St Petersburg - guide vs visa
 

Hello! I'm a semi-regular poster on the US/Europe boards, but have never taken a cruise before, so am definitely new on this board (and new to cruising in general). I've booked a Baltic cruise in July with some friends, and we are currently trying to figure out how to handle our stop in St. Petersburg. We're sailing with Royal Caribbean and have two days in the city.

It looks like a visa to enable us to go around independently would cost $160 (plus hours of our lives in red tape?), plus we'd have to figure out how to get from place to place on our own (I don't even know if this is feasible - everything I've read so far focuses on guided tours, and Google Maps can only help so much). Private tours are, of course, not cheap, but I'm thinking they might not be more expensive than the visa + transportation, admission, etc, and would certainly be easier. And of course there's the official cruise excursions.

We're all budget-minded, so cost is definitely a consideration, but at least for most of us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There are five of us, in our 30s/40s, plus one set of parents (not mine, so I'm not sure if they would want to do their own thing or tour with us).

Any advice on whether it's even worth considering exploring on our own, what combination of private tour + cruise excursion to use, or anything else would be most welcome! So far Denrus is looking most promising in terms of a private company, but we're definitely open to suggestions.

Actually I think its much better to see SPB with a guide. We had one and its was a ships tour. She was a wealth of information and that added immensely to our experience there.

I wanted to use Denrus as their reviews were good and they were actually cheaper than the ships tour which was $338.00 or so per person for two days and included two lunches and entry fees and I would bet Denrus has similar perks so factor in the cost of the visas and going private either thru the ship, Denrus or other reputable tour agencies is the way to go.

We did not use Denrus because our traveling friends preferred the ships offerings. We had a good time but if we were on our own then I would have taken them.

I assume you have to out a deposit with any Russian company. Just be aware that if for some reason you can't dock in SPB which would be very unusual then likely you have lost that money.

We used Red October and had a fabulous time. For 4 if us traveling together, it was cheaper than the ship tours. RO was very willing to tailor their standard 2 day itinerary to out interests and preferences; Denrus was not.
Having a guide and driver enhanced our experience, made getting around much easier than if we had been on our own.

Thanks so much to both of you! It sounds like our group is pretty much on board with doing a tour of some kind. This is very helpful. As far as I know we'll be mostly interested in the standard offerings, so it sounds like any of the companies would work fine, but abram, that's very good to know in case someone in our group surprises me!

The cruise begins and ends in Stockholm and also stops in Helsinki, Talinn and Riga - if anyone has any input on whether any of those cities are much better seen with a tour, that would also be welcome. I love a good walking tour, but also know that all the excursions can add up quickly, so am keeping an eye on the budget as well.

I haven't been to Riga but the other ports are easily seen on your own. The ship ports in Tallinn right basically in town so you can just walk in and see things. I am not sure where you port in Stockholm but if it's the same place that we did you can take a taxi to the Vasa museum which for us was inside from the port location. Right behind this museum is a water taxi that will take you to the old town called Gamla Stan and in there you will find anti-shops and pastry shops and stores and coffee and so on so you can just wander and walk around and that's a pretty pleasant thing to do. There is a poster here named Percy and if you search under his name you will find an extensive and informative trip report about what to do in these cities

I should have checked the voice recognition before I posted. I said the museum was in sight from the port

Maybe you are reading the wrong guidebooks, lol. Take a look for Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and Rick Steves "Northern European Cruise Ports".

All your ports other than STP are easy to do on your own (although I did STP on my own, I had longer there). Do not miss the wonderful Art Nouveau buildings in Riga.

Larry - was "anti-shop" a snafu too? Antique, maybe?

See:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ne-baltics.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...omment-9306663

We are taking RCCL doing a very similar tour May 29. We had been to St. P for 10 days a few years ago so had the dilemna of a one day in port for this cruise and what to do.

Go to cruiscritic.com and check out the roll call and maybe someone is getting a group together. Or I had tried to put a shore excursion together with TJ Travel (highly recommended) and they were extremely helpful. You can go to their website and see the 2 day tours they have which look to be excellent (as someone who has been to St. P before).

As a note: Russian visa process is up to the whim of whatever bureaucrat's desk your visa gets dumped on. You may feel you have done everything right but if they send it back--what a headache. A visa processor costs an additional $100 or so to get it processed with as little stress as possible but yes is an added cost.

You will then see that a tour is cost effective.

Thanks so much, everyone! This is all extremely helpful. Our group had some email discussion today and I think we're all on board with the tour (this is confirmed by hearing the experience of a friend who's in the process of getting a visa for a 24-hour layover in Moscow... basically the headache you mentioned, jan47ete!). So we just need to pick the one we want.

