We're two couples, 60s/70s going to St Petersburg on the 14th. and 15th. of May, by Celebrity Eclipse and wish to know the best and most reasonable method of seeing the goodies. We'd very much like to go to the ballet on our one night in St Petersburg also. Do we contact DenRus, Alla or Red October, and are we better going in a larger group? It seems anything is better than using the ships "SpecialOffers"!!

You will need special visas to disembark, but most guides seem to be able to provide them. The advantage to having your own private guide will be the pace you as a small group set for yourselves. A complaint I heard from cruise ship followers was not about the quality of the tours.. but the rushed feeling of not being able to even linger once in awhile.

We used DenRus and were very pleased with them. We were there for 3 nights and told them before our cruise which sights we wanted to see.

These private guides give you real VIP service - much better than the tours which are organized by the ships.

We used www.anastasiaworld.com and can highly recommend them.

Thank you all for your help, and we'll certainly use one or other of your mentioned guides and really look forward to successful and interesting exploration of St Petersburg.