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TOUR TRACKER APPS

Tour Tracker has provided race coverage for over 50 events and counting, delivering award-winning coverage to millions of cycling fans. Tour Tracker is available for iPhone, iPad, Android, HTML5 and Apple Watch. Below is a list of recent apps. Note that apps may not be currently available depending on the time of year or your location. Or click here for our free live desktop coverage!

TOUR TRACKER GRAND TOURS

The Giro d'Italia, le Tour de France, and la Vuelta a España are the three iconic races of the year. Tour Tracker's Grand Tours app covers them all and most of the World Tour events! This app is now the #1 live cycling app worldwide. It is the perfect second screen for your existing live video feeds.

iPhone • Android • Web

NBC TOUR DE FRANCE

The NBC Tour Tracker  provides U.S. cycling fans official Tour de France coverage including live race video, full event replay and more. In addition to our custom apps, NBC integrates our HTML5 apps directly into their properties. This flexibility enables NBC to leverage existing elements, while provider fans the full Tour Tracker experience.

SBS TOUR DE FRANCE

Tour Tracker has been the official Tour de France app in Australia since 2007. SBS offers web and mobile versions of the  SKODA Tour Tracker  in cooperation with ASO, the owner's of le Tour . Tour Tracker is key component of their award-winning coverage, ensuring that their primary and other sponsors keep coming back.

SBS GIRO D'ITALIA

Following up on its years of successful Tour de France apps, SBS of course chose Tour Tracker for its Giro d'Italia digital coverage. The same great user experience and partner integration ensured another success for the Australian broadcaster.

TOUR OF CALIFORNIA

Tour Tracker was born at the Tour of California, and the app remains the race's online ambassador. With mobile and web apps for both the men's and women's race, the Tour of California continues to set the bar for other races to chase. What's new for the next edition? Download the app and get ready for cycling at its best.

TOUR OF UTAH

The Tour of Utah was an early Tour Tracker adopter and continues to leverage the Tour Tracker platform for their race coverage and to highlight their sponsors. The Adobe Tour Tracker provides fans from Utah, the US and the world with great racing action.

TOUR DOWN UNDER

As the first World Tour event of the year, the Tour Down Under is in the spotlight across the world. The Tour Down Under Tour Tracker has been a key part of exposing their race and sponsors to the cycling community. Fans get an early glimpse of their favorite cyclists and new Tour Tracker features.

COLORADO CLASSIC

Colorado is a hotbed of professional cycling, and the return of stage racing to the state is an exciting development. The Colorado Classic Tour Tracker will bring users around the world full race coverage starting summer 2018.

TOUR OF ALBERTA

Tour Tracker's integration with Tour of Alberta proved to the world that even small stage races can have world-class digital coverage. One year, in fact, Tour Tracker was the only source of live racing domestically as the race took that next step in cutting the cord.

SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker 4+

Tour de france live coverage, special broadcasting service corporation, designed for ipad.

• 4.8 • 28K Ratings

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Description.

Follow the 2023 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes live with the SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker. Follow the 2023 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes live with the SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker, the official application that gives you in depth access and analysis of every aspect of the world's biggest and most exciting cycling race. From live video to GPS tracking, you can be part of the race action no matter where you are. The SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker includes: - Live video stream coverage of every stage - Up-to-the-minute text updates - GPS tracking on interactive maps and profiles - Breaks, chases and time gaps on the road - Stage previews including maps, profiles and details of KOMs and Sprints - Daily results and overall standings - Tons of live video recaps of each stage - Team and rider listings with rider profiles - Rider search by name, bib, team or country - Rankings by time off the front - Fast provisional results - Live results for intermediate climbs

Version 13.0

- Updated to the 2023 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes - Quicker access live stream - Tweaks and bug fixes

Ratings and Reviews

28K Ratings

All great, except limited video capabilities

This app is great, I’ve used it for several years, and would recommend it to any one. But this year, the limited capability of the videos section is really annoying me. Here’s a short list of improved features this app needs: When watching highlights the app doesn’t remember where in the video you are up to if you minimise the app. If you check a text why watching the 1hr highlights, you will have to start the video again, and try and find where you are up to with just the dot on the progress bar. Suggestion- add fast forward (30seconds) and a continue watching option like the sbs app. The daily highlights is usually buried near the bottom of the daily videos, so by reading through the daily clips, you’ll likely find out who won and crashed, based on titles, and have the suspense of watching the highlights ruined. Suggestion- put the daily highlights at the top, to stop spoilers I can’t select the video quality, (low, medium high) it seems to only have auto. I’d like to be able to choose because if the internet is sketchy, I only get low resolution, I’d rather wait for high quality to buffer. But I don’t have the control Suggestion- add video quality option in settings button, just like sbs app. My current work around- use the apps for details, but use the sbs on demand app for watching highlights. Wish it was all in one app. Thanks

