Looking for an excuse to book - Please advise?

Lots of great threads on here about St. Petersburg, but I wanted to get some advice from those of you who've cruised there.

I called NCL to book the 9-day Baltic cruise out of Copenhagen, and didn't book after I was told about the Visa issues with going to Russia. This cruise seems perfect for us, other than this issue with Russia. So I wanted to tell you about my wife and I and get some honest opinions about this -

My wife and I vacation a lot. The last cruise we took was an 11-night European Cruise out of Barcelona about 5 years ago on Carnival. The reason we don't always cruise is that we LOVE to just put a backpack on, and walk around the City, meeting people, having some cocktails, eating in restaurants, and just enjoying the local flavor of an area. Most cruise stops are too quick for that, so we tend to shy away from them - although we've been on like 5 cruises in the last decade or so. For example, on our European Cruise, we only did excursions in like 2 or 3 of the 7 ports we stopped in. We like excursions, but we find we don't get to know the area very well. We also LOVE the overnights. On our last cruise, we got a hotel room in Venice and stayed on dry land for 2 days. We were looking forward to doing that in Russia too, and now we found out we can't......so I'm second-guessing the cruise altogether.

My question is - what is there to do in St. Petersburgh on an excursion? Is there any way to do 2-full days there and not feel like you were just bussed around from museum to museum? Are there any excursions that let us actually wander off on our own? What makes this port special?

I was hoping some of you could post about this port and help convince us to still go on this cruise. I really want to see all of these places, but if we're going to be stuck on a bus in Russia for 2 days and have to eat dinner on the ship while looking out the window at the restaurants in St. Petersburgh, I'm thinking we might just go forgo this one.

Any advice? Thoughts? Reasons to book?

Thank you all in advance!

Hi there!

First of all there is no issues with Visas. You can apply for a visa on your own and explore the city on your own.

And for those of us who would rather get the taste of the city with the guide we don't have to worry about visa. Since we are booked on the tour with a private tour guide or a cruise ship tour the tour ticket acts like visa.

There are top 3 tour companies in Saint Peterburg:

SPB tours

Alla tours

TJ tours ( or some like that ).

The groups are no more then 16 people . But you can read all that on their website.

there are also numerous reviews on Cruisecritic or TripAdvisor.

Hope this help!

Yes, please don't let the need for a visa (if going independently) deter you. Saint Petersburg is truly one of the jewels of the Baltic.

As Cruiselover11 wrote, you can still get your own visa or hire a private guide who will act as your visa. You might also wish to contact the tour agencies, describe what you wish to do, and see how they might be able to accommodate. Another option, if NCL offers this, is an on your own type of excursion. This could be a tour that begins as a tour of someplace, followed by time to wander the city on your own.

Another thought: unless you're in a major tourist location, don't expect to find too many people who can speak English. There are also no translations for signs, transit, directions, etc., which could be challenging if you don't know the Cyrillic alphabet. This is where you may find that going the private guide route is a good idea.

Hi, Matt,

Do carefully research the matter of getting your own tourist visa and doing your own thing before deciding to go down that route. The application for a visa is fraught with complications, including applications being returned for minor mistakes or misunderstanding. And expensive for a US citizen.

And, as Ellie's post, the cryllic alphabet makes life difficult.

That said, there are those who've done it, and enjoyed the experience.

But do be sure that you know what you're letting yourself in for.

The dispensation for cruise passengers to visit SPB visa-free means booking in advance to join a tour organised by the ship or by one of the approved local tour operators - and there are far more than just the three mentioned by cruiselover.

Some tour operators apply the govt rules less stringently than others. In all cases you have to leave and return to the port with the tour operator, but with some - including excursions offered by some cruise lines - you are left to your own devices to a greater or lesser extent at various places in the city.

So best if you e-mail a number of tour operators and ask about "on-your-own".

We only very rarely book excursions, either ship's or privately, preferring to DIY.

But we're glad we took an Alla tour (16-seat van) in SPB because there's so much to see, DIY travel on public transport can be fraught and very time-consuming even without the extra complications in SPB, and the arrangements and guide were excellent.

Just my own experiences.

JB :)

We took a 2 day tour when we were in SPB a few years ago through Alla.The tour was excellent and the company very efficient. There is so much to see in SPB that we hope someday to return.

Alla arranged the visa's, immigration was a doddle and we didn't hand over any money until the start of the 2nd day.

