Want to hear thoughts on TJ Travel for St Petersburg

I am considering booking with TJ Travel for their 2 day standard tour. We are not big private tour company people but they seem to have a private tour package that includes everything we want to do at a price I'm willing to pay. I have read their policy page and even what happens if the tour runs late and you miss the ship. Are they too good to be true? Are they reputable? TripAdvisor Likes them. What about all of you here on CC?

Hi Terri,

We used TJ travel when we were in St. Petersburg on our 2012 Baltic cruise. We did the fast paced, see everything tour. The tour was planned by a person on our Roll Call. We had 14 on our tour. Our group met up before we got of the boat and went through the immigration control area together. TJ travel was waiting, we got in the van and off we went. There was only one slight problem with our tour and that was when we went to Catherine's Palace there was a paperwork problem in that they didn't have any of the info for our group, and possible any of the TJ groups. We waited around for a while to see if it could get cleared up but it didn't, so we left so that we wouldn't miss the rest of the day. When we went to pay at the store they did take 25% off of our price. We didn't have any problem getting back to the ship on time. They plan the excursions so that you do the long drives either on the first day or in the morning of the second day.

Julie

Thanks Julie,

I am going to go ahead and make the reservation for the two day tour. Feeling just a little nervous ( maybe it's just the excitement)

Aloha Kevin's girl. Good luck!

Questions,

When is your tour?

Are you planning a small tour 6/8 or larger 16 pax tour?

What happens if you miss the ship? What do they do?

Peggy

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Hi

We are on Arcadia Baltic cruise in May and have booked a private custom tour for the 4 of us with TJ Travel after having seen good reviews for them. We asked them to provide a tour that took in our specific interests i.e Siege of Leningrad museum and Artillery museum as we found the other tours a little to Palace/Cathedral dependant for us. We are also going to the Hermitage and Peter and Paul Fortress and having a detailed 3 hour sightseeing tour of the city. Price per person $235 which I thought was excellent as it is a private tour for just 4. All correspondence with TJ was quick, efficient and organised and we already have our tour tickets emailed to us ready for our trip.

Captain Huges how exciting! Is this a one or 2 day tour?

Are you adding on an evening tour? (If 2 days of course)

Have a grand time!

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hello milolii,

I booked the two day standard private tour for just my husband and I. The cost for just the two of us is $560 per person. Here is the tour summary:

Two-day Standard Private Shore Excursion

Day 1

8.00am Meeting by the ship. (Please note: the time of the beginning of the tour is given approximately and will be adjusted depending on your ship arrival time)

City tour includes driving and photo stops in the most beautiful, historical places of St Petersburg.

10:30-11:00am Travel to Petergof by hydrofoil

11:00-12.30am guided tour of the Upper Gardens and Lower Fountain Park

12:30-1:30 pm Traditional Russian lunch (optional)

1:30-2:30pm Driving to Pushkin city

2:30-4:00pm Inside guided tour of Catherine Palace with the Amber Room

4:00-5:00 pm Driving to the city. A visit to the subway station and a farmers market

5pm Return to the ship or evening optional program (theatre / folk show/boat trip)

Day 2

9.00am Meeting by the ship. Payment for the tour. Shopping

9.30-12.30 guided tour of the State Hermitage museum (early admission, before the official opening hours)

12.30-13.30 Traditional Russian lunch (optional)

13:30-14.00pm Inside guided tour of the Church of the Spilt Blood

14.15-15.00pm Inside guided tour of St. Isaac’s Cathedral

3.00-3.30pm Everyday life in the city.

4:00 pm Return to the ship

Price includes:

Admission fees to all museums in the program (including the early entrance to the Hermitage)

Guide’s services for 2 days

Driver’s services for 2 days (Comfortable car(Mercedes)/minivan with A/C)

A Permit for photo/video at the museums per person

Metro ride

Hydrofoil ride

All port fees

All local taxes

Blanket visa

Bottled water

Head sets for the group of 10 and more

Cost of lunches is not included

Note, please:

If you travel with children under 7 years old, you don’t have to pay for them-the tour for them will be free of charge

Children/Students over 7 years old receive discount of $35 US for the tour. Students must have ISIC card. Please, let us know about students in your group in advance so that we can reserve the right tickets for them

Gratuities to the guide and driver are not included in the tour price. The sum you wish to give to your guide and driver after a well-done tour should be up to the western standards (approximately 15%). It is a good idea to divide gratuity between your guide and driver and give it separately to them: 10% to the guide and 5% to the driver. Please have some cash with you (USD, EUR or RUB) for this reason, but it is always up to you!!!

pricing:

If you would like to have a private two day standard tour, the cost of the tour will depend on the number of people in your group. Please, check in the table below:

number of people 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

price in $$ p/p 560 340 290 280 270 240 230 220

This is from the FAQ's regarding missing the ship

You can be sure you will never be late to your ship at the end of the last day.

