Disembarkation in SPB

Our itinerary says that we arrive in SPB at 8am on Saturday, Sept. 8. Would anyone venture to guess how long it will take for the ship to clear customs and immigration and allow us to disembark? And then how long the process is to get through the dock and meet a private tour guide? And how difficult it was to find your tour guide? I have images from oldtime movies of grumpy customs/immigration agents who delay clearance until they get their contraband (Marlboros, bourbon, jeans, etc.)! :confused:

Also, does anyone of the website addresses for Alla, SPB Tours and TJ Travel? I did a couple of searches and came up with some strange sights.

We are contemplating a one day private tour on the day of arrival.

Thanks in advance! :D

Our itinerary says that we arrive in SPB at 8am on Saturday, Sept. 8. Would anyone venture to guess how long it will take for the ship to clear customs and immigration and allow us to disembark? And then how long the process is to get through the dock and meet a private tour guide? And how difficult it was to find your tour guide? I have images from oldtime movies of grumpy customs/immigration agents who delay clearance until they get their contraband (Marlboros, bourbon, jeans, etc.)! :confused:

 

Also, does anyone of the website addresses for Alla, SPB Tours and TJ Travel? I did a couple of searches and came up with some strange sights.

 

We are contemplating a one day private tour on the day of arrival.

 

Thanks in advance! :D

It took us about 30 minutes for our ship to clear and we were off immediately! :)

Going through immigration is very easy...since we were among the first passengers off the ship, we did not experience any lines at immigration. The process is very straight forward...give them your passport, your immigration card (which you will get aboard ship the night before) and your visa waiver (supplied by your Russian tour operator) and you will be on your way.

We used Alla Tours and had an amazing 2 days in SPB. Immediately on exiting the doors from immigration, both Alla and our guide, Valentina, were waiting for us holding a sign with their tour company on it. Couldn't have been easier.

The website for Alla is:

http://alla-tour.com/tours/

Enjoy your time in SPB. It is a gorgeous city.

jill

Our experience similar to Jill's, also with Alla.

Guides will expect to see you within an hour of docking.

Get off the ship before the herd (they'll be congregating in public rooms) & its very quick.

No worries about immigration officers - though you're right, they're quite straight-faced & grumpy. I guess they were trained at Newark airport NJ :D

Guides will be waiting beyond immigration in the (fairly small) terminal, no worries.

http://www.alla-tour.com/

http://www.spb-tours.com/st-petersburg/en/

I think SPB also have an office/partner in the USA.

http://st-petersburg-tours.ru/ this is TJ

JB :)

John as always your post made me smile.

I agree with the previous comments... be up and ready to go as soon as the ship clears. IMHO Alla is the ONLY tour company to use in SPB

We used SPB tours http://spb-tours.com/ and couldn't have been more pleased. We used them in four different ports on our Baltic cruise. They were wonderful.

The trick is to get off the ship as soon as they announce you are cleared to avoid the lines at passport control. Funny things was the lines were longer to reboard the ship at passport control after our evening out in St. Petersberg.

Enjoy St. Petersberg, we certainly did.

If your ship is a small one, it may tie up in the heart of town at the English Embankment or Lieutenant Schmidt's Embankment rather than at the new "Marine Facade" cruise terminal. There, the 'terminal buildingl" is just a temp building on the pier, and clearing the immigration authorities is even quicker.

The OP mentions contemplating a one-day private tour on the day of arrival. Herman, remember that if you don't have a full-fledged individual visa, you cannot even get off the ship except as part of a pre-arranged tour (private or otherwise) with an appropriately licensed guide.

Thanks to each of you for the answers, help, suggestions, websites, etc.