I'll be very honest - I know many people plan cruises way in advance, but we only started even discussing this trip two weeks ago! We booked the ship and the flights last week and are now filling in all the details. I normally am much more of a researcher, but am definitely feeling the time crunch on this one and haven't done as much reading as I usually would. If we can get our tour for St. Petersburg and our hotel in Stockholm booked soon (most of us will have a night there on either end of the cruise, and jacketwatch, the Vasa museum is definitely top on my list!), I'll be able to relax - it's good to know that the other stops will require less planning!

Thank you very much for all the TR links - I've skimmed over them and will absolutely read them in full. Even just the bits I've read so far have made me even more excited!

Thursdaysd. yep, another voice recognition mishap and I also missed it visually too. Mean to say "many"

:D. :D.

Jent103: If you get to the Vasa would be so king as to drop a quick note here if it has been repainted? We were there 9 yrs. ago and read that they were researching original paint schemes so the restoration was ongoing.

I think you will really enjoy this cruise. of all or 15 cruises this one is in the top 3.

Cheers, Larry.

Larry - I was there last year and it hasn't been painted in the primary colors on the model, but it does look in very good condition. There's one photo here:
https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...ays-stockholm/

Not my best but I was posting on the road.

I think the OP's post answered her own question. I went to st. Petersburg on princess cruises and used a ship excursion for a 2-day excursion. Our guide Leo was incredible!! Got us into all the right places and most importantly the right time for each. It seemed as though we were the only ones at each place we went. We even went into a couple of places that were over a hour drive outside the city. I got to see everything on my list and hear some awesome stories from our guide as we went along. It was never a thought in my mind to go indepdently in Russia. I just don't see what more you can get out of this visit to st.Pete by going independently as opposed to a guided tour. But each to his/her own.

Thanks for that link thursdaysd. I am surprised that after all this time they haven't begun to paint it so maybe they decided not to. Not sure why??

We used Alla tours in St. Petersburg and thought tour was great. All the tours metioned have great reviews on trip advisor.
St. Petersburgh , io, wuld be very hard to do on your own. The guides convey so much info. This is one location i would not do on my own.
Tallin is rather compact and easy to do on your own. Helsinki is easy too if you know what you want to see ahead of time.
Russia is the main stop and it is not the time to be a penny wise and a pound foolish.

We had a guide from DenRus and it was worth <B>every penny we paid</B> for our own "once in a lifetime" stop. Whatever you do, try to cram as much as you possibly can into your stop: every palace, fortress, church, the Hermitage, nighttime cultural events, everything! You can sleep when you get home.

Believe me, you will not regret doing so. That city and environs are definitely not the "usual" cruise port.

Thanks, everyone. We have definitely decided to go with a tour, most likely the Denrus deluxe one. Hoping to book asap once we work out the logistics with our group (seven people is more challenging to plan for than my usual two!). You've helped convince me (and therefore my friends!).

Dukey, you're right - sleep when we get home! And the day after our St Petersburg stop is our cruise-only day, so the 7:30 start times should balance out. :)

jacketwatch, I'll try to post a TR after I get back so you can see the current state of the museum!

(oops, scratch what I said - St Petersburg is our second stop, not our last. Followed by Talinn. Oh well. We'll still sleep when we get home!)

Thanks jent103. Do enjoy this cruise.
Larry :).

I am planning a Baltic Sea cruise for next year, summer 2017. I am doing my research now. I want to thank you guys for all the info. Jen103, please share your experience once your are back from your trip.

I am thinking either booking the first cruise at the beginning of May or the last cruise at the end of August of May. We don't want to be in the crowded season.

Which would you guys recommend?

The month of June really wasn't that crowded and you can experience true white nights so I would say June really

Thanks jacket watch. Your info is very helpful.Maybe I can consider end of May. Do you have any ideal of the pricing of flight tickets during June? Like jentl03, we are a budget/prices conscious group (consist of 6 people)

Have anyone taken Air Belin or Norwegian Air? Are they budget airlines? I was randomly looking at the ticket price to get a sense of the price and they are 600ish and 800ish respectively where as Delta is in the 1200.00. Are those airline safe?

by the way, i am flying out from NYC and most probably to Copenhagen

I am a little late to this post but wanted to share my experience. We booked with TJ travel in 2013. We did a group tour for two days - there were three of us and they joined us to two other families for a total of maybe 10 or so. The third day we did a private tour, which was priced hourly, where we saw the places that were not on the group tour schedule and just had a more casual visit (could pop into a random souvenir shop with our guide, choose a place for lunch, etc). I think because it was our third day, they gave us a deal on the private tour. We prefer more unstructured generally, but we were very happy with the group tour too (I guess it depends a bit on the others in the group - the larger family was more active like us and were very funny; the others were two older women who moved at a slower pace but were interesting to talk to as well). TJ did a nice job of taking care of all of us in the group. Highly recommend them.

jent103, Have you returned yet? We were in St Petersburg last month on a cruise and enjoyed our 2 days with Alla tours. It was a jam packed 2 days but very enjoyable. If you have not left yet, make sure you have a plan B in case you have rain and were planning on self-guided walking tours.