Women in the Commentary team

I’ve been watching since the first SBS coverage back in the 90s. The commentary was fantastic back then and I never thought it could be improved with the addition of Australian commentators. I was clearly wrong. Kate and Brighdie are absolutely brilliant. Kate is ready to anchor every nightly stage. Sorry Tomo. She lights up the screen and is incredibly knowledgeable and communicates with clarity and respect. Brighdie is an perfect addition to a legendary commentary team. I love her technical knowledge on racing, medicine, and all round general knowledge about anything. Incredibly smart yet sensitive and respectful. Keep the humour and banter going. We love it. I don’t need to provide feedback for Keeno and Robbie other than saying quite simply that they are the best commentators in the business of any sport! I reckon they could even make curling interesting if they tried. Many thanks SBS! George

Really Disappointing

I've edited this review having had a chance to use the app more. Last year, for the first time in years, this app hadn't run properly on my iPad3 running iOS9. I was really disappointed. The app store entry had said 'requires iOS9 and above' but when you downloaded the new version, iOS9 users were met with a rather unhelpful suggestion that the app wouldn't run properly on their operating system, and that they use the app on a more modern device with the latest IOS. ...Great if you had one! ....(This warning was still there this year). Anyway, whatever it was, it seems to have been fixed and 'Tour Tracker' is back to being a great companion to the Tour de France - for everyone!

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Digital cycling coverage, uncovered: How Tour Tracker works

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

CyclingTips has long admired the work that Tour Tracker has done for the Grand Tours ever since it’s inception. Once you look under the hood it’s a much more complex and difficult service than meets they eye. Here’s the story behind how it started and how it works.

For more info on digital cycling coverage check out our article, “How the Tour de France is broadcast to the world.”

Twelve hours before the start of the 2007 Amgen Tour of California, Andrew Lim is lost somewhere in San Francisco. Lim works for the race and has spent the entire day at Adobe Systems hammering out the final details of Tour Tracker, the world’s first digital cycling platform. Hailed as a “revolution in sports coverage,” the web-based app combined three online firsts — streaming video, GPS tracking, and a multimedia news feed — into a single integrated experience.

As a sort of unintended proof of concept, Adobe engineer Allan Padgett was able to use the app to guide Lim to race headquarters that night. Three days later, pro cycling fans around the world watched as a hungry peloton chased down a solo break into the finish city of in San Jose, California. The live video might have set the stage, but it was the GPS tracking that told the real story — the man out front would be caught 50 yards from the finish.

Digital cycling coverage has come a long way since that week in 2007. Many major cycling events have their own “tickers” that provide a news feed, and the bigger races generally include tracking and other data. A handful of races also have an associated mobile app that adds results, photography, video and more; while Twitter empowers anyone to become a cycling reporter, providing a rich view of the action.

However, it wasn’t that long ago that cycling fans depended on television broadcasts (often delayed) to keep up with races like the Tour de France. Now instantaneous updates are just something they all take for granted. Padgett, who is now CEO of Tour Tracker, creates about 90% of today’s live cycling apps.

“Great cycling coverage brings together a team of diverse talents and technologies,” said Padgett. “Each one of those alone presents a challenge — synchronizing them all into a single user experience is more like juggling knives while riding a motorcycle… in the rain.”

Padgett is, in fact, not that far off. Camera men sitting backwards on speeding motorcycles work tirelessly to capture every nuance of a bike race possible in all types of weather conditions. The video signals they provide are transmitted to helicopters and planes circling the race, which in turn re-transmit them to a production compound near the finish.

“Assuming those signals makes it to the finish, a dedicated production truck then produces a mobile show which is pushed via an additional satellite truck to the internet,” he explained. “From there it is distributed to thousands of servers around the world so that the mobile app in your hand can stream it in real-time. It’s a long broadcast chain with potentially multiple points of failure.”

