Alla or Red October Tours in St Petersburg, Russia
 

We will be on a cruise ship in St. Petersburg in July and have 2 days there. Has anyone dealt with Red October, Alla or DenRus? Thanks. [email protected]

We used Red October in 2005 in St. Petersburg. The price was much better than the ship's excursions. The driver was excellent, (his skill was incredible, they drive like maniacs!)and we were able to tailor the tour specifically to our needs. The only problem was that our particular guide "decided" at times what he felt we must see, even though we requested otherwise. (We'd been there before).We had the guide for 2 days and by day 2 we all figured out how to communicate asserviely without offending.

If You want the tour tailor-made to Your personal requests, try
either http://anastasiaworld.com/ or http://www.petersburgguide.com/

We used RO in 2003. They were extremely pleasant (DenRus got snippy) about tailoring their "standard" two day itinerary to our interests. The guide was ecellent, spoke very good English, and the driver helped my mobility impaired mother very kindly.

I'm trying to find the organized tour in St. Petersburg. 2 of us are cruising by MSC Armonia in sept 2008. All private tours are overpriced for 2 people. My wife and I are looking for more people on sept. 11, 2008 to share the cost of this tour (have some other options to discuss)

nedco73, I'd recommend going to the Roll Call boards at www.cruisecritic.com, where you can find people on your sailing.

We were extremely satisfied with Anastasia. An outstanding tour and somewhat less expensive than Alla or Red October.
http://anastasiaworld.com

We used DenRus for our two days there and were highly satisfied (there were 14 of us inall).

I will say this....HOPE that for the Hermitage you have a guide who uses the headphone/microphone setup....especially if the place is mobbed and in July it probably will be. It can be extremely hard to hear what guides are saying as the rooms are large and get VERY noisy...but fear not, even if you cannot hear everything the sensory overload will make it worthwhile since there is not only the stuff on the walls, but the walls themselves...elaborate decoration which makes the visit worthwhile.

Yes, these tours are expensive but how many times are you going to BE in this city...don't let the prices deter you and also, see as MUCH as you can by cramming everything possible into those two days. You will not regret it.

thanks everybody
I'm trying to find the affordable tour

We really enjoyed Olga, who we found here on this forum.

http://www.tourservice.sp.ru/