Choosing a tour company in St. Pete

We used SPB tours last week in St. Petersburg with our 2 and 11 year old. There were other children on the tour age 4,6, 8, 11, and 14. Our guide was great with the kids and the adults. ( She is a teacher during the school year.) They even provided a carseat for our 2 year old, which was a life saver.

Was Leena your guide?

Was Leena your guide?

No, Elena V. was our guide and we really enjoyed her tour.

Hi Everyone, we'll be on the Regal Princess for 25 days starting next 8/30. We just booked, so my question to those who've already done the research, do any of the St. Petersburg tour companies do an overnight tour. Did any of you do an overnight, if so, were you pleased. The Princess tour is about $1900 pp and the overnight is on a train, again, anyone have info on such a tour? Thanks to all in advance for any help offered.

Hi Everyone, we'll be on the Regal Princess for 25 days starting next 8/30. We just booked, so my question to those who've already done the research, do any of the St. Petersburg tour companies do an overnight tour. Did any of you do an overnight, if so, were you pleased. The Princess tour is about $1900 pp and the overnight is on a train, again, anyone have info on such a tour? Thanks to all in advance for any help offered.

Do you mean overnight to Moscow, many, many, hours away?

Why go there, when there's so much to see in the pre-Soviet era capital, SPB?

Hi Everyone, we'll be on the Regal Princess for 25 days starting next 8/30. We just booked, so my question to those who've already done the research, do any of the St. Petersburg tour companies do an overnight tour. Did any of you do an overnight, if so, were you pleased. The Princess tour is about $1900 pp and the overnight is on a train, again, anyone have info on such a tour? Thanks to all in advance for any help offered.

I think the overnight to Moscow is only reasonable if you have two night in SPB. We did, but after really sitting down and thinking about it, we opted to spend all 3 days in SPB. We really enjoyed our two nights in the city - going out, eating, drinking, enjoying the city. Going to Moscow includes meeting outside immigration at 6:00 am and not getting back until 1:00 am. We decided to Moscow another time when we can spend the better part of a week there.

Do you mean overnight to Moscow, many, many, hours away?

 

Why go there, when there's so much to see in the pre-Soviet era capital, SPB?

Yes, I was referring to the overnight to Moscow. We have been to Northern Europe a number of times but this is our first trip to Russia. When we book a trip, I do all of the research, then my D/H and I sit and discuss which options we think will cover our "wish list" of what to see. So, we are just beginning our discussion of SPB and how to maximize our time there. We would spend our first night in SPB, then leave early the 2nd morning, overnight on the train and join the cruise ship is Estonia after a day of touring there.

Thank you both for your input, CC is always a great place for sharing.

Yes, I was referring to the overnight to Moscow. We have been to Northern Europe a number of times but this is our first trip to Russia. When we book a trip, I do all of the research, then my D/H and I sit and discuss which options we think will cover our "wish list" of what to see. So, we are just beginning our discussion of SPB and how to maximize our time there. We would spend our first night in SPB, then leave early the 2nd morning, overnight on the train and join the cruise ship is Estonia after a day of touring there.

 

Thank you both for your input, CC is always a great place for sharing.

We thought about spending a long day in Moscow as part of our 3 days in SPb next summer on Celebrity Silhouette. Then I figured out that it was actually easier (from a FF miles perspective) to get to Moscow pre-cruise. Yes, we will have to pay for visas, but when you factor in the cost of that one day trip to Moscow, we still come out ahead. Not to mention that our dollars go very far there right now (3 nights in nice hotel central Moscow - $275 advance purchase). We also now have the option of doing SPb on our own without a tour as we will have multiple entry visas for Russia.

We had a wonderful tour guide, Nina, who was a very good organizer, and kept our tour on track, while accommodating the different interests of our group of nine. Any anxiety we had about using a tour company outside of the cruise line, were well offset as there were no problems with the blanket visa. We only paid at the end of the tour, so there were no worries about Russia's rules changing before the tour began either. TJ also gave a 5% discount for our Cruise Critic

group.

St Petersburg is very interesting and was well worth having an informative guide, who also got us in attractions before the big lines formed. Our one worry was making it back in time to take the cruise tour of the ballet in the evening. As traffic is unpredictable, we were calling it close, but Nina also offered to take us directly to the theater if we missed the cutoff.

The cruise bus tour was actually waiting for some even later than us, so it all worked out perfectly. It was just relaxing to have that plan "B" available.

Wow, we also had free WIFI while on the bus, thanks to driver, Vitali, creating a hot spot for us.The food stops we made were great local flavor, and do try the borscht, which I loved despite hating beets!

I just booked a Two-day All Highlights with TJ Travel. The reviews looked good and they were very quick with personally tailored responses in addition to the general information. They offered a 5 % discount for reservation within 72 hours (no payment until 2nd day of tour) and also another 5 % if you are on the cruise critic roll call.