While video may be one of the Tour Tracker’s chief draws, there are other types of data that his company folds into its mobile experience.

“Obviously GPS tracking is still core to our apps,” Padgett said. “Our early apps were tracking individual riders who had cellular devices on their bikes. The device called our servers every 60 seconds and we turned the location into distance travelled, speed, elevation, etc. We also pulled in heart rate, cadence and power from TDF riders in a partnership with SRM.”

Not that this futuristic advance in tech was always greeted warmly inside the peloton.

“I remember Levi Leipheimer dramatically ripped his GPS tracker off his bike and threw it to the ground on live TV during a particularly challenging stage,” he said. “We spent a fair amount of time afterwards trying to recover it.”

Following the UCI’s mandate that, for “safety” reasons, riders couldn’t be individually tracked, the Tour Tracker opted to follow the model used by the Tour de France. In that scenario, race-sanctioned vehicles would position themselves in and around the peloton to determine rider locations. One advantage was those devices have longer battery life and provide updates to the broadcast compound every five seconds.

“In the past two years, thankfully, the UCI has opened up tracking again,” Padgett said. “So now some races are tracking individual riders and getting data off the bikes. So we’re right back to where we were in 2007, in that respect.”

But the news feeds inside Tour Tracker are just as critical. Official Tour de France apps, such as those Tour Tracker creates for NBC and SBS, pull commentary directly from ASO servers and then relay that information to the app. For the Tour Tracker’s Grand Tour app , Tour Tracker utilizes its own reporters to provide coverage. In either circumstance the feed is distributed to thousands of servers around the world for the apps to grab.

“Clara Beard, who is a former national cycling champion herself, is providing our Tour de France coverage this year. And watching her work is amazing. She puts together this up-to-the-minute commentary while listening to multiple audio feeds, watching multiple video screens and simultaneously monitoring social media. At the end of each stage she has to go hide away for an hour to recover.”

In addition to Beard’s individual insights, she also pulls in links to some of the best coverage that she finds on the web. And since Tour Tracker isn’t a traditional media company, there is no problem linking to great stories from what some might view as their “competition.”

For the 2017 Tour, Padgett spotlighted a few additional features that he’s recently built into the platform.

“I’m psyched about our new fantasy cycling game,” he said. “We released a beta version of it for the Giro and it really went over well. For the Tour, we’ve even got former U.S. pro Frankie Andreu to put together a team and compete with our users. There’s so much more we’re doing off the raw data. Last year, for example, we started recording and ranking riders by how much time they are off the front. I think in the future we might even give an award for the winner of that category. Users love that stuff.”

The Tour Tracker even includes data synchronization. In 2015 they introduced the “Time Machine” function, which allows the user to rewind the live data feeds for any stage. This allows them to watch or re-watch the race whenever they like and the data can be synchronized to what they’re viewing.

“And we’re taking that to the next level with NBC this year where anytime you scrub through the video, live or or via replay, all of the data rewinds including standings, results, photography, news, tracking, etc. It is super cool, and we already have a prototype for 2018 that blows that away.”

Padgett has even come up with a rich set of lightweight widgets that can be embedded in other apps, in webpages, smart TVs, etc. There’s even a lightweight web version of their highly rated Grand Tours app for users who can’t have their phone out all the time.

“Ultimately our goal is to create the kind of experience that becomes an immersive voice in its own right. You have to constantly strive towards that level of engagement because that’s what people have come to expect from the media they consume,” he said. “And at this rate of development, we’re not far off from creating a situation where cycling fans can feel that they know as much about what’s going on in a race as a team director or moto referee do. And that’s fairly exciting considering that we’re not that far removed from a time where there was not much, if any live coverage available.”

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The 12 Australian stage winners at the La Vuelta a España 

The 76th edition of the La Vuelta a España starts this weekend in the early hours of Sunday morning, with 11 Australians pinning a number on in Burgos at the third and final Grand Tour of 2021.

Of those 11 Aussies, Canberran Michael Matthews enters as the standout prospect to claim stage wins over the next three weeks as the leader of Team BikeExchange’s opportunistic squad.

Matthews’ last stood on the top step of a La Vuelta stage back in 2014 during a lumpy Stage 3 from Cádiz to Arcos de la Frontera.

