St. Petersburg tours

[MeMawNM]

We are planning to take the Northern European cruise next year. My question about St. Petersburg is will there be time for two tours since we are in port for so long? We are looking at two Disney tours that are 3-4 hours and would like to do both of them. Possible.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We are planning to take the Northern European cruise next year. My question about St. Petersburg is will there be time for two tours since we are in port for so long? We are looking at two Disney tours that are 3-4 hours and would like to do both of them. Possible.

As long as there's 2 hours difference in the return time of the first excursion and the start time of the second, DCL usually will let you book two tours in a port.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We are planning to take the Northern European cruise next year. My question about St. Petersburg is will there be time for two tours since we are in port for so long? We are looking at two Disney tours that are 3-4 hours and would like to do both of them. Possible.

So best advice...

Russian border control is strict, and there can be long queues. You do not want to go through it more then you require, then the port us built on reclaimed land, and about 30 minutes drive to/ from the very closest part of the city and an hour to places like Catherines palace and the Peterhoff.

So, if you do two DCL tours you will loose over two hours, going back at the end if one, going through immigration, back on, then meet up, get off, go through border control, and drive back to the city. It us nit a good idea.

I have been to StPetersburg a number of times, I have used, http://anastasia.travel/, for two days, each time I have gone. I have advised many here to do this, many on my cruise meets threads for the Baltic, and everyone, said and responded it was the best decision they made.

St Petersburg is wonderful, so much to see, do not loose two hours if your time there on two DCL tours, but book one tour with Anastasia tailored to what you want to see, if you do not know ask them for advice.

I have seen people post here re DCL tours, " I spent 8 hours looking st the inside of a bus" and here'd like sheep in the hermitage. With Anastasia, the CEO met us past border control, she organised visa free immigration, as if your on a cruise and your there less than three days, and book with an reputable travel agent there, you do not need a visa. DCL often misinforms on that.

Anastasia get you top model mini vans SUVs and everyone can see, immigration was easy, then your off, no returning, I planned a day your, and added a night tour including a canal boat and a visit to the Faberge museum, and eating in local residents restaurants. My guides gave been fantastic, and fir my family Anastasia was cheaper than the combined cost of DCL tours for my family, but we saw far far more, even st the hermitage they buy and courier your entrance tickets to the back foot, no queuing, and the tour there try's to avoid the cruise tours, and you will have maybe four large cruise ships in the port.

You have booked a fantastic cruise, endure you tour the Jewel of St Petersburg correctly, do look at my trip report, link in my signature line , To Russia with Mickey bars.

To book DCL tours sane day, you need two hours between them, but you may get ten minutes to have a bite to eat on ship before meeting back up. That's stress and missed time you do not need.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

http://torussiawithmickeybars.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[aggiedog]

We used TJ tours for our 8 member family. It was significantly cheaper that the cost of two tours, we got to do and see way more things, and got to eat dinner at a great mom and pop restaurant out in town. There are several tour companies that do private or semi-private tours for cruisers, and who have it down pat. It seems daunting to arrange it yourself, but honestly it was easy and so much better. We did the DCL Baltic cruise last year, and I hedged our bets with two private tours and two DCL tours. Our whole family agreed the private tours were superior to the DCL tours, hands down, by a wide margin. TJ, Alla, Anastasia, are all mentioned as common tour companies. I contacted all of them, and went with the one that communicated promptly and was willing to tailor our day to fit our 9-72 age range. Best decision ever.

 

[doriemg]

I have to agree with DISNEY FANTASY's comments. I'm one of the people he advised about using Anastasia and it was wonderful. I'm so glad we took his advice and went with Anastasia Travel Group. It's basically a private tour and they'll customize your itinerary to see most anything you want, within reason. We booked a full day tour and then added an evening canal cruise before we went back to the ship. Our guide, Tatiana, spoke almost perfect English and was very knowledgeable and friendly. She also knew little tricks for getting us ahead of all the bus tour groups so while they were waiting in line, we went on ahead. If I ever make it back to St. Petersburg again, I wouldn't hesitate to book with Anastasia. Look them up on Trip Advisor and read the reviews from all of their happy customers. Just to let you know, our tour consisted of a driving tour of St. Petersburg with several stops, a trip to Catherine's Palace, a trip to Peterhof Gardens, a hydrofoil boat ride back to St. Petersburg, a tour of the Hermitage, a tour of the Church of the Savoir of the Spilled Blood, and a private boat ride along the canals and when I say private I mean we were the only people on the boat. Our driver even made a stop at a bank so we could exchange US dollars for Rubles and Tatiana went into the bank with my husband to translate for him. All in all, it ended up being 12 hours. We left the ship at 8:30am and got back at 8:00pm. If you decide to go with Anastasia, ask for Tatiana. She was awesome! Good luck and I'm sure you'll enjoy any tour you book. St. Petersburg is an awesome city and very rich in history.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

don't do the Disney tours. You'll waste a good deal of time going back to the ship between tours. Book with a private company. You will see much more and it will probably cost you less.