13) what happens if we are late back to the ship on the departure day?

We are always prepared for the unexpected and always have a special extra van in case of the emergency to provide you with another vehicle or whatever means necessary to return you to your ship at the appointed time, at our expense. All of our itineraries are insured to take into account unforeseen circumstances which may arise on the way back to the port.

If by any reason you are late and miss your ship we will take the responsibility to deliver you to the next port at our expense.

I just booked last night and have already received two emails confirming the reservation and giving info and instructions on the travel documents I will be receiving.

Aloha Kevin's girl, this is most likely exactly what we want. Thanks so much. I hope you have a great time.

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We did a similar private 2 day tour with TJ in 2012 -- similar because we asked "can we do this and that instead of these things on your list?" and they were very quick to respond positively. We loved our driver and guide, and ended up making many more changes on day 2, as they figured out what we liked best and tailored the tour to our needs.

You've made a great choice!

Hi

Ours is a 2 day tour but finishing at 1.30pm on the second day with option to extend with other activities should we wish. We thought we would wait until we know what the weather is like and if good we may book a city cruise before heading back to the ship. We also get early entrance with nearly 3 hours at the Hermitage and all entrance fees, photo/video permits etc etc included. Very happy :)

Hi

 

We are on Arcadia Baltic cruise in May and have booked a private custom tour for the 4 of us with TJ Travel after having seen good reviews for them. We asked them to provide a tour that took in our specific interests i.e Siege of Leningrad museum and Artillery museum as we found the other tours a little to Palace/Cathedral dependant for us. We are also going to the Hermitage and Peter and Paul Fortress and having a detailed 3 hour sightseeing tour of the city. Price per person $235 which I thought was excellent as it is a private tour for just 4. All correspondence with TJ was quick, efficient and organised and we already have our tour tickets emailed to us ready for our trip.

I have been corresponding with them as well but haven't gotten a price or option like that. Sounds reasonable. "The cost of the private tour above is 550 USD pp for 2 people and 230 USD pp for 16 people". That is my quote for a full day private tour. I really wanted what you asked for but was not given an option like that. I may have to try again.

I would definitely tell them your specific interests. I had a quote from a company called Guide Guru who laid out a tour for me including the places we wanted to visit. I asked TJ Travel to match the quote and they did. As TJ appear better known by cruise critic members I opted to go with them and they have been very good to deal with so far. Definitely press for what you want as you may never be in SPB again :)

This is our itinerary. We have elderly parents with us so did not want anything to strenuous and wanted to be able to do things at our own pace with the added flexibility that gives, hence booking for just the 4 of us. We can tweak the times and places as we go along

Day 1, May 23 Friday

8:00-8:30am - meet your guide and our tour coordinator at the St Petersburg sea passenger port

8:30-11:30am – City - tour (see the Old city, Nevsky Prospect, Square of Arts, The Winter Palace, Bronze Horseman, Strelka, stop on St. Isaac's square. You will also see Cruiser Aurora (the battleship that signaled the Bolshevik Revolution) and Peter the Great's Log Cabin.

11:30am-12:30pm – visit the Artillery Museum.

12:30-1:30pm - lunch time.

1:30-3:00pm - visit Peter & Paul Fortress with cathedral and Trubetskoy bastion (the prison).

3:00-4:00pm - visit the Museum of Leningrad Siege.

4:30pm - back onboard the cruise ship.

Optional evening excursion if required

Day 2, May 24, Saturday

9:30am - meet your tour guide, payment.

10:00-12:30am – tour The Hermitage museum. You will explore treasures of one of the richest world art museums, see the Royal collection of European masters(Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael, Michelangelo, Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt etc.), a collection of French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists that is only second to the collection in France. You will also take a special tour of The Winter Palace and view royal living rooms and gala halls.

12:30 - 01:00pm – free time, shopping.

1:30pm - onboard the cruise ship or optional extra excursion

Note, the tour sequence may vary depending on traffic conditions and overcrowding at venues

Price includes:

• Admission fees to all museums in the program

• services of a friendly, and a highly professional guide for 2 days

• Driver’s services for 2 days (Comfortable (Mercedes) mini van with A/C)

• Photo and video permissions at the museums

• All port fees

• the cost of blanket visa,

• all local taxes

• Bottled water for each day

Thank you for your input Captain Hughes. It gives me a starting point to work with. Celebrity offers us the things we want to do but it would be a lot of waisted time back and forth to ship to catch the next trip. There are just two of us now and the expense of a totally private tour would be too much so would need to find someone that is interested in the same type of stops we want. Thanks again for your help.

