Question about SPB - Viking Oceans

I will be travelling with three others in my family on the May 30th, 2015 sailing of the brand new Viking Star. Can't wait, as I've never been to Europe and it sure appears this is a fantastic place to get your first taste of it. It is a 15 day trip and will be an amazing experience I'm sure. We are probably going to stick to the Viking sponsored tours, even though from reading in here we'd probably be better off going with one of the local tour companies, I'll never convince my family of that so I'm not even going to try. From what I've gleaned from here, our passport and tour ticket will be satisfactory to enter into Saint Petersburg and no visa is necessary as long as you are on a ship sponsored tour. But.. I do know that my mom and aunt have expressed interest in doing some independent shopping and roaming around in St. Petersburg. I'm assuming we will be well served to have a visa for this activity?

If they want to wander off on their own they will need a personal VISA

They may have some shopping time on the ships tour or you could always book a custom private tour (no VISA required) & make time for their shopping

jmo

If they leave with the tour group they must return with the group

If they are world travellers they may be fine wandering off on their own

SPB is a very LARGE city

I do not see the aversion to a private tour VS DIY in a large city

but to each their own

Welcome to our boards. For your first trip to Europe, you picked the best itinerary around.

To answer your question about St Petersburg. We have seen people mention that even though they were on a tour, either with a ship, or with a private operator, they were given the chance to wander about a bit on their own. But these have been few and far between. If you do want to roam about St Petersburg on your own, YES, you will need your own visa. That is basically the only way. Again, you might be lucky and your cruise line might have some sort of tour which might allow you to spend some free time on your own, but you would have to check with them.

If you ever decided to do a private tour, you could set it up so whomever wanted to roam around a bit, sort of on the own, they might be able to set something like that up. Obviously, they wouldn't be allowed to go far, but it might be better than going thru the entire process of obtaining a Russian visa, especially, with the world the way it is, might be more difficult at this time.

Anyway, glad to welcome you to our boards and hope we can help you out as much as possible.

Cheers

Len

St. Petersburg is not like other European ports you have visited. I don't think it is worth the cost or effort to get your own visa just for some doodling around time.

This city is not very easy to do on your own. Nothing is near the port. Many do not speak English. You will need local currency for transportation and other expenses. To me it is a fool's errand. There is too much to see to waste your time wandering around alone. And you certainly don't want to take a chance on getting lost in the city. It could be problematic to get back to the ship.

Book with a reputable company like SPB or Alla. You'll still get some shopping time, and you'll see much more by letting a professional handle the logistics.

St. Petersburg is not like other European ports you have visited. I don't think it is worth the cost or effort to get your own visa just for some doodling around time.

 

This city is not very easy to do on your own. Nothing is near the port. Many do not speak English. You will need local currency for transportation and other expenses. To me it is a fool's errand. There is too much to see to waste your time wandering around alone. And you certainly don't want to take a chance on getting lost in the city. It could be problematic to get back to the ship.

 

Book with a reputable company like SPB or Alla. You'll still get some shopping time, and you'll see much more by letting a professional handle the logistics.

You have captured the charm and the challenge of visiting Russia!!

There's one additional obstacle, no one has mentioned yet: the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Here's our experience. My husband and I took a river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg less than a decade ago. We added on some independent pre-cruise time in Moscow. That meant we had to get two letters of sponsorship: one from the Moscow hotel where we would be staying and the one from the river boat cruise operator. Our personal visa covered us for our entire stay in Russia even though we would be on ship's tours the duration of the river cruise. None of what I've shared so far applies to the OP whose family wants to wander independently. What follows does:

The hotel -- a Marriott -- gave us a map to use when we walked around Moscow, which we were legally allowed to do. On our arrival day, we set off on a walk to Red Square. The map seemed useful since the names of all the streets were transliterated into English. Unfortunately, the names of the streets on the street signs were only in Cyrillic! Since I could not read Cyrillic, the map was useless.

Fortunately, our hotel was a very, very short distance to Red Square and we fumbled our way there and back by matching the patterns of the streets with the patterns on the map as well as counting blocks. The experience was generally stressful. The next day, when we hooked up with our private guide, I was thrilled to turn the navigating responsibility over to her.

Visiting Russia is not like visiting a foreign country where the names may be unfamiliar but the alphabet is familiar. There is no correspondence between the way a Russian word sounds to our ears and the way it is written in Cyrillic. If your family won't even accept the "challenge" of using the services of the many well-regarded private companies, how do you think they'll react to learning that the streets signs may be in a foreign alphabet. (Disclaimer: Time has passed and St. Petersburg may use multi-language signage. Certainly cities in Israel do. Street signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.)

I would be more concerned of your personal safety rather than getting lost or not being able to find your way around - especially if this is your first time overseas and an unseasoned traveler. Check the US Dept. of State website to check their warnings of travel in Russia. Stick with your organized tours and save the independent shopping/roaming to the other more western European countries. (IMO!!)

Lots of great information here. I sent an e-mail to my fellow travelers suggesting we do something in the evening with SPB that offers a "Night on the Town" which gets you a private driver for 3 hours, and you can use that time to eat, see parts of the city, shop, or whatever. Or TJ Travel which has the Russian Experience where they pick you up at the ship at 7PM and you have several hours that evening to do what you wish. Does something like this sound like a better idea?