The stage win was enough to catapult Matthews into the red leader’s jersey, which he would then hold for three days up until Stage 7.

Matthews’ success in 2014 was his third stage win at La Vuelta following two stage wins in Stage 5 and 21 the year prior.

The Australian Cycling Team member is one of 12 Australian La Vuelta stage winners to taste glory under the Spanish sun, with the trailblazing Don Allan the first to do so in 1975.

The winners

Don Allan - 1975 Stage 17 (Durango to Bilbao)

Allan was a pioneer when it came to Australia’s representation at La Vuelta, becoming the first to race it and win a stage in 1975.

Across a career that included the 1972 Munich Olympics, most of the Spring Classics and two starts at both the Tour de France and La Vuelta, Allan was without a doubt one of the first to showcase Australia’s cycling pedigree in Europe.

The Blackburn Cycling Club product raced the 1975 Vuelta with Dutch team Frisol off the back of an impressive 22nd at the 1975 World Championships in Yvoir, Belgium.

The future six-day track racing star’s breakthrough La Vuelta win came on Stage 17 from Durango to Bilbao.

Speaking to CyclingTips in 2010 , Allan recalled big-name pros scoffing as he was brought to the front of the peloton, before putting that all behind him as the bunch entered a soccer stadium to the roar of thousands.

On the shifting track, Allan hit the line ahead of 1972 world champion and multiple Grand Tour stage winner Marino Basso.

Michael Wilson – 1983 Stage 19 (Palazuelos de Eresma to Madrid)

Michael Wilson’s win at the final stage of the 1983 edition of the La Vuelta in Madrid was a gutsy display of breakaway nous.

In a similar display to his 1982 stage win at the Giro d'Italia, Wilson first formed part of a breakaway group and then dropped his escapee companions in pursuit of the finish line.

On this occasion, it was an attack with only a couple kilometres remaining of several circuits of Madrid from the Alfa Lum – Olmo man which proved the catalyst for success.

Wilson, a rider with time trial ability, used his strengths to hold his advantage over Laurent Fignon to the line to become Australia’s second stage winner at La Vuelta.

Brad McGee – 2005 Stage 2 (Granada to Córdoba)

The current Australian Cycling Team Road Technical Director enjoyed a terrific start to the 2005 La Vuelta.

Following a third on Stage 1’s ITT in Granada, McGee would find himself wearing the leader’s jersey in the aftermath of his second-place finish in Stage 2. Note: Stage winner Leonardo Bertagnolli’s results from 2003 to 2011 were disqualified due to issues with his biological passport.

McGee wore red for a total of four days in 2005 until the race entered the mountains in Stage 6.

Heinrich Haussler - 2005 Stage 19 (San Martin de Valdeiglesias to Alcobendas)

Racing as a neo-pro at his first Grand Tour, Heinrich Haussler turned heads in 2005 with his Stage 19 win at La Vuelta.

Racing at the time under a German license (Haussler relinquished his German citizenship in 2010), the man born and raised in Inverell won a four-man long, uphill sprint to the delight of his Gerolsteiner team.

Haussler proved his win was a sign of things to come just two days later in Madrid with a third-place finish to end his debut La Vuelta.

Simon Gerrans – 2009 Stage 10 (Alicante to Murcia)

2009 was a year to remember for the Australian favourite Simon Gerrans, with a stage win at both La Vuelta and the Giro to accompany a win at the Bretagne Classic.

Riding for Cervelo TestTeam, the Melburnian formed part of a 19-man breakaway during Stage 10 to Murcia, which split apart on the second category Col de la Cuesta del Gallo close to the finish.

With the break whittled down to four riders, Gerrans showed patience among a flurry of last-ditch attacks from Ryder Hesjedal to eventually race round the Canadian for a comfortable win.

Gerrans’ win in Murcia also placed him into the rarified air of becoming a stage winner at all three Grand Tours.

Matt Goss – 2010 Stage 1 TTT (Sevilla to Sevilla)

Goss was a member of Team HTC-Columbia 2010 La Vuelta team largely built around Mark Cavendish, who would win a further three stages during the tour.

The Team HTC-Columbia train proved to be the strongest on the opening day of La Vuelta, besting Liquigas-Doimo by 10 seconds at the finish of the 17km TTT in Sevilla.