All good info here, especially the comments from John Bull.

We, too, enjoy exploring ports on our own and RARELY take organized tours, but SPB is one place where I think doing a tour was preferable to our trying to do it on our own. And here are the main reasons:

1. No need to apply for a visa. Russian visas are expensive (about the same cost, if not more, than a 2-day escorted tour) and exasperating to obtain.

2. No need to try to get around, eat and shop in a country whose language I cannot read or understand and whose citizens, for the most part, can't understand me either. (This is not like other Baltic countries where they use an Arabic alphabet and where many of the citizens speak English.)

3. Ease of getting around the city and into the attractions. There's a lot to see in St. Petersburg and you've only got 2 days to do it. If you aren't on a tour, you are wasting time figuring out how to get from place to place and you are stuck at the end of an admission line (usually long) instead of going to the front with your tour guide.

Some cruise lines (and I don't know if this includes NCL) try to give the impression to their passengers that they have to take a cruiseship-sponsored excursion in order to get off the ship in St. Petersburg. This is absolutely untrue. As long as you book with any of the many, many tour companies you'll read about here on CC or obtain your own Russian visa, you are good to go. In fact, booking a ship's excursion would be the worst thing to do as they jam 30+ people on their tours but those like Alla (which we took) have a maximum of 16--but usually have fewer.

We are typically DIY port explorers, but we booked our Baltic cruise so last minute that we didn't have enough time to even consider applying for visas. We ended up getting together with some people from our Roll Call, and together we booked a private tour through one of the local tour companies. Since we had enough people, it ended up costing less than the ship's excursions, and we got to fully customize our itinerary. We decided what we most wanted to do and see, and our tour guide helped us put together a plan that covered it all. It turned out to be a great option, because her local knowledge let us do some things we never could have planned on our own (e.g. our lunch stop was a small local restaurant where no one spoke English and we were the only foreigners).

Lots of great threads on here about St. Petersburg, but I wanted to get some advice from those of you who've cruised there.

 

I called NCL to book the 9-day Baltic cruise out of Copenhagen, and didn't book after I was told about the Visa issues with going to Russia. This cruise seems perfect for us, other than this issue with Russia. So I wanted to tell you about my wife and I and get some honest opinions about this -

 

My wife and I vacation a lot. The last cruise we took was an 11-night European Cruise out of Barcelona about 5 years ago on Carnival. The reason we don't always cruise is that we LOVE to just put a backpack on, and walk around the City, meeting people, having some cocktails, eating in restaurants, and just enjoying the local flavor of an area. Most cruise stops are too quick for that, so we tend to shy away from them - although we've been on like 5 cruises in the last decade or so. For example, on our European Cruise, we only did excursions in like 2 or 3 of the 7 ports we stopped in. We like excursions, but we find we don't get to know the area very well. We also LOVE the overnights. On our last cruise, we got a hotel room in Venice and stayed on dry land for 2 days. We were looking forward to doing that in Russia too, and now we found out we can't......so I'm second-guessing the cruise altogether.

 

My question is - what is there to do in St. Petersburgh on an excursion? Is there any way to do 2-full days there and not feel like you were just bussed around from museum to museum? Are there any excursions that let us actually wander off on our own? What makes this port special?

 

I was hoping some of you could post about this port and help convince us to still go on this cruise. I really want to see all of these places, but if we're going to be stuck on a bus in Russia for 2 days and have to eat dinner on the ship while looking out the window at the restaurants in St. Petersburgh, I'm thinking we might just go forgo this one.

 

Any advice? Thoughts? Reasons to book?

 

Thank you all in advance!

Best I can do to answer the what is there to do in St. Petersburg is to share some pictures. This is from our 2 day SPB tour.

https://msknortherneurope.shutterfly.com/pictures/453

We booked a tour with SPB because we wanted to see the Palaces, etc. Even on our night out with a local evening, which was a lot of fun, kept us pretty insulated from what I think you want.

I have seen where people were able to set up some very private specialized tours which would probably get you what you want. You do need to go through a tour guide to avoid getting your own visa.

We did our own thing at some of the other stops but I don't think the normal tours are what you are looking for. Judi

We are just back and we had half a day to do as we wished. The city is huge and over that time we did about 200m of Nevsky Prospect looking in shops, taking it all in and buying some items. We then started walking towards Church of Spilled Blood, but never getting there as time ran out.

There is plenty of public transport, but not easy to use if you don't understand Russian.