I had written Rony's taxi a week or so ago about adding a third van to the 2 already in place. They just responded today. I had already reserved with another company because of the delay in Rony's response.

He seemed confused when I said I went elsewhere about the two vans already booked by Rew. This is my email back to him today.

"They remain separate from me. Other Cruise Critic members contacted you and they will expect the vans to be there from your company. Be sure you stay in touch with your contact person Rew!

I was just looking to add another van but when I did not hear back from you in a timely manner, I went elsewhere.

Again, the 2 vans reserved from Rew must remain in your reservation system."

Maybe Rew should email them to double confirm.

I just booked last night and have already received two emails confirming the reservation and giving info and instructions on the travel documents I will be receiving.

I'm glad to hear you got such a great response. They come highly recommended from friends of ours. When are you going? Overall, I think their reviews are better & I am seriously considering using them.

I'm glad to hear you got such a great response. They come highly recommended from friends of ours. When are you going? Overall, I think their reviews are better & I am seriously considering using them.

We will be going in August this year. I have been reading the reviews here on CC and TripAdvisor. They do really have great reviews. I have also added an evening walk and boat ride with vodka tasting. The price is $49 USD per person if there is 12 people booked and more if less than 12.

The prices I posted above are for the two day private standard tour. They also offer a Relaxed tour which is a bit less. Here is the link to the website and tour choices:

http://st-petersburg-tours.ru/shore-excursions/

I'm a big fan of TJ Travel we did their "Active 2 Day Tour"(Aug 2010) just the two of us , guide & driver....What VIP treatment we received and the flexability to change things up and add some things we wanted to do even at the spur of the moment..We saw and did more in these 2 days than we ever expected possible...You have made a great choice ... Enjoy all this city has to offer and the best possible way to do that by using a private tour company :D:D

I would definitely tell them your specific interests. I had a quote from a company called Guide Guru who laid out a tour for me including the places we wanted to visit. I asked TJ Travel to match the quote and they did. As TJ appear better known by cruise critic members I opted to go with them and they have been very good to deal with so far. Definitely press for what you want as you may never be in SPB again :)

I also chose TJ for our upcoming cruise, and one of the reasons was their responsiveness in answering all my questions. I ended up customizing a standard tour by adding the canal boat ride, and there's a nice group of us from my roll call all touring together. One of my considerations was that my 82 year old mother will be with us, and while she is still very mobile and loves to travel I thought the longer tours would just be a little bit much for her.

I also spent a lot of time both here and on Trip Advisor reading reviews before I made a decision. While all the companies have overwhelmingly positive reviews, one thing I did was read the negative reviews from the last two seasons to see what the problems were as well as how/if the company responded.

We also selected TJ Tours for our cruise this May. As others have stated, while the tour offerings from Alla and SPB are similar and all receive great reviews, the speed and quality of the responses to our questions from TJ were the major factor in selecting them. Have not been brave enough to request changes to their tour as I know so little about St. Petersburg and the various attractions. Their basic tour in all the cities appeared very comprehensive to us. We will be doing the 5 cities with them and looking forward to it.

I'm a big fan of TJ Travel we did their "Active 2 Day Tour"(Aug 2010) just the two of us , guide & driver....What VIP treatment we received and the flexability to change things up and add some things we wanted to do even at the spur of the moment..We saw and did more in these 2 days than we ever expected possible...You have made a great choice ... Enjoy all this city has to offer and the best possible way to do that by using a private tour company :D:D

Thank you so much for the encouraging words. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. We are so excited about this city and don't want to miss a thing.

Thank you so much for the encouraging words. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. We are so excited about this city and don't want to miss a thing.

Tatyana and I e-mail back & forth often..as recent as a day or two ago...

Please tell her "Ashland" says hello and has assured you you'll have a "Trip of a Lifetime" :D

I can do nothing but rave about TJ. We used them last July in St Petersburg and they also arranged tours in our other ports. There were 6 of us 3 boys 16,16 & 20, my mom 74 and Roger & I both 50. My mom has some mobility issues and we wanted to also see certain places not on other tours etc. they customized everything we asked and everything was wonderful. The private tours allowed us to modify on the fly etc. you will not be disappointed

Sharon

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We have booked the Standard tour and will be sharing it with another couple from our Roll Call. We have also added the Venice of the North night tour. I am very excited for this tour. Thank you so much for the info and positive words about TJ tours.