Chris Sutton – 2011 Stage 2 (La Nucía to Playas De Orihuela)

Chris Sutton outwitted the pure sprinters on the second day of the 2011 La Vuelta to claim the first and only Grand Tour stage win of his career.

Sutton added a huge win to his palmarès courtesy of a savvy sprint finish ahead of Vicente Reynès and Marcel Kittel.

Sutton followed the wheel of Reynes after an early surge by Tom Boonen, who ran out of gas short of the finish line.

Simon Clarke – 2012 Stage 4 (Barakaldo to Estación De Valdezcaray) and 2018 Stage 5 (Granada to Roquetas de Mar)

Dual La Vuelta stage winner Simon Clarke made his first win at the professional level a momentous one, stepping on the top step of a Grand Tour podium after comfortably outsprinting Tony Martin to the line from an original breakaway group of five riders.

Clarke’s 2012 win was the igniter for a successful assault at the polka-dot jersey, which remains Australia’s sole classification glory at La Vuelta.

Australian Cycling Team’s road captain next tasted glory six years later draped in EF Education First-Drapac colours in an elongated cagey finish between himself, Bauke Mollema and Alessandro De Marchi.

In what he described as a flashback to his track cycling days as a junior, Clarke outsprinted his rivals to claim a memorable win.

Michael Matthews – 2013 Stage 5 (Sober to Lago de Sanabria) and Stage 21 (Leganés to Madrid Madrid); 2014 Stage 3 (Cádiz to Arcos de la Frontera)

Adam Hansen – 2014 Stage 19 (Salvaterra de Miño to Cangas de Morrazo)

Although most known for his record of starting and finishing 20 consecutive Grand Tours as well as his cycling engineering ingenuity, Adam Hansen also did some winning during his marvellous career.

The recently retired ironman of the professional peloton claimed the second of his two Grand Tour stage wins at the tail-end of the 2014 La Vuelta in Cangas do Morrazo.

Hansen held an attack with 5km to go from a diminished bunch on a small rise during the middle mountains day to win solo by five seconds.

Caleb Ewan – 2015 Stage 5 (Rota to Alcalá de Guadaíra)

Caleb Ewan’s Grand Tour debut lived up the billing in 2015, with the young pocket rocket claiming his maiden Grand Tour stage win in the streets of Alcalá de Guadaíra.

Led by veteran Mathew Hayman, Orica-GreenEdge led Ewan out perfectly, dropping him off in prime position to overtake John Degenkolb and Peter Sagan.

Ewan has since gone on to win 11 stages at Grand Tours.

Ewan will unfortunately not start this year’s La Vuelta due to a collarbone injury sustained in the Tour de France.

Rohan Dennis – 2017 Stage 1 TTT (Nîmes to Nîmes); 2018 Stage 1 ITT (Malaga to Malaga) and Stage 16 ITT (Santillana del Mar to Torrelavega)

Few things come between Rohan Dennis and a shot at the leader’s jersey in a Stage 1 time trial.

The powerhouse from Adelaide claimed the first of his three La Vuelta stage wins to date as the workhorse of BMC Racing’s 2017 team.

A year later, Dennis would make it back-to-back Stage 1 La Vuelta wins in the short opening ITT in Malaga.

16 days later he was back to the top of the pile in a longer 32km ITT from Santillana del Mar to Torrelavega.

The recent bronze medalist at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics never looked in doubt on the day, winning by a margin of 50 seconds ahead of teammate Joey Rosskopf.

Dennis is just the third Australian to have worn the leader’s jersey at every Grand Tour.

Australians at the 2021 La Vuelta a España

• Jay Vine (Alpecin-Fenix) - Debut
• Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious) - 4th start
• Sebastian Berwick (Israel Start-Up Nation) - Debut
• Lucas Hamilton (Team BikeExchange) - Debut
• Damien Howson (Team BikeExchange) - 5th start
• Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) - 3rd start
• Nick Schultz (Team BikeExchange) - 5th start
• Robert Stannard (Team BikeExchange) - 2nd start
• Chris Hamilton (Team DSM) - 2nd start
• Michael Storer (Team DSM) - 4th start
• Dylan Sunderland (Team Qhubeka NextHash) - Debut

Watch the 2021 La Vuelta a España live, free and in HD on SBS VICELAND and live streamed via SBS On Demand and the SBS ŠKODA Tour Tracker from August 14 - September 5.