There are a number of reputable tour companies operating in St. Petersburg, check with them regarding the best price and tour for you. I've used SpB Tours twice.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

I have to agree with DISNEY FANTASY's comments. I'm one of the people he advised about using Anastasia and it was wonderful. I'm so glad we took his advice and went with Anastasia Travel Group. It's basically a private tour and they'll customize your itinerary to see most anything you want, within reason. We booked a full day tour and then added an evening canal cruise before we went back to the ship. Our guide, Tatiana, spoke almost perfect English and was very knowledgeable and friendly. She also knew little tricks for getting us ahead of all the bus tour groups so while they were waiting in line, we went on ahead. If I ever make it back to St. Petersburg again, I wouldn't hesitate to book with Anastasia. Look them up on Trip Advisor and read the reviews from all of their happy customers. Just to let you know, our tour consisted of a driving tour of St. Petersburg with several stops, a trip to Catherine's Palace, a trip to Peterhof Gardens, a hydrofoil boat ride back to St. Petersburg, a tour of the Hermitage, a tour of the Church of the Savoir of the Spilled Blood, and a private boat ride along the canals and when I say private I mean we were the only people on the boat. Our driver even made a stop at a bank so we could exchange US dollars for Rubles and Tatiana went into the bank with my husband to translate for him. All in all, it ended up being 12 hours. We left the ship at 8:30am and got back at 8:00pm. If you decide to go with Anastasia, ask for Tatiana. She was awesome! Good luck and I'm sure you'll enjoy any tour you book. St. Petersburg is an awesome city and very rich in history.

Thank you, - I know they will look after everyone, so hence I am very passionate about this subject, any cruisers booking a wonderful cruise that includes St Petersburg, should at the very least, consider this, as the advantages are awesome, and there is so much to see, you do not want to travel there and queue long times in the hermitage or queue in/out of border control for day and night DCL tours, or be herded in a group of 55, when you can be a small group, have a personal guide, and skip lines, all have a good view out of the vehicle, and ( typically) for a family cheaper than DCL.

Thank you for that endorsement.

The thing is DCL does a great job of making new cruisers to StP think they cant get private tours or make them think you need visas, all not true.

Its just you cannot get off on your own without a full visa, it has to be a DCL tour or an authorized StP tour operator, not DIY.

Many photos and even helicopter videos including the port and city on my blog.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

apparently it is typical of the cruise lines to make it sound like US visitors and UK visitors especially cannot disembark in St. Petersburg unless they have arranged a tour through the cruise line. Not really true. A private tour company will do the same for you without the bulk volume. I know I am talking about the difference between a group of 50-60 on a large bus and a group of 12-16 in a smaller van.

Don't let them tell you that you have to wait to disembark in Russia until after all the ship's tours have left, either.

My second visit was a private tour for 4. It was more expensive than arranging a group (and a good tour company will help place you with a group of up to 16 if you want to defray costs) but it was definitely worth every cent.

 

[kiford]

We used the DCL tours last year and did a tour on the first day of the Hermitage, returned to the ship and then did a boat tour down the Neva in the evening at about 7 pm. Then the next day we did a longer tour which went to the Hermitage again and then to Catherine's palace. All three were great tours; we saw a lot of St. Petersburg and had two completely different tours of the Hermitage with only a very small overlap between the two days. We had a couple of hours between the two tours on the first day. We had plenty of time to rest and change before going back out again. I didn't find the time to be wasted at all. I wanted to relax after walking the Hermitage for a few hours and give me feet a chance to recover. It also gave us an opportunity to grab a snack before the evening cruise because we missed dinner (we had late dining). Fortunately, the ship had a buffet in Topsiders (now Cabanas) because so many people had evening tours and missed dinner so we were able to have a full dinner at 10:30 after returning to the ship.

Getting off the ship for the second tour was much faster than the first time. As was the second day. Although be prepared for a very slow time for the first exit. Our tour left about 90 minutes later than originally scheduled because of that although I would guess that they are prepared for that and schedule you to gather much earlier than they really think you need to.

 

[Jeanwill]

I would also recommend Tatiana from Anastasia. We learned so much from this extremely bright woman. We have a lot of questions when we travel, and she had all the answers. Our St. Petersburg experience would not have included half of the things we did had we used only Disney excursions. Tatiana knows how to navigate the city and circumvent the lines to make the most efficient use of your port time. You will be able to do so much more this way. One year later and our family still talks about our two days in St. Petersburg with Tatiana. Probably the best tour guide we have ever had!

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

apparently it is typical of the cruise lines to make it sound like US visitors and UK visitors especially cannot disembark in St. Petersburg unless they have arranged a tour through the cruise line. Not really true. A private tour company will do the same for you without the bulk volume. I know I am talking about the difference between a group of 50-60 on a large bus and a group of 12-16 in a smaller van.

Don't let them tell you that you have to wait to disembark in Russia until after all the ship's tours have left, either.

