[Seasu]

For anyone planning on travelling next year, you may want to use this trick we used on our travel. As you know hotels in Moscow are pretty pricey. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott in Moscow, and the best "adoption" or discounted rate we could get quoted was over 300 per night (plus taxes and fees). What we did to solve this was we joined their rewards program. You can purchase extra points to use as a reward if you don't have enough in your account. Starting with 0 points we bought 38,000 points on my rewards account and 20,000 on my wife's. 1 night is 20,000 points, 2 nights is 38,000 points, 3 nights is 55,000. Note: you can only purchase 50,000 points per year on your account. By purchasing the points and redeeming them instead of paying the quoted rate, it ended up being about 235 per night (no taxes or fees).

If you think you will be staying there, it might be helpful to purchase some points before the end of the year, since you can only purchase 50,000 in a calendar year. We got around this by setting up a rewards acct for me and one for my wife. I wasn't sure how well that was going to work, as we ended up with 2 separate reservations, but it worked out ok.

As an added benefit, the Couryard has a small play room with a few toys to help keep the kids occupied during your stay. We ended up meeting a couple of other couples there who were also adopting.

The restaraunts are ok, but pricey. There is a MacDonalds a couple blocks away if you really need one, and Red Square is about 5 minutes walk.

[kretzklan]

That's a really great idea! I'm not traveling again - but we did spring for the suite (there were 5 of us) and that gets you into the "courtesy room" where they do food for breakfast, lunch and dinner - we saved a TON by eating there all three meals every day. It was the regular Marriott...so if you have a larger group and want to spread out - go for the suite (a full bedroom and a HUGE living room with two pull out sofa beds) and save that food money!

[Theatrenerd]

I was wondering if anyone has rented an apartment for your stay maybe not on the first trip but on the longer second trip I was looking at Apartments in St. Petersburg Russia Visas Tours apartment im not sure if im allowed to post that but any way i was looking at her apartment rentals in st pete and was wondering what anyone else thought of it.

[Jessi_76]

WOW!!! What a fan-freaking-tastic IDEA!!!!!! We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott and LOVED it!!!! It was beautiful, well located to Red Square, and everyone was super friendly, nice, helpful, and spoke PERFECT English!!! And the restaurants on-site (although expensive) and playroom were lots of fun, and convenient. However, we stayed in the heart of August and paid almost $500 per night. Yikes! But, such is Moscow, right?! I wouldn't trade it...it was perfect and VERY safe. Just what we wanted. And, we met several other adopting families while staying there.