St Petersburg tour for one day only

A small group of us are on Eclipse in St Petersburg on 6th June 2015 and wanted to do a one day tour taking in the sights. I have found several companies who appear to offer a complete one day tour at a good price but, when contacted, will only offer us a two day tour as we are there for two days. Is there a good reason for this or is it a money making ploy to a captive (ie visa less) audience.

Any suggestions as to one day tours or should I just accept that we need to do two days?

Thanks

Rob

Hi Rob,

Certainly the majority of local operators, if not all of them, only offer a two-day tour if your ship is in port for two days. I'm guessing this is because if they accepted a one-day tour the guide, driver & vehicle would consequently lie idle on the second day.

No different to, say, hotels in some locations or circumstances anywhere in the world requiring a minimum two-night (weekend?) stay.

You don't quote the size of your group, vans carry up to 16 but standard prices apply if your group is at least 8-strong (10 for some operators).

Three suggestions:

1. Take a two-day tour. SPB is well worth a full two days & you wouldn't be disappointed. If you've planned a custom-tour, for instance visiting sights not on a standard tour, a custom tour for the second day could be arranged to complement your planned tour, or a standard tour for that other day might suit anyway.

If you can fix a one-day tour, what are your plans for the other day? Without a tour on that day you'd not be able to leave the ship without a visa. That'd be a waste of a valuable day, or all the visa cost & the grief with logistics for just that one other day.

2. If I'm right about the reason for not accepting a one-day tour, perhaps you could find another group who also want just a one-day tour. Then your group could have the vehicle for one day & the other group for the other day - provided the dates suited both groups.

Worth asking the operators if this is possible?

(edit: it might occur to you that you could "invent" for the other day another group that simply doesn't show. I don't know whether you'd get away with that but I very strongly urge you not to do so - the operators in SPB are very trusting, they don't require payment or even card details in advance. Any nonsense like that would jeopardise such trust for all of us in the future)

3. Book a ship's tour for that one day - subject to the itinerary & other limitations of what the ship has to offer.

There are legit business reasons for offering only a two day tour. I don't see it as a ploy to make money, I see it as sensible utilisation of their fixed assets over the two days. They can probably do that by simply declining your request & booking out the vehicle/guide to someone else for the two days.

Just my thoughts.

JB :)

John, could it have anything to do with the Immigration rules?

I ask as our tour tickets efffectively became our visa at Immigration. A lot of scrutiny on Day 1 and so much easier when presented, but still checked, on Day 2?

A small group of us are on Eclipse in St Petersburg on 6th June 2015 and wanted to do a one day tour taking in the sights. I have found several companies who appear to offer a complete one day tour at a good price but, when contacted, will only offer us a two day tour as we are there for two days. Is there a good reason for this or is it a money making ploy to a captive (ie visa less) audience.

 

Any suggestions as to one day tours or should I just accept that we need to do two days?

 

Thanks

 

Rob

Hi Rob,

Yes, as John has pointed out, most companies only offer 2 day group tours if your ship is in port for 2 days. However, I know that the company we have used in the past, Alla Tours (http://alla-tour.com/), offers whatever you want as a private option. So, I believe that you can book just a one day tour with them but it would be a private tour for just your group and thus, much more expensive than a group tour. I am pretty sure that many of the tour companies in St. Petersburg would offer a private tour for one day. Alternately, you could try to get a group together on your roll call to bring the cost down. As previously stated, if your group is at least 10, I think that the group rate will apply.

As John asked, if you are interested only in a one day tour, what do you plan on doing the 2nd day in port? Is there a reason that you only want a one day tour? Unless you have a Russian visa, you will not be allowed through immigration to enter Russia on your 2nd day (your visa waiver with an independent tour company is only good for the day you have booked a tour with them) and would need to remain on the ship. There is just so much to see in St. Petersburg - a 2 day tour will barely scratch the surface.

There are only six of us and private tours are very expensive. I need to liaise with my fellow travellers and the tour operators but it may be that a two day tour is the best choice as we may not pass that way again.

I have seen the tours offered by Alla, SPB and another but we can also think about a ships excursion or shorexcursions dot com, who both seem to offer one day tours, but, as you say, what will we do on day two.

Thanks for your observations.

Rob

rojojacko (Rob)- Just my "two cents"-

You NEED two days to see all the wonderful sites in St Petersburg. If you do just a one day tour you and your friends will be cheating yourselves. Go to the roll call for your cruise and get others to join you in a group to cut your cost. Also both Alla and SPB (we've used both and they are excellent :)) will make up groups so if you don't want to do one of your own go that way. Putting a group together through your roll call is not that hard, I've done it a few times now. Most recently in the Mediterranean where I organized three group tours with no problems. We corresponded via the roll call board and privately, met up on the ship and all got off together to met the guides. Each couple paid on their own, no problem. DO NOT do ship's tours in St Pete. They cost as much or more and you see very little.

Hope this helps.

<<<Karen>>>

Sorry but if you're there for two days..what are you going to do about the other day?

We saw and did more in our two day private tour with TJ Travel than we ever thought possible.

Your correct...possibly a once in a lifetime visit...take full advantage of what this amazing city has to offer. Enjoy !!!

I know what you mean by expensive. I paid for 6 people last year to do a 2 day tour with ALLA in St Petersburg. It was amazing and there is no way we could have seen nearly as many of the "must See" sights in 1 day.We were part of a group of 16 people that connected on our roll call. ALLA was fantastic.

There is a reason that the vast majority of cruises spend 2 days in St Petersburg. It is because there is so much to see. You say in your post that you want to do a 'one day tour taking in the sights', well there's a lot you are going to miss. It's impossible to take in the sights in a single day. Yes, it is expensive, but when you've already spent a lot on the cruise and airfare to get to St Petersburg it seems a pity not to take full advantage of what it has to offer.

It sounds as though I need to go for the two days to cover all of the sights so I will now get back to the drawing board (or Internet) to see who offers the best two day package.

Thanks for all of your observations on this matter.

Rob :)

Rob-

Please check with the roll call for your cruise. Someone has probably already set up a tour with one of the well known tour operators. If there are openings you and your friends could join and cut your costs. We did this on both our Baltic cruises with excellent results. In fact, our group of ten still keep in touch (2013 tour). The roll call board on CC is wonderful and we have yet be unhappy with any tour we joined and we have met many great people as well.

<<<Karen>>>

Will look at that, thanks.

Rob

If it is cost, there are alternatives to the higher prices of the ship and tour operators mentioned often. There are cruise oriented walking tours for about $40/person. And a long time museum ticket agency(a business that sells the tickets to tour operators) who is planning much cheaper full 2 day programs for about 100 less than the usual companies. There are private guide who work through tour operators who charge a lot less.

Tours are very expensive when you consider the Ruble being 52 to the dollar so there would be plenty of profit at $175 for a two day program that is going for $300 this year and last when the Ruble was worth a lot more. I think greed has really taken hold, a few of these companies are going to make millions in windfall profit due to the customers not knowing about foreign exchange rates. A tour last year when the Ruble was worth 32 sold for $300 and cost about $200 to provide, cost about 6400 rubles to the company. This year with the museum prices staying the same, it would still be 6400 Rubles but in US dollars that is costing the tour operator $123 and still charging last year's prices. That is $177 profit.

At least one company this year said they would have the standard "$300 tour" for $175. I am sure the others will follow with some reduction their prices if they want to sell shore excursions. One company I know will make an additional $3.5million in additional profit just from the exchange rate difference between this and last year.