My second visit was a private tour for 4. It was more expensive than arranging a group (and a good tour company will help place you with a group of up to 16 if you want to defray costs) but it was definitely worth every cent.

Fully agree.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

I would also recommend Tatiana from Anastasia. We learned so much from this extremely bright woman. We have a lot of questions when we travel, and she had all the answers. Our St. Petersburg experience would not have included half of the things we did had we used only Disney excursions. Tatiana knows how to navigate the city and circumvent the lines to make the most efficient use of your port time. You will be able to do so much more this way. One year later and our family still talks about our two days in St. Petersburg with Tatiana. Probably the best tour guide we have ever had!

I have found the guides I have had from them great, whoever allocated, thry are all very knowledgeable.

 

[aggiedog]

Ok, if we're going to compare tours. We were there for one day. We stopped at the Rostral Towers, the Hermitage (front of the line), the Church of the Spilled Blood (went inside - a must, it is stunning), lunch at Teremok (the McDonalds of blinis in Russia), the Cat Museum (for my kids), hydrofoil to Peterhof gardens, the van met us there to drive us back into town which I liked better than the hydrofoil. Seeing the neighborhoods was really interesting. We walked Nevsky Prospekt, stopped for coffee and ice cream at a cafe, did a bit of souvenir shopping, then dinner at Teplo where we had a very good, very cheap meal with a delightful waitress who thought it was fantastic we wanted to try food "like her grandma used to make." We had a guide, Nina, who was great, and a driver for a 12 passenger van for the 8 of us. For dinner, our guide offered to stay but we were fine without her. Our driver sat in the van outside until we were ready to go back to the ship. It was a long, very interesting day. Again, our private tour was well worth it.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

These is ours,

Now bump everything up at least an hour and a half we were docked and cleared for immigration by 8 am, this occured in 2010 as well. We went through border control before the tour groups, Anastasia the CEO was already there, and our guide and we were off by 8.15 so we added more later. We had a longer lunch. The canal tour was private just us. The helicopter ride was longer at least an hour.

Do note some places like the Saviour of spilt blood, are not open on certain days, Peterhoff fountains start at 11 am, Catherines place has early entry for some cruise tours but the full palace is not open, and it maybe better later. We went in when it had gone quieter.

Yusoffs Palace is often overlooked but is great, not to be missed the home of Rasputin.grewt old theatre in it.

Faberge museum also us not to be missed, but never ever break anything there!
http://torussiawithmickeybars.blogspot.co.uk/

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

 

[Chirple]

Hi, we took the DCL Baltics cruise last year. It was a 7 night cruise so we did not overnight in St. Petersburg. Here's a link to what we did in the ports and a detailed list of how we customized the 2 day package from Anastasia into one day (with a 50% discount): http://disboards.com/threads/just-b...se-any-questions.3417113/page-4#post-53812101.

 

[JoieNsk]

We are booked for Northern Europe cruise next summer, but not with Disney - with NCL, as their itinerary with 2 days in St-Peterburg is much more appealing to us.

I assume the procedure of crossing the border would be the same?

I know St Petersburg pretty well, have been there 3 or 4 times by work. And I can speak Russian.

I was considering just getting Russian visa, and not use any tour companies at all. Just go places by ourselves. But I haven't been there for ages.

I assume the lines to the museums in the summer would be huge? That would be one of the reasons to book the tour. We've been to Paris this summer, and saved tons of time booking "skip the line" kind of tours, as the lines there were insane.

Viator offers tours to St Petersburg - like the ones we used for Paris. If we get Russian visa - I assume we can book through Viator, and be fine? Does anyone has the experience like this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We are booked for Northern Europe cruise next summer, but not with Disney - with NCL, as their itinerary with 2 days in St-Peterburg is much more appealing to us.

I assume the procedure of crossing the border would be the same?

I know St Petersburg pretty well, have been there 3 or 4 times by work. And I can speak Russian.

I was considering just getting Russian visa, and not use any tour companies at all. Just go places by ourselves. But I haven't been there for ages.

I assume the lines to the museums in the summer would be huge? That would be one of the reasons to book the tour. We've been to Paris this summer, and saved tons of time booking "skip the line" kind of tours, as the lines there were insane.

Viator offers tours to St Petersburg - like the ones we used for Paris. If we get Russian visa - I assume we can book through Viator, and be fine? Does anyone has the experience like this?

Thanks in advance.

The procedure is the same.

Any cruise that is in St Petersburg less than 72 hours then:-
1/ you can go visa free with that cruise line tours.
2/ You can have an authorised St Peyersburg tour company like Anastasia look after you visa free.
You cannot get off independently.( unless you get a visa.

Anastasia offers a skip the line service where it can. I can't speak for Viator but I think there a global gatekeeper service to third parties and its best to book direct.

Hermitage for example is very popular with massive lines, it's popular before there is four cruise ships in town, and that's often the case. Cruise ship tours go on in herded 55 groups on a whisper system, Anastsia couriered our tickets to a back entrance and we went around in an alternative director in to the big tours.