visiting St. Petersburg, he hand carried the package back to the states for me. I really appreciated their efforts and call that going above and beyond!!

All our trip was beautiful, we visited Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilnus, Riga, Tallin, Copenhagen, Oslo, Flam, Bergen, Stockholm & Helsinki. Everything was beautifully planned, it lasted almost a month. The Russian portion we did it with a small group (Luxury group) and it was very nice, the Baltic & Scandinavian part was a private tour and was magnificent. Now that I know I would add an extra night here and there, but it was a remarkable trip. The agency was always available, but there was hardly need to contact them because everything was perfectly planned.

I booked a cruise on the Volga River thru Travel All Russia.. When I arrived in Moscow for my connecting flight to Astrakhan, I was told the flight left 4 hours early.. It was the only flight with Air Siberia. I called the Moscow office of Travel All Russia and was set up with a hotel, evening meal and breakfast. I got a new ticket for the following day. I arrived at the boat 1 hour before it departed on the cruise. So I think they did a fine job. They were very helpful when my wife passed away 3 weeks before this trip was originally scheduled for September 2012; I took the trip alone, last September;. everything was rescheduled with no problem.