A few added pieces of information to help you decide.

Pro independent:

- St. Petersburg does have dual English/Cyrillic signage, at least in the central city.

- We visited the Metro on our tour and the system appeared to be very easy for English speakers to use.

- ATMs are everywhere.

Con independent:

- Read up on the visa red tape and cost. It's ridiculous.

- Believe me, you will get plenty of opportunity to shop on the guided tours! I'm sure the tour companies get kickbacks.

Re the evening option: bear in mind that you will lose several time zone hours between the beginning of your cruise and SPB, plus start touring early in the morning, plus the tour days are long. And that's on top of whatever lingering jetlag you are still feeling. We had toyed with the idea of an evening tour, but were so tired that night, there's no way we would have been able to do one.

Hope this helps with your decision.

Much better. Just be mindful of your time if you are using the ship's tour during the day. They are usually full day excursions, and sometimes because of the traffic may be late in returning to the ship. This is true for whatever source you use, but it becomes problematic if you are using two different companies (ship vs. local). Check the description of the tour to determine how long it lasts. Then allow some extra time to be sure you can meet your evening schedule.

Have you considered using one of the companies you named for all your tours in Russia? We used SPB and were very pleased. They took care of everything including visas, lunch, admission to various sites. We even had a short stop for shopping after lunch on the second day. Overall we had two complete days full of activity. We did not want to go out in the evening once we returned to the ship around 6PM.

Do not be afraid to use either one. There are some advantages over ship's tours. They are usually less expensive, and the groups are smaller. Check their websites for what they offer and compare it to what the ship offers. You and your group will have to decide what works best, but you are on the right track by doing your research now.

We used SPB and were very pleased. They took care of everything including visas, lunch, admission to various sites. We even had a short stop for shopping after lunch on the second day.

That's it for the shopping?! Where did you stop for potty breaks, if not at the gift shops?

We did the SPB Deluxe 2-day tour, were also very pleased, and had the following shopping opportunities:

3 souvenir shop bathroom breaks on day 1; 2 on day 2

St. Isaac's gift ship

Hermitage gift shop

Vendors outside Hermitage (best prices)

Church of the Spilled Blood gift shop (most unique offerings)

Catherine Palace gift shop

Vodka shop at end of day 2

Plus the little mall going in to the ship

I guess I wasn't counting the potty stops as shopping because I wasn't shopping or paying attention to the street vendors nor did I spend any time in the gift shops of the places we visited.I remember the one after lunch because we went directly there from the restaurant so it seemed more like a stop solely for the purpose of shopping.

You are correct. There were plenty of opportunities if one was looking.

You are right, the last stop was the only truly dedicated shopping stop.

OP:

PS and BTW,

Virtually everything you see for sale in SPB can be bought for less in Tallinn. True for amber jewellery, matrioshka dolls, Faberge eggs, lacquer boxes, embroidery, and military medals.

The only exception was fake fur hats -- they were cheaper and more widely available in SPB.

I agree with all the above comments. I wouldn't bother trying to get my own visa as it is too much hassle and costly. When we were in SPB last September we booed the 2 day Comfort Tour with Alla Tours and it was excellent. TBH I didn't see anything in SPB that I wanted to buy and the things I did see were expensive. OK, that's not strictly true, I did see some very nice and unusual pieces of amber jewellery, but I can buy it cheaper at home in London.

I was fascinated by all the 'capitalist' shops in the main shopping are, places like Prada, Chanel etc, but you can find these in any major European city. As has already been mentioned, there can be plenty of shopping time on the excursions.

We don't do ship excursions as they are always overpriced. Apart from SPB we did DIY in all our ports of call as it was very easy. Just needs a bit of planning and research, but that's all part of the fun.

If they want to wander off on their own they will need a personal VISA

 

They may have some shopping time on the ships tour or you could always book a custom private tour (no VISA required) & make time for their shopping

 

jmo

If they leave with the tour group they must return with the group

If they are world travellers they may be fine wandering off on their own

SPB is a very LARGE city

 

I do not see the aversion to a private tour VS DIY in a large city

but to each their own

I knew this was going to be a losing battle for me.. but it was worth a try. Can't convince two of the the four of my travelling party to not waste the resources on a visa, and one thing I learned long ago with my family.. you can't tell them anything once they have their mind made up. So I guess I will be hoping we don't get lost.

goksucats

I am a very experienced traveller and have lived in a variety of countries, but I wouldn't try doing SPB on my own from a cruise ship. If I was going to be there for a week, then that would be different. You will each need a costly visa from the Russian Embassy to leave the ship. How do you propose to get around? I doubt many people will speak good English and everything is written in the Syrillic alphabet.

The port is quite a distance from the centre of town and how will you know where to go?

I really think you are wasting your time and it is a very silly idea. SPB is a beautiful city, but you are going to miss out if you don't do one of the tours.

Why don't you let those that want to do their own thing sort themselves out and you can book one of the very good organised tours. I can tell you now who will have had the best time.