ciocco

Searaider,

Thanks for your post.  I will also be doing a tour with TJ in St. Petersburg and wondering about lunches?  Were you on your own and if so did they direct you to where to go?

Thanks

Thanks for all the responses.  I think we will go with either Alla or TJ on a group tour, a private tour is probably too expensive for us.  I'll reach out to other passengers on our cruise to see who would like to join us.  Thanks again

Will be cruising to St. Petersburg in July, 2019, looking at different 2 day tours and wondering how far in advance do I need to book for 2 of us? Thanks

I booked a 2 day STANDARD private group tour with TJ Travel in June for our August 2018 cruise. The booking process was extremely efficient and we did not have to pay a penny in advance. The disembarkation instruction was very detailed and clear. On our 1st day in St. Petersburg, we weren't sure how long it will take to go through the immigration control so we allotted 30 min. to do so, fortunately, there weren't many passengers to go through immigration at that time (7:45) so we breezed through immigration in 10 min. TJ representative was outside the immigration control area with a sign so it's very easy to find it. We were a bit earlier than the meeting time so we walked around the souvenir shops till our meeting time at 8:30. All passengers from different ships had no problem getting through the immigration so we were on time with our tour. There were 9 passengers in a 14 seaters Mercedes van. The seat was a bit small so if we had all 14 passengers, it would have been a very tight sitting. Our tour guide, Lisa, speaks perfect English and processes a broad knowledge of Russian history, our driver, knows his way around town so we always just a step away from our van. We were so fortunate to have both of them as our guides, Lisa also is a certified guide for the Hermitage museum so she showed us most of the "must see" in 2 1/2 hrs. time slot, it was nice to have had an opportunity to visit this museum briefly, we sure will come back to visit this museum in the future. We opted for this tour without lunch so that we could order what we like and I was so pleased with the restaurant choice that Lisa picked. We visited all the places listed on the itinerary, not exactly in the same order but it's totally fine by us. On the 2nd day of our tour, most of us needed to aboard our ship by 4 or 4:30, our last attraction was a visit at Catherine Palace with Amber Room, it was jammed-packed with group tours, the pace was extremely slow, we weren't sure if we could make it back in time, Lisa was able to negotiate with the big group in front of us to by pass them so we could cover all the rooms and still able to make it back in time. We were so happy with TJ Travel and I highly recommend cruise ship passenger to book this private tour, it's way cheaper than the one offered by the cruise ship and it's basically the same itinerary!

I have been looking at the 2 day Standard Tour so I'm curious if you think you missed out on anything that the more expensive All Highlights tour gives? I see the Standard does not include lunch but the price difference seems a lot just for lunch.