The Marine Façade cruise port — seven berths, 665,000 passengers in its last full season — has slept since 2022, while the Neva’s excursion fleet and the Meteor hydrofoils carry the city’s water traffic.
The Passenger Port “Marine Façade” on Vasilyevsky Island was built to be the Baltic’s great cruise gateway: seven berths on reclaimed land, a straight run to the Gulf of Finland. In 2019 it handled 665,000 cruise passengers. Calls stopped in 2022 and the terminals have been quiet since; the berths, the border-control halls and the shuttle logistics remain in place for whenever the lines return.
For now, the port’s practical role is domestic and regional: ferries, cargo and the occasional event vessel, while the cruise calendar sits at zero.
What has never stopped is the city water. Meteor hydrofoils run from the Palace Embankment to Peterhof in about thirty minutes — the fastest and most beautiful transfer in the city — and dozens of excursion boats loop the Neva and the canals from April to November, with the drawbridge night runs as the signature product.
River-station berths concentrate on the Palace and Admiralty embankments; tickets are sold pier-side and online, and in high season the popular loops sell out by midday.
Think of St. Petersburg’s water in two layers. The sea layer — Marine Façade, the big cruise ships — is on pause, and no itinerary you build today should assume it. The river layer is fully alive and is the single best-value experience in the city: take the Meteor to Peterhof in the morning (book the first boat, beat the palace crowds, arrive by water as the tsars intended) and a night bridge-opening cruise on the way back. One practical note: the Meteor leaves from the Palace Embankment pier by the Hermitage — combine it with the museum day, not against it, and you save both a taxi and an hour.
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