We arrive on Saturday. Our travel agent is part of a network that offered a complimentary car and driver for the day, so we are doing that on Sunday. On Monday, we are doing a ship tour--our view is at least if we are delayed the ship is responsible! So, on arrival day, we are contemplating either a ship tour or an independent tour guide (we recognize we can't set foot in SPB without our own visas or a blanket visa from a licensed tour group/ship). The ship's tours on that day are not anything that we are particularly interested in, but will do if need be. I thought I would put together an itinerary and email it to the tour groups to see what they come back with.

And yes, we actually are scheduled to dock at the English Embankment. Does anyone know how far into town from there? I hear the traffic is very bad, and the ship tour descriptions mention 30 minutes to town...but I thought the great thing about the English Embankment was it was in the heart of the city?!

We also have booked a night at the Mikhailovsky Theatre for the ballet. Unfortunately, I looked at the theatre website and they are not showing any performance (yet) for August or September....:(

English Embankment is walking distance to the Hermitage and other sites. No need to worry about traffic from your first (or last) destination of your tour.

info@st-petersburg-tours.ru is the contact info for TJ Tours. We're just back from a 2 day private tour with them and we could not have been more pleased with the amount of sites we saw (and how indepth they were - exactly as we had requested), plus all the little extras (Siege memorial, Lenin statue, subway ride, Farmer's Market, non-tourist restaurant, etc, etc, etc).

a recent thread about a one day visit to St petersburg brought up that pricing for a 1 day tour was almost the same price as the 2 day-You might be better off booking for both days-the liklihood of missing the ship is so remote-the tour guides would be in a bit of bother is they were left with foreign tourists on their hands and no visas!

I do remember being driven past a cruise ship docked at the English Embankment and thinking that would be very convenient for the city centre

ps those strange sights you mentioned in your first post when you googled ALLA ANASTASIA etc-were they advertising Russian brides?

a recent thread about a one day visit to St petersburg brought up that pricing for a 1 day tour was almost the same price as the 2 day-You might be better off booking for both days-the liklihood of missing the ship is so remote-the tour guides would be in a bit of bother is they were left with foreign tourists on their hands and no visas!

 

I do remember being driven past a cruise ship docked at the English Embankment and thinking that would be very convenient for the city centre

 

ps those strange sights you mentioned in your first post when you googled ALLA ANASTASIA etc-were they advertising Russian brides?

Good point about the tour group being left with passengers with no visas! I suspect it's a risk they wouldn't want to take.

We could only do a 2-day tour if we could do it on Saturday and Monday since we have a private tour on Sunday...

English Embankment is walking distance to the Hermitage and other sites. No need to worry about traffic from your first (or last) destination of your tour.

 

info@st-petersburg-tours.ru is the contact info for TJ Tours. We're just back from a 2 day private tour with them and we could not have been more pleased with the amount of sites we saw (and how indepth they were - exactly as we had requested), plus all the little extras (Siege memorial, Lenin statue, subway ride, Farmer's Market, non-tourist restaurant, etc, etc, etc).

That's good to know. I haven't googled the site locations yet.

Oh, do tell more about your 2-day tour!! Where did you got, what did you see, what did you eat, etc.? What kind of tipping did you have to do?

We actually want to do a tour that includes the cathedrals of SPB, subway (is it worth seeing?), local restaurant, Yusupov Palace, etc. so I am going to ask them to price a one day out with those sites.

That's good to know. I haven't googled the site locations yet.

 

Oh, do tell more about your 2-day tour!! Where did you got, what did you see, what did you eat, etc.? What kind of tipping did you have to do?

 

We actually want to do a tour that includes the cathedrals of SPB, subway (is it worth seeing?), local restaurant, Yusupov Palace, etc. so I am going to ask them to price a one day out with those sites.

We did just about everything. Will try to list in order, but I'm sure I'm messing it up:

Day 1

Siege Memorial (en route to . . . )

Peterhof with tons of time to walk the grounds and see all the fountains

Hydrofoil to Hermitage

Lunch (Peirogies) where we asked the guide what it cost in Rubles for the two of us, her, and the driver, and we reimbursed in dollars - no English being spoken there!