Don't do self-guided tour in St. Petersburg. The visa process is absolutely horrendous according to a friend of mine. They are for 10 years of travel history as part of the process. Getting the visa as part of your tour is 100% worth it. Book a small group tour. From Percy's recommendation, we booked Alla tour and it was inexpensive when compared to ship's excursion. If you book a private or semi-private you can even customize your itinerary. We added a last minute request to ride on the subway and they happily accommodated that. With 6 in your group, you really should consider a private or semi-private tour on all your stops.

This is my post from 2012. It might give you some insight as it was the planning post.
http://www.fodors.com/community/crui...m#last-comment

And this is the trip report:
http://www.fodors.com/community/crui...m#last-comment

Hi FACS - we actually just got back last night! We ended up booking the 2-day deluxe tour with DenRus, and we all loved it. Our guide was Lana and she is amazing.

For anyone who finds this thread in the future, here's a quick "trip report" - I imagine Alla, etc would be similar, but only have experience with DenRus:

Our friend-group ended up being 9 people (long story); we were assigned to a minibus with ~20 seats. (I think there may have been bigger DenRus buses as well, so it's possible that some groups are larger, but I'm not sure.) Generally, it seemed like each tour group did their own thing, but the DenRus groups all met up at certain points. Lana was fantastic at herding everyone and clearly enjoys both her job and her city. She specifically and DenRus in general were very on top of any situation that arose (stents setting off alarms at immigration, people who got sick on the tour, unexpected lines, etc).

On the Deluxe tour, we covered:
Day 1 - boat ride, the Hermitage, St Isaac's, lunch, Church of the Spilled Blood, Faberge Museum, souvenir stop, lots of drive-bys

Day 2 - subway ride, Peter & Paul Fortress, drive to Pushkin for Catherine's Palace, lunch, and Peterhof, with a hydrofoil ride back to St Petersburg; another souvenir stop somewhere in there

The only snafu we hit was on day 2 at Catherine's Palace. My understanding is that despite the company calling ahead and hearing that it would be possible to go through as long as we got there in the morning (which we did), the lines even for the tour groups were three hours long just to get in due to massive crowds. The DenRus guides had a conference and decided that it would not be worth standing in line given everything else on our agendas, so instead we toured the grounds and were told that we'd get a refund for the palace admission cost. (The refund hasn't shown up on my card yet, but it's been less than a week.) This was a perfectly fine solution for us.

If we'd tried to do it on our own there is no way we would have done even a third of what we were able to do on the tour, and we certainly wouldn't have learned as much. Every interaction I had with the company was great. Everything including lunch was included in the price (the meals were definitely at tourist spots, but that wasn't a big deal).

The deluxe tour we took is very fast-paced and doesn't allow for flexibility (one person on our bus asked about climbing the dome of St Isaac's and was told no in no uncertain terms! ha!); if you have any health issues, Denrus has a more relaxed two-day tour that might be a better pace. But the benefit of the pace and the guides' knowledge and planning is that you see a LOT in your two days.

In short, absolutely go with a tour, and I'd absolutely recommend DenRus based on my experience!

The cruise overall was tiring but fantastic. Some other possibly helpful info:

- We did a bike tour in Helsinki (with our two oldest members opting for a private walking tour); they even customized it for us to include a stop at the market hall, where our guide had arranged a snack of a few traditional foods. http://happyguidehelsinki.com/

- DenRus in SPB - here's the link to our tour: https://www.denrus.ru/excursions/sai...tersburg-tour/

- We did Stockholm, Tallinn and Riga on our own, but did meet up with a friend currently living in Kiev who has been to or researched both places. Highlights beyond walking around seeing the sights:
* this restaurant in Tallinn: http://rataskaevu16.ee/en/ (so good, y'all)
* the Museum of Occupation in Riga: http://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/en

Larry - they have not repainted the Vasa, but do have a wall of sculptures recreated with the original paint scheme and a model of what the ship probably looked like.

Thanks again for all your input!

IMHO Catherine's Palace grounds is the attraction and not the Palace itself. Don't get me wrong, the palace itself is nice but with a compressed schedule, I would spent more time on the grounds and less time inside. You probably missed 1 hour (or less) of tours for the inside of the Palace. Others may disagree, but you didn't miss much.

Eschew, that's kind of what we figured. I was only slightly bummed about missing the Amber Room, but under the circumstances I was fine with what we did!

We were in the Amber Room. You did not miss much.

The amber had been all striped off the wall in the early years. What we see in the room now are "replacements". It looks nice, of course, but you really don't have time / space to admire as the room is always crowded. You get a better view by googling for an image on line.

The original amber was stolen by the Nazis during WWII and subsequently disappeared. I thought the replacement was worth seeing, but it wasn't that crowded in 2004. Aside from the Amber Room, the palace is a place to OD on white and gold.