Pictures: PhotoGomezSport/La Vuelta

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• Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Best of Moscow by high speed train

By shuguley , February 15, 2014 in Regent Seven Seas Cruises

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Sure would appreciate someone who has taken "Best of Moscow by high speed train" from St. Petersburg could please share their impressions of this shore excursion. From the description this sounds like a very long day.

Wondering how the 4 hour train trip was in terms of accommodations, etc. Also what time did you leave the ship and what time at night did you return? Were both legs of the trip on the high speed rail (I read that slower trains also travel the same tracks)?

My wife and I are considering this excursion. We thought that if we are making all the effort to go to Russia then how could we pass up going to Moscow, walking in Red Square, seeing St. Basil, etc.

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If you are considering this on the 2015 June Baltic cruise on Voyager; my suggestion is don't. There is so much to do in St. Petersburg and although a train is one of my favorite ways to travel the time would be far better spent in St. P.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, this would be on the Voyager during the 2015 season but not yet sure exactly which cruise.

We did the Moscow excursion "on a different luxury line", but from your brief description it sounds very much like the same trip, so I will operate on that assumption. It is a VERY long day! We left the ship at 5:30 AM and returned at 12:30 AM. The highspeed train trip is comfortable, and while they call it "Business Class" it does not compare well to the equivalent class on say Rail Europe. When we did it in 2011, we did have highspeed both ways, and the trip back seemed much longer as the adrenaline and excitement had worn off!:D

Moscow itself is not that terribly different from any other big city in the world, but this Cold War kid never thought he would ever stand in Red Square, never mind walk the grounds of The Kremlin, or tour The Kremlin Palace, or see (but not visit) Lenin's Tomb, or visit The Armoury. But he did, and he loved every minute of it! Yes, it is a long day, and you barely scratch a scratch on the surface, but it is worth it. There is a tremendous amount to see in St. Petersburg, but every Baltic cruise goes to St. Petersburg, so you can go back if you choose to. Not every cruiseline offers you the chance to see Moscow.

I have not personally done this tour, but our last time in St Petersburg, the private guide that we hired for a day was leading the regent tour to Moscow on the high speed train the next day. He said it was way better than the previous alternative, which was flying to Moscow and back. He said that you actually got to Moscow faster because you didn't have to deal with airline checkin etc. it did seem like a very long day to me, and there is so much to see and do in st. Petersburg that I didn't consider doing it.

countflorida

We toured to Moscow from St. Petersburg via the hi-speed SAPSAN train last September, from a Baltic cruise on the Oceania Marina. You need to have a two-night, three day port call in St. Petersburg to take this tour because the tour typically leaves the ship around 5:00 - 5:30 AM and doesn't return until after midnight the next day. We didn't take the ship's tour; we made private arrangements with TravelAllRussia for three days of touring, the first and third days in St. Petersburg and the second day the tour to Moscow by train. Our cost for the private tour for three days was about the same as what the ship charged for the excursion to Moscow alone. There are a number of private tour agencies that operate in St. Petersburg and offer the Moscow train tours; we would strongly recommend them over the ship's tours.

All three days had private guides with car and driver. The second day, the driver picked us up at the ship and took us to the train, but we were alone on the train, and met in Moscow by the guide on the station platform. After our tour and dinner, we were brought back to the train and after the return train trip met by the driver and taken back to the ship. Because you are alone on the train you must have your own Russian visas.

If this is your first visit to St. Petersburg, I would agree there is much more to see there. We found Moscow somewhat a disappointment, particularly Red Square. The Kremlin and the cathedral in Red Square were also worth seeing. But the best thing we saw was the Moscow subway! I worked for the Washington Metro system back in the 1980s as it grew from 40 to 80 miles and although I was in the computer area, I learned a lot about the challenges of running a subway system. We used the Moscow system to get across the city from where we had dinner to the train station, and I was amazed at the cleanliness', speed of operation, the short headways maintained, and the courtesy of everyone involved. A very impressive experience!

We had been to St. Petersburg before, and so had the time to take a day and go to Moscow. Also, I really like trains, and the SAPSAN is a German train set running on Russian rails. Seats are like first class domestic air, spacious but not too plush or comfortable, but with enough room. Not too much recline, and almost 8 hours on the train in two shots is a lot for an old man. They come through and sell drinks, candy, etc. but the sellers don't speak English and no one around us helped, so we had just poor coffee once coming, and brought stuff with us for the trip back. Not too much to see from the train either, particularly on the return when it is night the whole way.