Subway ride (she bought the tokens)

Church of Spilled Blood

Evening Canal Tour (they told us it wasn't worth it, and they were right. We wanted to do something other than ballet in the evening, so that's what we did @ $75/each including the driver taking us both ways with a stop at Pushkin's statue as we were early)

Day 2

Stop at place where we paid for the tour

Grand Choral Synagogue

Lenin Statue (which is close to Siege Memorial) en route to . . .

Catherine's Palace (only place we had lines, and even those we mostly were able to avoid)

More subway rides

Farmer's market - also no English, some great samples!

Shopping/walking on Nevsky Prospekt

It started to rain around then (2:30PM?) so we cut the shopping/walking short and hit a few more churches for quick photo ops and also stopped for pics outside the ballet theater (name escapes me) and went back to the boat.

We gave the driver $50 and the guide $100 -- they seemed quite pleased.

Edit: The subway is impressive, especially with how long the escalators are (how deep underground the trains are). I wasn't as overwhelmed by the art and style of the stations as others have been, but they were clean and huge, and the trains run very often.

Stockholm, now those are some impressive subway stations.

Herman -- Not to hammer on the visa issue, but you might want to confirm explicitly with your TA that the "complimentary car and driver" includes a pre-arranged and pre-printed tour ticket so the immigration authorities will let you off the ship. Will the driver be an English-speaking qualified tour guide?

Being just back from a cruise that tied up at the English Embankment, I can assure you that it's literally in the heart of town. You can indeed walk to the the Hermitage from there, though it's not exactly around the corner. And if you include the Hermitage in your tour package, you'll get door-to-door service, and also avoid the long, long lines at the separate entrance for individual ticket-holders. You also can specify that you want the "early entrance" option so as to minimize the crowds in the picture galleries.

If you're serious about art, do your research in advance on what exactly you want to see in the Hermitage. Its size and scope are beyond belief. The Hermitage website is terrific for this purpose.

As to ship's tours, I can imagine no possible reason for using them -- overpriced and overcrowded. After many months of monitoring this CC board and TripAdvisor, I have never seen a single report or even anecdote of any private operator's tour not getting back to the ship in time.

I also see no reason why the tour operators often recommended here coudn't or wouldn't take you on a split basis, that is, one day on Saturday and one day on Monday. Certainly, no harm in asking them. Keep in mind that some venues are closed on some days of the week.

In addition to the in-town venues you mentioned, you shouldn't miss the suburban Peterhof gardens and fountains, plus Monplaisir Palace on the Peterhof grounds (not the main palace itself), and also the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo (now called Pushkin) and the nearby Pavlovsk Palace. These add up to two 1/2-day trips. The builders sought to out-do Versailles in lavish ostentation, and they succeeded. (Monplaisir is the exact opposite, like a wealthy 18th-century merchant's house, and fascinating for that.) Each of these venues is much better visited with a tour guide like those recommended on this board, not on your own, for reasons discussed many times on this board.

As to the Mikhailovsky, or the Mariinsky: You don't need to take a ship's or any other organized evening excursion for that purpose. If you sign up with one of the daytime tour operators recommended on this board, you can wait until the theatre programs are announced on their official Websites (in English), pick your theatre of choice, buy your own tickets online and have your choice of seating and price levels, without markups), and for $100 your daytime tour operator will cheerfully provide a car and driver (plus pre-printed "tour tickets" as above) to pick up your party at the ship, take you to the theatre, and then return you to the ship when the performance is over. Easy as pie. Our Mikhailovsky tickets for the opera "Eugene Onegin," best seats in the house (Dress Circle or "Belle Etage" next to the Tsar's Box), were $59 each, for a total evening's cost of $208 for the two of us.

Herman -- Not to hammer on the visa issue, but you might want to confirm explicitly with your TA that the "complimentary car and driver" includes a pre-arranged and pre-printed tour ticket so the immigration authorities will let you off the ship. Will the driver be an English-speaking qualified tour guide?