I got our tour tickets (which serve as the blanket visa) today.

Obviously, we haven't toured with them before, but I thought I'd send my contact experience.

How far out will the tour companies book? For example, we are on the Serenade of the Seas, departing Copenhagen on May 29, 2016, and will be in St. Petersburg on Thursday, June 2 (only one day). I tried looking at SPB Tours' website to see what excursions are available, but I get an error message -- something about that ship or date being incorrect.

 

Is it too early just yet for them to have late May 2016 info posted?

TJ tours is booking now for June, 2016 - see my post above. Maybe a direct email to SPB would be helpful - their website may not have the ship info yet.

We're on the Serenade in July 2016 and booked a 3 day tour in SPB with TJ Tours nearly 2 months ago, so they're definitely taking reservations for next summer.

We used TJ in Estonia, Russia, and Finland. All tours were excellent. It's great not to have to plan anything. Let them navigate and negotiate everything. They are experts. We will use them again. Highly recommended !

We recently returned from a Baltic cruise on the Marina and booked a 2 day tour with TJ Travel on Aug. 9 and Aug. 10, 2015, in SPB. We were very pleased, and even extended the first day for a private TJ guide to meet us at 4:30. The guide stayed with us while we visited a very high-end boutique grocery store, and then dropped us at a superb restaurant for a relaxed dinner, and then to the ballet. With the ship tours to the ballet, you have no idea where you're seated, or to which theatre. With TJ, we were able to select our seats and which theatre. It was an exhausting, but exceptional day. I would recommend them highly. :)

Our family of 3 (mom, dad, 15yr old daughter) did the 2 day "All Highlights St. Petersburg shore excursion" Aug 11/12 from the Eurodam with TJ Travel. Our guide was Sofia, and the driver was Kosta. Sofia was a wealth of information, and very helpful, no question too hard, and while she had a very noticeable accent, her English was quite good. Kosta was an excellent, safe driver and we felt well taken care of.

I was initially worried about using a non-cruiseship excursion company however there is nothing at all to fear; they are professional, we felt 100% safe and well-looked after every single moment when with TJ Travel. Their pre-cruise customer service was excellent, very helpful and quick with email replies on email especially considering the time difference. No question was too trivial, they were exceptional in all pre-cruise correspondence. Their "combo" prices were way less than the cruise line, when you added up their prices. Paying in cash or credit card was straight forward too. No concerns there, everything went through fine on our visa card a few days later.

Very nice that they had wifi on the comfy 16-passenger bus and supplied bottled water. Took many selfies while at photo stops, then posted them, once back on board the bus as we were on the way to the next spot. Sweet!

My only regret was 2 days wasn't enough. It was a steady and hectic pace, and as Sofia said, "We only time for highlights of the highlights". Still it was so fascinating, and their tour so well coordinated. They have a system and it works. Highly recommended.

We also used TJ Travel for 12hr Berlin (had "Boris from Berlin"). He was a funny, thoughtful and EXCELLENT guide. We wish we could hire him for a week and have him show us around some more! He was thoughtful and very experienced at guiding. Yes its a long 3hrs to/from Berlin, but this was our first time, it was enough to whet our appetite and wish to go back on our own to explore more.

At Tallinn Estonia, we did the Old & New Town tour (Kati - wonderful guide!). Kati was full of friendly info, stories, and had lots of personal experiences and observations to share. For those who say "I can do Tallinn on my own 'cuz its so close to the cruise-ship port", let me say, Hmm... Maybe... But you're not getting the full meal deal on your own. The 5hr TJ Travel tour in Tallinn was worth every penny. We are so glad we did.

We wish we had more time (and $$) to return and spend a week in each destination. Our cruise was so much better thanks to the shore excursions, and TJ Travel gave us excellent value for money. We are glad we chose them for these 3 ports. The owner of the company (Tatyana) is actively involved ensuring everything works out. The personal service we received exceeded our expectations.

Kevin

Victoria BC

Tatiana with TJ Travel was an excellent guide in St. Petersburg. I was on assignment for All Things Cruise to do a series of blogs and decided to do one just on The Hermitage. Tatiana's commentary was very comprehensive and provided a number of great anecdotes about the art that was perfect for my blog.

We used TJ travel a little over a week ago (guide: Nina; driver: Alexander). Based on our experience, we can recommend them.

I wrote up a quite detailed review on Tripadvisor.

When I read people's reviews, everyone seems to think their tour operator and guide is the best. Probably the reality is that they all do a very good job.

Everyone agrees, however, that the local operators offer better value than the ship's excursions and I agree with that. We paid less and saw a lot more.

We also spoke to people who did a ship excursion (Hermitage + Peterhof). They were also very happy about their tour.

