SPB vs Allah - tour differences

[dogs4fun]

We took the Grand Tour with AllaTours just 3 months ago. Loved our tour and our guide was a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge on both Russian history and art history.
We DID spend 2 and a half hours in the Hermitage. I, too, LOVE the old masters. Even with 2 and a half hours in the Hermitage, we still felt we didn't have enough time. (we spent and entire day in the Louvre and the Vatican Museum...still not enough time for us)
We still had plenty of time in St. Isaac's to suit my taste.
You need to do whatever suits your taste.
Hope this helps.
jill

[JerseyJaguar]

I'm all set with the Grand Tour with AllaTours. Now I don't have to worry about a thing. Even got on the list to attend the ballet at night. I love not having to think about a thing till I hear from them again in February.

[cobia]

Originally Posted by JerseyJaguar

I'm all set with the Grand Tour with AllaTours. Now I don't have to worry about a thing. Even got on the list to attend the ballet at night. I love not having to think about a thing till I hear from them again in February.

Hi there,
We are sailing on the NCL Sun May 22 2012 as well and I just picked up this Thread. I am interested as to what you are paying for your Grand tour and are you doing any tours with them in Berlin? If so what have they quoted on prices?
Cathy

[JerseyJaguar]

The Grand Tour is $300 and includes camera fees and a bag lunch one day and a sit down lunch the other day. It covers everything I'm interested in, the canal boat ride, Yusupov's Palace, Catherine's, Spilled Blood, Peterhof gardens, Hermitage, Peter and Paul and St. Isaac's.

The ballet is $70.

And no more than 16 people in the group.

For me, just so much easier than forming a group first and then finding the right tour company

And even though they say they aren't available on Sunday's, my initial inquiry was answered on Sunday.

I've been reading people's reviews for months of the different companies, and I don't think you can go wrong with any of them, it's a matter of what you're comfortable with. I'm comfortable with having them do the work.

ETA: About Berlin, I believe they have tours but I'm not interested in spending so much time travelling to and from, I think I'll spend the time in Rostock and closer to the port.

[dogs4fun]

Originally Posted by cobia

Hi there,
We are sailing on the NCL Sun May 22 2012 as well and I just picked up this Thread. I am interested as to what you are paying for your Grand tour and are you doing any tours with them in Berlin? If so what have they quoted on prices?
Cathy

Hi Cathy,
We sailed on the Sun just this past August. You will love the baltic itinerary. We sure enjoyed ourselves.
We used AllaTours for both Saint Petersburg and Berlin (we did all other ports on our own - no guide needed). I do know that AllaTours offered a discount when you booked both St. Pete and Berlin (If I remember correctly, something was mentioned about a four city tour discount offered for 2012. You might contact AllaTours to find out...she is wonderful to work with. Here is the web link: http://www.alla-tour.com/
Be prepared - It is a long drive from Warnemunde to Berlin. Our coach was comfortable (group of 12) and our guide was wonderful but it is still a long drive.

[dogs4fun]

oops! duplicate post. sorry!

[Got2Cruise]

I am sure you will be pleased with Alla Tours. But for those reading, the other companies don't require you to get a group together upfront for the Baltic tours. What you do is correspond with them, and tell them what you want. They will open a group for you. For example you want a limit of ten people on a deluxe tour. You put in on the CC roll call. More than likely, there will be 8 more people who are so happy to find a person who did research and opened a tour, they will join yours. People like to handle it different ways, but when I opened a tour, I had all interested parties email the tour company SPb directly. This way, the tour company did all the work and worry, leaving me out of the middle. I got the tour I wanted at a reasonable price. I have found that all the companies have no problems filling the "standard" tours. They will even combine ships if they have to. It is when you want something unique that others might not be interested in where you might have trouble filling your tour. Anyway, to all, this is an awesome itinerary! Enjoy your private tours with ten folks instead of a busload of 40 from the ship, at half the price. When we were on the ship in the dining room, and talking to others, there were so many people who never heard of Cruise Critic and didn't know it was possible to arrange a private tour, they wished they had.

[rdnpdx1]

Originally Posted by Got2Cruise

I am sure you will be pleased with Alla Tours. But for those reading, the other companies don't require you to get a group together upfront for the Baltic tours. What you do is correspond with them, and tell them what you want. They will open a group for you. For example you want a limit of ten people on a deluxe tour. You put in on the CC roll call. More than likely, there will be 8 more people who are so happy to find a person who did research and opened a tour, they will join yours. People like to handle it different ways, but when I opened a tour, I had all interested parties email the tour company SPb directly. This way, the tour company did all the work and worry, leaving me out of the middle. I got the tour I wanted at a reasonable price. I have found that all the companies have no problems filling the "standard" tours. They will even combine ships if they have to. It is when you want something unique that others might not be interested in where you might have trouble filling your tour. Anyway, to all, this is an awesome itinerary! Enjoy your private tours with ten folks instead of a busload of 40 from the ship, at half the price. When we were on the ship in the dining room, and talking to others, there were so many people who never heard of Cruise Critic and didn't know it was possible to arrange a private tour, they wished they had.