 

 

Yes, I was a bit baffled by that part of the OP's post. I've never heard of that particular arrangement before. Does the OP know which company will be supplying the 'driver'? (I would presume it is a proper guide, not just a driver). I would certainly want to check with the TA that they have proof of the company's accreditation and that they will be providing you with the necessary waiver documentation before you embark. Some TAs are more clued up about these things than others.

quote:

As to ship's tours, I can imagine no possible reason for using them -- overpriced and overcrowded.

I have asked on the Celebrity board about the ships tours and got some pretty nice reviews. They say that their tours are not overcrowded, they usually don't fill them up. The price includes lunch, which some of the the private tours do not. So be careful when you compare. I wish that those that have not taken the ships tour stop telling people what they think, rather than what they did! In this day of political uncertainty, I would rather be with the ship to be sure I get home when planned! Cheers!

quote:

 

As to ship's tours, I can imagine no possible reason for using them -- overpriced and overcrowded.

 

I have asked on the Celebrity board about the ships tours and got some pretty nice reviews. They say that their tours are not overcrowded, they usually don't fill them up. The price includes lunch, which some of the the private tours do not. So be careful when you compare. I wish that those that have not taken the ships tour stop telling people what they think, rather than what they did! In this day of political uncertainty, I would rather be with the ship to be sure I get home when planned! Cheers!

Each to their own, Gwilli :)

Folk I've spoken to and comments I've seen, regardless of ship, have indeed been pleased overall with ship's tours, I've only ever heard of minor niggles.

But some have said that they faced lines at places like Hermitage.

And their large coaches got caught in traffic - as did our van, but the driver skipped down side-streets. And there's a dozen more reasons why private tours are better than large groups and at lower cost.

I think a lot of folk look on Russia as mysterious and strange, but there's no political uncertainty at this time, no goulags for unwary travellers.:p

I've never - ever - heard of anyone missing their sailing from SPB.

And anyone who had would surely have shouted it from the rooftops.

In different parts of the world, we've very occasionally used ships' tours for the security of not missing the ship - but not in SPB, we had 100% confidence.

But if folk are going to sleep more easily because they've booked a ship's tour, that's up to them. Their money, their vacation.

Great place to visit, whatever the means.

JB :)

Herman -- Not to hammer on the visa issue, but you might want to confirm explicitly with your TA that the "complimentary car and driver" includes a pre-arranged and pre-printed tour ticket so the immigration authorities will let you off the ship. Will the driver be an English-speaking qualified tour guide?

 

As to ship's tours, I can imagine no possible reason for using them -- overpriced and overcrowded. After many months of monitoring this CC board and TripAdvisor, I have never seen a single report or even anecdote of any private operator's tour not getting back to the ship in time.

 

As to the Mikhailovsky, or the Mariinsky: You don't need to take a ship's or any other organized evening excursion for that purpose. If you sign up with one of the daytime tour operators recommended on this board, you can wait until the theatre programs are announced on their official Websites (in English), pick your theatre of choice, buy your own tickets online and have your choice of seating and price levels, without markups), and for $100 your daytime tour operator will cheerfully provide a car and driver (plus pre-printed "tour tickets" as above) to pick up your party at the ship, take you to the theatre, and then return you to the ship when the performance is over. Easy as pie. Our Mikhailovsky tickets for the opera "Eugene Onegin," best seats in the house (Dress Circle or "Belle Etage" next to the Tsar's Box), were $59 each, for a total evening's cost of $208 for the two of us.

Thanks so much for the tips, advice and suggestions--really helpful!

Don't worry about the visa issue--it's all been taken care of. It's a private car and English speaking driver/licensed guide and they already have the passport info for the visas.

I'm not expecting overcrowded on the ship's tours since it's a 350 person ship. They do seem a bit high in pricing, but we have a high shipboard credit that we need to use.