The city relies heavily on tourists in summer, but it was evident the tourists they target are those from Russia! All the tourists touts were speaking Russian and all their leaflets were only in Russian. Its no surprise as it is difficult and expensive to secure a visa, so European tourists simply won't bother visiting alone. Europeans have dozens of other city breaks on their doorstep.

A friend is going for four days next week, but she is from Russia, so its not a problem for her. I'll go with her and her family next time!

I will second those who recommend booking with a tour company, for the ease of getting around St. Petersburg and spending less time standing in line than you will as an individual traveller. But be aware that most of the tours do try to fit in as many site visits as possible in the amount of time available; this may very well leave you feeling that you rushed through places where you would rather spend more time. A compromise may be to book a private tour (with guide), specifying exactly what YOU want to see, rather than booking a tour company's pre-arranged itinerary. That's what I would do if I were ever able to visit St. Petersburg again.

One possibility to consider is that cruise lines other than NCL have more than one 2 day stopover on the Baltic cruise (often in Stockholm, which is an incredibly beautiful city that people would love to spend more time in).

We had a private tour for just our family because we were traveling with a 3 year old and needed to have the ability to stay longer whenever he enjoyed something, and leave whenever he was fussy. The tour companies are very flexible with the private tours, and you might want to email them and tell them what you like to do and see what they suggest. The visa waiver the private tour companies obtain for you require you to stay with them at all times, so the only way for you to wander around St. Petersburg by yourself is to get your own Russian tourist visa. Many tours include things like riding a subway, and some go to local markets so perhaps those activities would be closer to what you are envisioning a visit to St. Petersburg to be like? Please note that you won't need to be stuck on the boat for dinner - private companies have evening excursions, and a private tour would be able to provide you with transportation (which would be really expensive) to any restaurant of your choice. We decided not to go to dinner off the ship due to our exhaustion, but if you aren't chasing a toddler you would probably have the energy to go elsewhere. There are also group evening tours that do cultural things, and you can look on the private tour websites to see if any of them would meet your needs.

The other cities on this cruise (Stockholm, Tallinn, Copenhagen, the little seaside villages near Warmeneude and Helsinki) are great for what you like to do, since you can easily reach the cities from the port and there is outstanding public transportation so you can just wander around wherever you want to go. In fact, many people just climb or cab to the top of Toompea hill in Tallinn, and wander around the gorgeous medieval streets. (some people are more organized, but we mostly just wandered and it was incredible).

We also travel a lot, be it road trips or cruising. On our travels we always try and do the back roads sort of thing, getting off the interstates and seeing what people and places are really like. Meeting locals are the best, and just chatting with them.

So, since we toured several years ago, at that time, if you wanted to book a private tour thru companies like SPB, they would work with you to include the things YOU wanted to see or do. Not exactly sure if they still do that, but it doesn't hurt to email several and ask. Tell them what you want to do and see and see if they can accommodate you.

When we toured Copenhagen, we wrote to their tourist office about walking tours of Copenhagen. They sent us back several great ideas, along with maps. We were there on a Sunday and followed one of the tours. We were on our way back to the ship and were walking thru a park, when we decided to stop for an ice cream. While sitting on a bench, we started chatting with a family that was spending their Sunday in the park. From them we net several other families, their friends, and we spent well over an hour just chatting about life in general, you know what I mean. Copenhagen was wonderful, but when we think back, THAT was the highlite of our day there.

Cheers

Len

I can recommend Insider Tour in SPB. The tour we took was a maximum of 6 people and whist we did have a minibus around the sights and museums for two days (we never had to line up in the queues), we also got to walk along Nevsky Prospekt and ride on the Metro - not something that could be done on a catch of 42 people! It was delightful.

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to apply for a visa on your own is expensive and time consuming. A 1 time 30 day visa will cost at least 200$ pp and equire an 'invitation letter' and confirmed hotel.

For cruise passengers, there is a visa waiver programme in place for the cruise lines and all of the major tour cos.

The cost is included. i.e. you have already saved 200+ per person.

Don't let the cruise litell you that theirs are the only permitted tours. Simply not true. All the top tour cos. have visa waivers included. Think SPB, Ala, Ulko, TJ and many many more. They are all less expensive, have smaller groups, preferred admittance and can tailor the tour to your interests. E-mail some. of them and see which responses you fancy. The ones I mentioned and many more are trustworthy.