We took a tour of St. Petersburg with TJ Tours. We were so impressed with this company. They responded right away when we had questions. We started with a tour for 4 people and then got 2 more and then 2 more after that. So I had to change the tour to accommodate each couple who joined us and TJ tours handled it so smoothly. We had a three day tour with a tour of the Faberge museum...what an interesting place. The places they took us for lunch were excellent and many times we were the only group in the place. Our guide was ALLA and she was fantastic. She kept us going but waited for us when we wanted to see more of a place...A private tour is the way to go in St.Petersburg. I have been there twice before and this was by far the best tour we had of the city. Even the ear phones were the best I have had on trips...really easy to hear and comfortable to wear. The whole group was so pleased with everything! K. Dittler...from Minnesota

Riverblond

We just completed a 14 day Baltic cruise on the Caribbean Princess. (Ending August 15) We chose T J Travel for our 2 days in SPB. This was one of the best tours we have been on in a long time. They provided everything TJ Travel mentioned in their correspondence. Our Guide was first rate. We could not have covered as many places without such a tour company. Our tour guide Michael was very detailed in his explanations of the sites. Being on a full day tours, he also included a number of rest room stops with was greatly appreciated.

Our tour had only 15 persons. The was a much better than the cruise ship buses of 30+ folks. Our 2 day tour is excellent. I would highly recommend T J Tours.

We used TJ Travel (Berlin, Talinn & St. Petersburg) on our recent Baltic cruise in July on Celebrity Silhouette. They delivered what they said they would. The guides were knowledgeable about their city, history, culture, etc, but also knew how best to avoid crowds at the tourist attractions. We customized Berlin and St. Petersburg. We had 11 people for Berlin and 10 for St. Petersburg. We formed both groups on our roll call.

I looked at the big tour operators (all had excellent Trip Advisor ratings) in St. Petersburg and settled on TJ for several reasons.

1. They always responded by email in 24 hours.

2. They were willing to customize their standard tours.

3. They offered the "Russian Experience" in St. Petersburg after the first full day of touring. That tour had a different guide (both the regular guide and the evening guide were great). We walked along Nevsky Prospect at rush hour, visiting a book store, a gourmet grocery store, & a Russian fast food restaurant. After walking, we were driven to a restaurant for a vodka tasting. We had a plate of appetizers and 3 shots of vodka. Each shot was a different brand and supposedly going from less to more smooth. Of the 10 on our St. Petersburg tour, only 4 of us did the Russian Experience. It was extraordinary and truly a highlight. We were able to see real folks going about their lives. It gave us a feel for the city that we would not have otherwise had.

Hi, We took a private tour in St. Petersburg with TJ Travel. We saw their Childrens Tour on their website but wanted to adapt it a bit so emailed them and they tailored it to what we wanted. We have a 12 year old and 10 year old. We started with a quick city tour showing us the main buildings then did the Hydrofoil to Petershof and had a tour of the fountains. If you wanted you could play in them too! She arranged out timings so that we saw the main fountains being turned on.

We stopped for a lunch break there and then moved on to do a canal tour followed by a visit to a lovely traditional cafe/bar where we painted the Russian Dolls - this was great!!! And its not just for kids - I really recommend it. We expected to go to a factory or workshop and be put with a group of people for the lesson, but no - it was in a really quaint traditional cafe bar - Izba Russian Cuisine - so we started by ordering a local beer...! there was just our family for the "lesson" we were told about the history of the dolls and how to paint them in the traditional way. We were then served with tea and pancakes. We would have also liked to have seen the subway as we heard this was really interesting, but we ran out of time.

We didn't confirm our booking of this tour until after we had left home, so could print our paperwork, but this wasn't a problem - we just explained to passport control and that our tour guide was waiting with the paperwork and they brought it to us. We didn't need any Russian money - the guide paid for everything we wanted to buy then we settled up in Dollars or via credit card at the end of the tour when we paid.

If we'd had been more organised, we could have booked the tour then tried to get more people to join us and that would have diluted the cost, but it still worked out well and we all enjoyed our tour - highly recommended!:)

When we cruise, I always like to organize private tours rather than taking the more crowded, slower, (and often more expensive) ship’s tours. I was a little bit nervous about doing this in St. Petersburg, but TJ Travel made it so very easy. We decided to limit our group to 8 people and that was a perfect number – easy to organize on Cruise Critic Roll Call, keep together on the actual tour, and make last minute choices. (See Matryoshka charm below.)

We provided our passport numbers in advance to the company and they emailed us “tickets” which, along with our actual passports, were all we needed to go through immigration/customs. We were soon meeting Sofia, our TJ Travel guide, and Michail, our driver who were waiting for us in the entry hall just off the ship. We were quickly whisked away in a very comfortable van to begin our fabulous 2 days in this amazing city.