In regard to the theatres, my question was more in line with whether there are performances on the evening we are there rather than going direct...but your info is very helpful nonetheless and I will certainly check it out with the tour companies. Though I think our ship's tour including going backstage, which may be one reason to go on the ship's tour.

Again, thank you! :D

Herman -- Not to hammer on the visa issue, but you might want to confirm explicitly with your TA that the "complimentary car and driver" includes a pre-arranged and pre-printed tour ticket so the immigration authorities will let you off the ship. Will the driver be an English-speaking qualified tour guide?

 

 

Yes, I was a bit baffled by that part of the OP's post. I've never heard of that particular arrangement before. Does the OP know which company will be supplying the 'driver'? (I would presume it is a proper guide, not just a driver). I would certainly want to check with the TA that they have proof of the company's accreditation and that they will be providing you with the necessary waiver documentation before you embark. Some TAs are more clued up about these things than others.

 

Thanks for your thoughts and concerns. All this has been taken care of.

 

Thanks for your thoughts and concerns. All this has been taken care of.

 

Herman - Alla's tour does include the subway and it is very worthwhile seeing as I understand it.

 

Once we had booked with her included in all info kit were disembarkation instructions - including if there are any issues to ask for Alla to be brought over. Things go quite smoothly normally. You do need your tour ticket with you - so hopefully your driver will be emailing you a ticket or providing it to your TA down the road.

 

for what it's worth - we did ships' tours last time believing that if we weren't on them we had to have a Russian visa (not true). The tours were ok and we were thrilled at the time but there was no way we saw what we will see with Alla. We were in line for a good hour at the Hermitage and I believe about 1 hour at Catherine's Palace or Peterhof (can't remember which). The private tours have means to 'skip the lines' and in fact our visit to the Hermitage is before it opens to the public. (doesn't mean there won't be other private tours there of course).

 

Since then, we started doing private tours 99% of the time. From our perspective, they are far more flexible, intimate and you see a lot more:)

Price is usually cheaper but we don't do it for the price - we do it for the experience:D As John Bull put it so well, each to their own - and their own peace of mind. But we have never missed a ship and when it's possible we always do private tours.

Re ship's tours vs. independent tours: I second John Bull's comments. To each his own.

But I'd add that, like him (her?), I have taken the occasional ship's tour when time for an independent outing seemed tight (for example, to Delos from Mykonos), so I think I'm qualified to speak on the issue. And one of the primary disadvantages of the ship's tours is apparent for all to see, namely, the very high prices compared to those of the independent operators. For less than the price of a full day of ship's group tours for two people, you can have a private sedan, driver, and guide, and see much, much more, with virtually no waiting in lines at all.

As to "lunch": Everyone has their own priorities, but there is so much to see, and so little time, that two of our three days in SPB we preferred to make do with a quick and more-or-less cheap bite at the little cafeteria-style cafes in Catherine Palace and on the Peterhof grounds, respectively. Even sit-down lunch restaurants are not that expensive, hardly an adequate basis for deciding the ship-vs-independent issue. Besides, if you want lunch included in a package price, I suspect that any of the tour operators will do it for you.

As to how to use the high shipboard credit: If you're on Silversea, at least, you can blow it in very high-class wines that you might not normally buy at home. See my recent post on this on another thread. I'm talking about Clos Vougeot, Chateau Pichon-Longueville-Lalande, a great Nebbiolo from Gaja, etc, etc. For $625 we got a custom package of these and two other comparable wines (a nice Volnay and a nice Barbaresco).

Herman, if you do end up doing a ship's tour and an independent tour with Alla or similar and also your TA-arranged driver/guide tour, will you come back here and do a review? I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in your opinions of the pros and cons of each of them.

Yes, each to their own! I do think that it is important to taste the local food. That you can't get out of pictures, or on the Internet. I can pick at other comments folks have made here, but it is a discussion, not a debate. So please understand that I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should do, just what I think will work for me. Cheers!