If you decide to go, take a private tour and avoid the overly expensive ship's tour. I'm glad we did it, but wouldn't bother to repeat the tour; we've seen Moscow.

Thanks so much to all of you for the thorough and thought insight. Yhe information you have provided is most helpful.

countflorida: Your detailed post is very helpful. We are not quite ready for a Baltic cruise but should do so within a year. Time enough to do our pre travel research, bookings and visa gathering.:) Thank you!

Emperor Norton

Sure would appreciate someone who has taken "Best of Moscow by high speed train" from St. Petersburg could please share their impressions of this shore excursion. From the description this sounds like a very long day.   Wondering how the 4 hour train trip was in terms of accommodations, etc. Also what time did you leave the ship and what time at night did you return? Were both legs of the trip on the high speed rail (I read that slower trains also travel the same tracks)?   My wife and I are considering this excursion. We thought that if we are making all the effort to go to Russia then how could we pass up going to Moscow, walking in Red Square, seeing St. Basil, etc.

I did this on Seabourn. IMO DONT. Take Aeroflop (er Aeroflot). The train has non folding seats where you are literally knee to knee with your fellow passenger (facing each other). Further they don't believe in air conditioning. It's also the worlds slowed bullet train. I think I would have found more enjoyment wandering around the St. Petersburg and Moscow airports.

Countflorida,

This is a little off topic,, however we had planned a river cruise in Russia but decided we would rather stay on land and have booked about two weeks with Travel-All-Russia using the private guide and driver. I'm curious as to how you found them as a tour company.

The guides they provided were fine. We had a different guide each of the days in St. Petersburg, but both were flexible, pleasant, knowledgeable and spoke English very well, as did the guide in Moscow, incidentally. She was a bit aloof, distant, not too friendly, but otherwise fine. In fact, she was the one who suggested taking the Metro, which unexpectedly became one of the highlights of the Moscow excursion. If I have a complaint with AllTravelRussia, it is with their plan and its execution (more later).

I had requested emphasis on World War II (in Russia, the Great Patriotic War) sites and info. In scheduling us, they weren't careful about dates and a couple of the sites we wanted to see were scheduled on the third day, after we'd been to Moscow. But both sites were closed that day of the week, and that info was readily available, right on web sites describing them. Also, the included meals (lunches in St. Pete, dinner in Moscow) were not what we asked for: light meals with some choices, so we could avoid things we didn't like and choose things we did like. My request was ignored; we were given full Russian meals with a fixed menu, no choice. On the first day, a fish dish was the entre, but I am allergic to fish. Fortunately, I had the e-mail I'd sent with me and showed it to the guide, and she was able to change my entre to chicken, which was very good actually. But we didn't want a 3-4 course lunches or dinner (in Moscow). We had the guide drop the lunch the third day, although we never got any credit or refund. But, particularly in contrast to the ship's tours, the prices were so reasonable we didn't worry too much about it.

The people who were on the ship's tour to Moscow saw us boarding the same train for which they were forced to queue up and wait on the way back, and asked us what we had done. I was candid and open so they were not happy when I explained what we had arranged and particularly what it had cost. Also, when we returned to the ship, we found they had laid on a late supper for those who had gone to Moscow, so up we went and had something. Well, it turns out the late supper was supposed to be just for those on the ship's tour, but we and others on 'independent' tours, there were a dozen or more of us, crashed the party, actually got there first, and they didn't realize it until the larger group arrived and there weren't enough tables/places set. By that time, the 'independents' had all gotten served and were eating; what could they do?

A couple from the larger group sat down with us and asked us about our tour, and they were the ones I told about our arrangement and its cost. They turned to others who’d been with them and announced the details, loudly enough so the whole room heard, which started a lot of bitching and complaining. I gathered they weren't very happy with the ship's tour to begin with, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. We finished up and beat it out of there, but overheard later that one of the excursion staff came to check on something and ran into a real mess. I caught a cold on the trip, which forced me to bed the second day following in Tallinn, so by the time we reappeared we heard about the contretemps' but apparently no one recalled who started it, thankfully.

