To my great surprise, as far as I can tell, there isn't any information on the Internet about the Neptune Internet Cafe located in Terminal 2 of the Marine Facade Complex (cruise ship and ferry complex) in St. Petersburg, Russia. This blog entry will give a little information on the cafe and the terminal. I personally visited this terminal during a port call at St. Petersburg, Russia from 29 to 31 July 2015 while cruising on Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas.
The Marine Facade Complex is located 3 miles northwest of the city center (source: cruiseportwiki.com/StPetersburg) in an area of the city that is being developed by city authorities. I personally saw a number of new buildings close to the complex. The complex was finished in 2008 and comprises of 7 berths which serve 3 cruise ship terminals and 1 ferry terminal (terminal 3) (source: www.passengerport-mf.spb.ru/en/).
According to the Marine Facade Complex webpage (www.passengerport-mf.spb.ru/en/), all of the terminals have a cafe so, all of them may offer Internet service though I can only vouch for the cafe at terminal 2 which I personally used.
The Neptune Internet Cafe is located on the 2nd floor of terminal 2. It's a small cafe offering WiFi access for a fee and a selection of drinks (I didn't buy any so I can tell you how much they cost). I don't remember if they offered any food for sale. The cafe accepts U.S. dollars, Euros and Russian rubles (I didn't note what the charges were in Russian rubles). WiFi charges were:
$3/3 Euros for 1 hour
$5/5 Euros for 2 hours
$8/8 Euros for 24 hours continuous service
The cafe offered better WiFi prices than what were offered on Serenade of the Seas and had better connection speeds though I didn't have a meter to see just how fast the connection speeds were. I don't remember if they had terminals for use if you didn't have a WiFi capable device.
Concerning connecting to their WiFi, once you paid for how ever long you wanted to connect to their WiFi, they gave you a ticket with a username and password. The ticket told you how long you would be able to connect to the WiFi and the fee you'd paid. Lastly, there was a time limit in which you had to activate your account by. I don't know what would happen if you didn't activate it in time.
One drawback to using the cafe were the tough Russian customs rules. If you were on a cruise ship, you could visit St. Petersburg (for no more than 72 hours) without a tourist visit ($100 U.S., good for 2 years) but, you had to show a tour ticket to the Russian customs officer at the terminal. Otherwise, you weren't allowed to pass through the terminal and, you had to get through customs to be able to get to the Neptune Internet Cafe.
Another drawback is there aren't any other alternatives to the Neptune Internet Cafe that are close to the terminal. The cruiseportwiki.com/StPetersburg webpage has a picture of the Marine Facade Complex which if you click on the view larger map offers some excellent pictures of the complex and the area close to it. You'll see from the pictures there isn't much close by.
According to the Marine Facade Complex (see previously mentioned webpage), authorities do run buses (bus number 158) to terminal 3. If you click on directions on that webpage, they give a bus schedule. The bus runs to the Primorskaya Metro Station. Also, according to the webpage, taxis run from all the terminals though I don't have any idea how much a taxi or the bus would cost you.
Overall, I was really pleased with the Neptune Internet Cafe. The people running it were very courteous, the connection speeds were very good and, their prices were better than what were offered on my cruise ship. I would definitely recommend it and, I give it a thumbs up. I hope to use it again when I visit St. Petersburg again some time in the future. Happy Internet surfing all!
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