First up was a visit to a Metro station to see the beautiful tilework and watch the huge crowds of commuters as they moved swiftly around us. No graffiti anywhere but lots of cameras – welcome to Russia! Early entry to the Hermitage Museum enabled us to enjoy seeing the highlights with fewer crowds. (I was concerned we wouldn’t have enough time to do it justice, but our time there was perfect – just under 3 hours.) By the time we finished and were ready for a break, lines for tickets were around the block. Would be hard to choose our favorite from among the fabulous churches as we were treated to inside tours of the Church on the Spilt Blood, St. Isaac’s, and the cathedral at Peter and Paul Fortress where the czars are buried.

The half-hour hydrofoil to Peterhof was a time saver and a welcome chance to chill or cat-nap. St. Petersburg is a city of bridges, but I didn’t realize how many canals lace through the city until our boat ride on the second day. An excellent opportunity to see the sights from another vantage point. We also were able to visit the Faberge Museum at the end of our 2-day tour – a wonderful addition to their normal “St. Petersburg Highlights” tour.

We had arranged to have a 3-course meal our first day – cabbage soup (surprisingly tasty), beef stroganoff, and apple pie at Romeo’s Bar and Kitchen were delicious. One other tour group in the restaurant too, but definitely not touristy and the meal was delicious. Back on the ship, we ran into other TJ Travelers and they had eaten at other restaurants which also sounded good. On our second day, we had asked to try the typical Russian meat pies for lunch and Sofia called and found a Strogell site that wasn’t crowded. She explained the different fillings (including several fruit) pies and we were able to sit in a quiet part of the restaurant and enjoy trying several. Again, these mid-day breaks were really welcome and the food very good.

TJ Travel went way beyond what we could have ever expected to make our time memorable. On the first day, 3 of the wives asked whether it there might be a Pandora shop in where we could to buy a charm special to Russia (the Matryoshka nesting doll). To our surprise, Sofia arranged for a TJ Travel driver to take just the 3 of us to Nevsky Prospect, the main shopping street in St. Petersburg. While our husbands returned to the ship, we actually went to 2 different Pandora stores until we found exactly what we needed. Our driver didn’t speak much English, so there was quite a bit of sign language and laughing, but Sofia kept in touch with him by cell phone and all went well. Definitely will always remember that shopping experience! My husband, a retired U.S. Air Force policeman, asked about the possibility of purchasing a Russian policeman’s hat from the Communist era. At the end of our tour, when we went to their shop to pay, a hat was waiting for him! It would have been at no charge, but we insisted on paying.

Because we were on the July 25 sailing of the ill-fated Viking “Star”, we were even more glad we had such a wonderful tour with TJ Travel in St. Petersburg. It became the highlight of our Baltic cruise! Can’t recommend them enough!

Just returned from a Baltic Cruise which included 2 days/one night in St Petersberg. We had prebooked a 2 day tour with TJ and they certainly delivered what they promised. We were the only people on our ship doing the two day tour but were picked up from the ship ok and joined a party of Australian/Canadians from another ship. altogether 10 people with our guide Victoria and driver.

The itinerary was adapted from that given, but everywhere promised was delivered. Variation was to optimise on timings.

Victoria was very knowledgeable and used her considerable experience to get us past the crowds in the various museums/Palaces.

Would certainly recommend them to anyone looking to do a private tour.

Trying to do it on your own or in a larger group would dramatically reduce your St PEtersberg experience.

I couldn't agree more with the other posters - We did the RCCL Baltic Cruise and book TJ for a one day tour and it did not disappoint! In chats with other cruisers, they couldn't believe how much we saw in a 10 hour tour. Now we boogied but saw everyone including the Blood Church, The museum of course and we even got a tour of the mid town subway station which was unbelievable! A hydrofoil to Peterhof and then Katherines Palace! It was amazing and going in a small tour is the only way to see St. Petersburg! I would highly recommend TJ for any tour in the Baltics!

We used Esperance last week, based on our TA's recommendation. There were four of us so it priced out almost the same as the Princess excursion. But that's where the similarity stopped. We worked with them to design our own itinerary -- wanted to see Catherine's Palace and outside of Peterhof rather than inside of Peterhof. It was the best decision. Our guide Nina was amazing -- a university professor who knew art, history and more -- she relentlessly pushed us ahead of everyone in line to maximize our time. We couldn't be more pleased with our choice!

Looks like I am in the minority here. A group of 6 of us used Alla tours past May for 2 days. We all agree the Baltic cruise was the best yet and the SP tour was the highlight! Alla was very responsive to questions,made payment at end very easy, and provided a wonderful tour at a discounted rate.We also used them in Helsinki and Warnemunde. In fact in Warnemunde there was a train strike the day of our tour and they stepped up and provided a van and driver instead for the day. Other people who had tours that day with other operators were cancelled because of strike. Would definitely use them again.