It's interesting to hear people are making their base in Moscow instead of staying in the other cities. By the time you add up the flights (to and from) and then the accommodation being slightly more expensive, it doesn't really add up for me. I think I'll be in Moscow 3-4 days max. Is anybody planning on staying the full 4 weeks?
If you don't mind me asking, how much is that setting you back? Are you flying in and out to other cities or just watching in Moscow's two stadiums + STP?
Just Moscow. Just train to St.P. the fast one. So maybe $100 for each of us each way. The flight from JFK to Moscow was less than $800 per person. I paid a bit more to make them cancelable other wise it would have been in the low-mid $700. Hotel will hopefully be $2600 or less for 20 nights. Even at $3k is ok. Because I've paid $2600 for 8 nights in Rio for Carnaval for an apartment, so I'm using those figures as my base. Problem is lack of choices. Two stadiums in Moscow and plenty of games to go to and things to do. I didn't plan as well for this one since it was kind of last minute decision on our end.
4 nights in St petersburg, 5 in Moscow and then 2 in Nizhny. I'd be bored if I stayed in the same place.
W Hotel in St. P is leaving SPG/Marriott next month. So confirmed booking on points are gone...that’s a bummer for those that got lucky..or thought so.
24 days split between Moscow, Kaliningrad, Kazan, and Saint Petersburg plus day trip to Nizhny Novgorod. Accommodation booked in hostels or budget hotels (but still central locations) looks to be approx €621 ($765 USD) if there are no cancellations, although I think closer to the time if the prices go down in April/May one of the weeks will be in a hotel (just waiting for the perfect deal). The figure also includes a night where I have paid for accommodation in two cities. What was originally just going to be a cheap trip to Kaliningrad to see one or two matches turned into much more
I'm in St. Petersburg 21-27 June, having a difficult time finding a good hotel for the whole 6 nights so I don't have to switch.
Still a lot of time left and I think rooms will continue to open up. My first choice is to stay in a hotel, so I'll keep waiting and looking hoping to get lucky for my other 2 nights. I don't mind one hotel swap during my week there.
Flying into St Petersburg at 1am,grabbing a few hours kip,something to eat a couple of beers then onto the stadium
not sure if you were implying you are looking for some but I think I might have a pair of Cat 1s for sale if youre interested
I'll find out in a few weeks if i got my cat 3 tickets. But do the tickets not have to be under my name?
Has anyone ever had a problem with booking.com? How should I proceed? The thing is, I booked a property for six persons with a nice price (probably not World Cup price yet), but now I just received an email, in russian (he didn't even wrote in English), of the property owner, saying that the price was listed incorrect, and the actual price was supposed to be 6x more than the price I got. The owner asked me to cancel the reservation and make a new one, with the "correct" prices. Can he cancel the reservation or just me? The reservation still up. If he was asking me to pay twice as much or anything reasonable, I would even consider, but paying six times that's just too greedy...how bad! I'm just afraid of showing up at the place and the owner tries to charge whatever he wants! Any thoughts? ps: payment is on arrival
Pretty much we have all been there. It will be hard for them to cancel so eff them and tell them to cancel it. Don't count on this place and start looking for something different. Otherwise just cancel on the last possible day you can without any fee. Let them sweat it out.
All this really beggars belief and shows the local hoteliers in an appalling light. I don't think I would risk just turning up as clearly these people have no morals whatsoever and would be more that tell you where to go on arrival. Is there a chatline for bent Russian hoteliers as they all seem to come up with the same old crap about incorrect pricing and computer failure. I am so longing for them to not sell their properties throughout the WC. They so deserve it.
That old apartment I mentioned earlier up thread, well some poor desperate soul booked some nights for $1000 a night. Shame really. Because it validates greed.
Yeah ******** thrk over. If they don't have your credit csrd details I'd tell them you will pay on arrival and then ******** them over a few days before.
We're feeling your pain as well as everyone else's on this thread. We have a group of 7 people, booked hotels before the team draw - once the US failed to qualify, we picked dates and places and got our game tix through the first FCFS session. We are going to three different cities, have had a cancellation in all three cities, all of the reservations made through Booking.com. Had similar problems with one stay in Brazil , but nothing like this. Booking found us a replacement room (s) for one of the cancelled reservations, and covered the cost difference -- but its not as nice as the original one. They have a special World Cup team that speaks Russian, so they will try to sort out any issues if you go directly to them and get a manager.
Taganskaya Hotel in Yekatetinburg...where I had booked before but they canceled my shit, I complained to Booking.com and they said it was a legit problem with the hotel, and they let me book again at the previously booked price. $65 for the night.
Thanks A LOT for the tip!!! I'm definitely going to talk to their Russian team and try to solve it! Just out of curiosity, what happened to your other 2 cancelled reservations? Booking weren't able to find a replacement?