St Petersburg Tours - Best Company / How Long?

I second that about TJ Travel, and Mikael is fabulous! We did their three day tour which included the fast train to Moscow on Day Two. Busy but incredibly fulfilling and so well organised. The cost was remarkably reasonable and nice to compare and contrast the two cities! Would recommend this tour, but also appreciate that there is so much to see in St Petersburg itself. Enjoy!

We would like to double second that about TJ Travel! We had a private tour for 2 and chose the sites we wanted to see as well as the Russian experiences we wanted to enjoy. Mikael is fantastic. He is a curator at The Hermitage and brings so much to a tour. Of course, Gennady, our driver, was also fantastic. We also booked a private tour with TJ in Berlin - again exceptional. I would highly recommend TJ Travel.

I think how you will be grouped and who your guide is matter much more than the tour company (considering you already read the reviews on TA or here and pick those with reputation). My personal experience at St. Pete with SPB was pretty bad and to some extent, awful. We were (two adults and a pretty self-sufficient 4 yr old) were dumped into a family of six (three adults, two seniors and one infant) after we told them numerously our DD would have no problem keeping up the pace of a "normal deluxe tour". It definitely feels like they intentionally group people they feel "would have difficulty keeping up the pace" together, but it puzzled me why they would think a 4yr old would share the same concern in terms of keeping up the pace with an infant plus two seniors in a big family.

First day was so-so, our guide was pretty dry in terms of the narratives and she seemed very helpless balancing the needs/requests from both families. And the guide constantly wanted to convince the group to skip attractions because she was worried that we could not keep up. Second day was a straight disaster since my wife was the only one went from our side (I was not feeling well, and the kid was having fun on the ship), she was pretty much overwhelmed by other people in the group. The other family wasn't so considerate at all, jeopardizing the entire group's schedule just to fit their request/needs, and the guide was no help at all. In the end, they got what they wanted, spending an hour at a place "experiencing culture and food" which was not on the itinerary, while cutting the time spent in main highlight attractions (catherine's palace) from already minimium to barely existent (suppose to have an hour, and in the end 30 mins tops).

Worst part is their attitude when we reached out to complain about this nonsensical grouping. They seemed to be offended when we started questioning the logic of their grouping. This attitude reflects in every response they wrote on TA to any negative reviews. They seldom acknowledge the problem, normally just blame something that was not in their control, something that was unfortunate, and some times directly fired back at the reviewers. I do not know both sides of the story (it may be some reviewers were not telling the whole story), but just not used to see such attitude when business receiving critics.

My only advise is, try to make sure you have an experienced guide (you can see a lot of names being mentioned in the positive reviews. Unfortunately, our tour guide was never one of the names, nor did her name/profile actually show up in SPB's site), and try not be put in as the minority group of a binary setting (in our case, we are a family of three, and the other party was six people, when disagreement occured, you were in a disadvantage point naturally especially when your guide knew nothing about how to balance it).

My family of 12 used ALLA Tours and we had our own 2 day tour. The mini-bus was comfortable and we received a bottle of water each day. We had one lunch in a hotel dining room and one lunch, on the bus. Eating on the go, gave us time to drive to the Peterhof Gardens, without wasting an hour.

They gave us a special discount and they were very reasonable. We got back to the ship in plenty of time. There is a guarantee which states that Alla Tours would deliver the group, to the next cruise stop, if the group misses the ship. So far, this has never happened.

GentDiors: I'm sorry you felt cheated by your tour. You had a perfect small group and should have really enjoyed your tour.

Has anyone had any experience with these private tour companies taking the high speed train to Moscow and back for the day. What was the itinerary like?

Thanks

Todd

Has anyone had any experience with these private tour companies taking the high speed train to Moscow and back for the day. What was the itinerary like?

 

Thanks

 

Todd

Hi Todd, I've cut and pasted our Day 2 (of 3 days) itinerary of the trip to Moscow. It isn't quite as daunting as it looks (honest!) as the Sapsan is such a comfortable and relaxing train journey. The Armoury is amazing! Lunch was self-pay on this day but the place we were taken to was excellent and amazing value for Moscow. Please feel free to let me know if any questions about the tour we did. Cheers, Calum

05.45 Transfer from the ship to the train station in St.Petersburg

06.45 "Sapsan" high-speed train to Moscow

10.40 Arrival in Moscow, meet your guide and driver

11.00-14.00 City sightseeing tour covering major sights and photo stops: Komsomolskaya Square, LubyankaSquare, Red Square, St.Basil's Cathedral (Intercession Cathedral), Christ OurSavior Cathedral, Novodevichi Convent, View point on Sparrow Hills, MoscowState University, Poklonnaya Gora and Victory Park, The White House of RussianParliament, New Arbat Street

14.00-15.00 Lunch (optional)

15.30-16.30 Tour of the Kremlingrounds

16.30-17.30 Excursion in the ArmoryChamber - world-famouscollection of the Russian treasures

17.30-18.00 Time for shopping, souvenirs

18.15 Return to the train station (subway tour)

19.45 High-speed train back to SPB

23.45 Arrival in St. Petersburg

00.30 Return to the ship

Have been on 3 Baltic cruises and used 3 different independent tour companies, Alla, SPB and Best Guides. We were NEVER late getting back to the ship and usually were back before the cruise ship tour buses.

<<<Karen>>>

Hi Karen,

Long time no chat since our Europe cruise in 2014. I found your reply while researching our next cruise with the Regal Princess in the Baltic for May 2018. Hope that you and Gary are doing well! Quick question - do we need visas if we decide to use an independent tour operator in St. Petersburg. Princess has recommend that we use their tours to avoid having apply for visas.

Hi Karen,

 

Long time no chat since our Europe cruise in 2014. I found your reply while researching our next cruise with the Regal Princess in the Baltic for May 2018. Hope that you and Gary are doing well! Quick question - do we need visas if we decide to use an independent tour operator in St. Petersburg. Princess has recommend that we use their tours to avoid having apply for visas.

No, the independent tour operators (Alla, SPB, TJ Tours, Best Guides, whomever) will handle the visa situation for you, just the same as Princess would. You can go to the FAQs on their websites or contact them for more details.

We used TJ Travel for our two day St. Petersburg Tour in August 2018. I can't recommend them highly enough. We had a fantastic guide, Elena, whose English was wonderful and her knowledge of Russian history, art, architecture, etc. remarkable. We had 14 in our group, had a comfortable Mercedes van, and saw so much during our tours. Elena was able to maneuver us around large groups to get us into attractions quickly, we visited the Hermitage on Monday, the day they are closed, but they allow some local tour companies in so there were no lines or crowds. Our two induced lunches were in nice restaurants and very tasty, another benefit of a smaller group. Ou driver, Andrew was very accommodating and friendly. We took a canal cruise that gave us another perspective of the city and were followed by one of the many boys who chase the boats for tips and make the cruise more fun. I could go on and on about this fantastic tour. We used TJ for our other Baltic tours too. A very professional, responsive and reasonably priced company with wonderful guides and drivers.