Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
Unless this has changed very recently, you can get an "expedited" visa on a USA passport in the USA in much less than six weeks, although it costs more. Most ot the visa service agencies that help with Russian visas offer expedited service where you FedEx your materials to them and they then submit the stuff the morning of the next business day at the assigned consulate. Depending on how much you're willing to pay, the visa service people then retrieve your passport with the visa a couple days later and FedEx it back to you. Obviously some of the visa service agencies are better and more reliable than others, and some (not surprisingly) seem to have contacts at consulates and even standing appointments to submit the applications they receive ASAP.
The Russia government delegated, Russia Visa Center finally replied my email telling me it is 5 weeks minimum, plus it can only be handled at either DC or Houston location. The reputation of the processing agency from the TripAdvisor site, is far less than stellar. A lot of the hold up is between the Visa Center (was VFS up till Jan 2020. In 2018 it was yet another company.) and the Embassy / Consulates. People reporting they had to call the Embassy / Consulates to find out whether their applications have been submitted, and then follow up with the agency, regardless what they paid. In fact there are NO expedite option with the Visa Center itself, but the Embassy / Consulate when applied In Person, have expedite service which costs the same as ordinary process, believe or not.
We are not that keen to go thru the motion especially we have been in St. Petersburg in the past, 6 days stay as a part of a much bigger European land trip a few years ago. This is just a convenient revisit.
The additional $300+ per person plus having to mail out our passports than waiting for them to send back in time to arrive save and sound, is totally NOT worth it to us.
It would be infinitely better to just forgo the port, either disembark a day earlier at Tallinn, or switch to the same itinerary Princess also sells, but 3 days shorter, disembark at the port at Germany, either Warnemunde or the nearby industrial port of Rostock.
This switch should not have issue as this is an itinerary Princess also sells as disembarkation port, and is still selling it - so there would be immigration at the dock for disembarked passengers. The port of Tallinn is not a disembarkation port but the port before St. Petersburg - I can see it may post an issue due to no formal immigration procedure at the port...
I hadn't thought about the switch before requesting the Change of Itinerary. Now will wait till what Princess decision is, after the 10 business days passed. I should have proposed the switch from the beginning even though it will still take the official 10 to 14 business days to get a decision from the legal dept but that switch should be a no brainer hence decision would be much easier to reach.