Diane Rudis Review of Mir
Very sad to say that our anniversary trip was a se...
Very sad to say that our anniversary trip was a series of disappointments. Our goal was to use our Russian visas before they expire in a few months. We really wanted to see the Peterhof palace. We worked with Kevin Testa at Mir, providing us with an itinerary we requested to also see Lithuania and Latvia before heading to St. Petersburg. He sent us a revised itinerary just days before we left but did not tell us what had changed. We booked all of this 6 months in advance.
We soon found out the hotel in Vilnius was changed. We checked into the Artis hotel instead of the Shakespeare hotel. The Shakespeare hotel is much nicer and has a better location to the old town sites. We were disappointed in that plus the management at the Artis was horrible. We did not have AC in our room and we called immediately to ask to have someone repair it. They told us, they couldn t do that until the following day. After traveling all day and sleeping in a sauna. We decided to go to the brand new Marriott, and ask MIR to reimburse us. They tried to tell us it was more expensive when it was actually 20 euros a night cheaper.
Then our guide in Vilnius, skipped taking us to the tower in the old town, no acknowledgment or apology from MIR.
Then in Riga, our itinerary indicated a full day guide and car to various sites. First, the guide rushes us through the sites and we are done at 2 pm each day. Then he describes each site as though he is dismissive to the significance as we ve seen it before. In fact most of his comments were negative and then he tries to stereotype all Americans as pushy like New Yorkers. By the 3 day of touring with him, I dreaded getting into the car to listen to him.
Then we head to St. Petersburg. We booked 2 days of touring and the first was excellent. We had seen the hermitage before and enjoyed it the 2 nd time. The next day they take us to the Peterhof, but we only saw the gardens. We were hugely disappointed and complained. The Russian team at MIr did s nice job of redeeming themselves, but we have no confidence in the Seattle team.
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