This is excellent advice. On our roll call, there were nine tours organized by members of the roll call. Eight were with SPB and varied from our private deluxe trip for six in our group, to several 16 person groups for moderate, active, deluxe and Baltic Pearl tours with SPB. I kept track of all of them for the roll call, but members of the roll call contacted SPB directly to join whichever tour they wanted. And even though we had eight SPB tours, and one TJ Travel tour, the individual cruisers weren't responsible for filling the tours with either TJ or SPB.

The vast majority of us have only used one of these companies and based our selection on responsiveness and flexibility, and a gut instinct that XXX Tours just seemed right. For us and seven other tours on our sailing of the NCL Sun in June 2011 that was SPB, and I heard nothing but rave reviews from the many CC members I had gotten to know through my organizing of the roll call. But I have seen many other cruisers express similar heartfelt endorsements of the company they chose.

My advice is compare all of them, discuss what you want with the company representatives by email, and see which one feels right. There are several highly recommended tour companies in St. Petersburg which you can consider - SPB, TJ, Alla, Anastasia and a couple of others come to mind. Stick with those and I don't think you can go wrong. All have been active for several years and are staffed by highly professional, well educated guides. See which one offers what you want at a price you are willing to pay.

There is no need to even consider a ship's tour and be herded around like cattle. Likewise, with all the well recommended choices here, there is no need to take a flyer on a company no one has ever heard of.

[JerseyJaguar]

I contacted a few different tour companies and the prices ranged a great deal depending on how many people ended up joining the tour. For me, that wasn't anything I wanted to deal with. I prefer a set price without having to post a request for others to join. I don't care if I'm with people from other ships, I just don't want to have to round up people or keep my fingers crossed that people join my group. Even if the groups fill easily, that's stress for me, not knowing what something will cost so not being able to work on a budget.

I understand that many people set up groups on roll calls and as I mentioned earlier the women on my roll call have done a great job, that just isn't for me.

[MacThespian]

Originally Posted by fabnfortysomething

if it helps our cruise critic meet and greet tours last year featured SPB ,the company whose name is asterisked ,Anastasia ,Best guides and Denrus

Everyone was happy with the tour company they chose apart from Denrus-that problem was due to a rude tour guide who the company should have replaced instead of brushing off the complaint

Bottom line the company you have booked with our friends thought was very good

Lyn

We were on another Baltic cruise about 4 years ago, and travelled with Denrus. Although at the time they had really excellent ratings on Cruise Critic, we were not really happy with the guide that was assigned to us. Among other things, we had 3 preteens in our group of 9, and she did not make any allowances for this; we felt we were doing what she wanted us to do, not the personalized tour we had expected.

That said, we're hoping to get a group together for our cruise next summer (Queen Victoria, leaving June 29th), but the roll call has been rather anemic at the moment. I hope it picks up as we get closer to sailing.

[MacThespian]

Originally Posted by dalgirl

There is a roll call started, but it is kind of slow at the moment - several folks already have their own larger groups of family and friends so I am waiting for it to get more active. And SPB has offered to put us with a group if our roll call doesn't pick up, so I am not worried about that. I just like to get things planned

That's the same problem we're facing: a real quiet roll call. Last time we did a Baltic cruise, the roll call was pretty darn active, and we were able to hook up with two other families for a tour. Wonder if the slowness is because it's Cunard this time, which presumably gets a larger chunk of their clientele from the UK?

[gosport11]

Originally Posted by MacThespian

That's the same problem we're facing: a real quiet roll call. Last time we did a Baltic cruise, the roll call was pretty darn active, and we were able to hook up with two other families for a tour. Wonder if the slowness is because it's Cunard this time, which presumably gets a larger chunk of their clientele from the UK?

yep your right also the clientele will tend to be more mature

[MacThespian]

Originally Posted by gosport11

yep your right also the clientele will tend to be more mature

I guess you could say I'm heading toward "more mature"--I'm 64, and my wife is 55. Of course, we think younger!

[Genessa]

We went with AllaTours last July and found them to be very responsive to all our questions and requests.

We booked a 2 person, but had originally requested info on 2 or 4 and when someone on our cruise wanted to do a 4, they e-mailed and asked if we wanted to do that.

It was a fabulous way to see St. Petersburg. We maximized all our time, and had extra time in the Hermitage to see several areas of special interest.

while it does cost more for fewer people, I would do it that way again in a heartbeat. Everything took less time logistically - into van, out of van, rest room breaks, walking through exhibits.

We were aching after two days of touring.

[abgirl]

We did the grand tour with alla in june! Our guide was amazing!!! Svetlana....the tour was very good but also very busy....what a beautiful city!

[hoftraveler]

Just saw Genessa's post from December last, and want to echo her endorsement of very-small-group touring. Last month we (a couple) did 3 days in SPB with our own car, driver, and first-rate, fluent-English-speaking guide.

The cost was a bargain, considering the advantages stated. Not to mention the ability to tailor the tour precisely to your particular interests -- for example, two separate lenghy visits to the Hermitage, which was far from enough anyway.

We usually don't take organized tours when traveling (SPB was an exception, for the obvious reasons), but if we do so again, we absolutely will gravitate toward the purely-private option. You're spending many thousands on the cruise. Don't nickel-and-dime a once-in-a-lifetime experience.