Because of what happened to us, I would probably not use AllTravelRussia if I were to go again, or if I did, I would be sure to get confirmation of every detail of the tour. They do have good reviews generally, and we were certainly helped by their visa department and liked the guides and drivers. Their weakness, I say now with full 20:20 hindsight, is that once the sales person who plans the tour, sells it to you and collects your money, he (or she) transfers the plan to their Russia office for implementation; there is no follow-up to make sure it gets done right. And that is where our problems arose; we paid for a custom tour but got a standard package with a few destinations switched, and no one checked them out, even to see when they were open the day we were scheduled to go. If you check every detail that’s important to you, it should be OK, but that’s a hell of a way to have to do business, in my opinion.

Thank you for the 20/20 hindsight observation on your Russian tour operator, and better priced than the ship's excursion cost.

Thanks very much for the feedback.

We had the same experience as you so far as price. We originally booked a Viking Cruise but, hearing some things about the river cruises that made us unhappy, looked into other options. T-A-R cost the same or less than a cruise and had us in hotels for 11 days. We opted for the private tour. They have three tour levels, based on hotels. We originally opted for the four star as it did not cost much more than the three star hotels. Finally we decided to throw it all in and upgraded to five star. In Moscow we will be at the newly opened Kempinsky which is two blocks from Red Square. In St. Petersburg it is the Grand Hotel Europe, one of the most vaunted luxury hotels in Russia. Location is important for us as the tours use up only part of the day so being in the center of everything for our independent touring is important. As with many other cities, the less you pay, the farther out of the center of town you are.

We have been working with our salesman in D.C. and he seems to get back to us with the changes we want. He recently returned from Russia so is up on everything. When I asked they said they paid the full TA commission if I wanted so I got my usual TA on board so he is watching our back and giving us that extra level of comfort. He also set up our air, which I know pays him little or nothing, and got us business class for much less than T-A-R wanted for economy, though it took working for a while with a consolidator. He's happy to get his 10 percent on this trip without having booked it. He also took care of the trip insurance. We've been doing a lot of research on the CC sister site Trip Advisor and will write a report there. We will, I guess, become a source of info for CC members after having spent 5 days in Moscow and 6 in SP.

• 4 months later...

scubacruiserx2

Anybody considering a day trip to Moscow from St. Petersburg on the Sapsan may want to look at our travelogue filled with pictures.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1927687

Very informative. Thanks dor sharing. Jeff

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Put-in tours

Original tour agency in moscow and st petersburg..

Onboard a Soviet van!

Welcome to Russia!

We are Sergey and Simon, a Russian and a Frenchman, both  passionate about Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and classic cars. Together, we have created Put-in tours. Our goal is to help you experience Russian culture off the beaten path. Join us onboard our classic Soviet van and let’s get rolling!

In Moscow we offer you a city tour to discover most of the city in an original way as well as a night tour to admire the lights. Our pubcrawl is ideal to explore Moscow’s night-life and have fun. If you are craving to discover Russian culture, come impress your senses during our monastery diner or join our 100% Russian Banya Excursion . The latest will also bring you to Sergiyev Posad and it’s famous monastery!

For the most extreme travellers, our shooting tour will deliver your daily dose of adrenaline whereas our tank excursion will let you ride a real tank and shoot a bazooka.

We also offer help to receive your visa , safe and multilingual airport transfers , as well as organisation services for team-building events or bachelor parties .

All our excursions (but the monastery diner) happen onboard our Soviet military vans and can be covered by our  professionnal photographer or videographer.

In Saint Petersburg

We welcome you in Saint Petersburg onboard our Soviet van to discover the imperial city with our city tour and night tour .

Continue your discovery in style! The adrenaline lovers will like our shooting tour  which brings 3 Russian weapons to the tip of your trigger finger.

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At Put-in tours, we put you in our classic Soviet vans to go explore Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Russian culture off the beaten path. Discover our Moscow city guided tour, visit Moscow by night, join our banya & Sergiyev Posad excursion, visit and dine in one of Moscow's oldest monastery or even Luzhniki stadium, before you party on our famous pubcrawl! Original and atypical tours : Shoot AK47 and a bazooka after riding on a tank with our tank & bazooka excursion ! Extreme tours: Fly a fighter jet in Moscow onboard a L-29 or L-39 aircraft!

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Moscú de la Revolución

Jueves, 28 de julio de 2016, "oxygen in moscow": el concierto de música más multitudinario de la historia.

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