1-day in St. Pete - Qs and a concern

First the concern. Our one day in St. Petersburg turns out to be May 1, Mayday. Will our time in St. Petersburg be significantly affected by Mayday celebrations?

Obviously with only one day we won't be able to see *everything*. So a 2-prong question:

first, have you taken a one day tour that you really felt hit the spot? With whom? and

second, how would you prioritize the main tourist attractions, since it is likely we will have to miss some of them.

Here’s how I would prioritize that attractions in St. Petersburg:

Hermitage

Church on Spilled Blood

Catherine Palace

Peterhof Palace

It would be almost impossible to see much of these in one day. The hermitage alone takes several hours. pick Catherine’s palace or Peterhof but not both. They are both outside the city centre

With just one day, I'd consider pricing out a private tour for just your family if you can afford it. That would allow you to completely customize your visit and skip anything you don't want to see or do. It will also avoid the problem that happens sometimes in St.Petersburg in which some people on a 16 person tour make it out much more quickly than the rest of the group, and the tour guide needs to decide if they start the tour on time and leave people behind or wait for them and lose time from the tour since you won't be able to make up time on a one day tour. This happened to me in Belize, and we waited two hours for another family that was late disembarking. It was a really frustrating way to spend a day, but would have been much worse to lose that time in St. Petersburg. Also, talk to the tour companies to see how large a group is allowed to skip lines to enter museums - we were able to skip all lines with our private group of 2 adults and one child. I'm not sure if a 16 person group tour is allowed to skip entrance lines.

Also, try looking at the pictures of the major tourist spots. For example, I knew ahead of time I would love the exterior of the Church of the Spilled blood (although the exterior currently it is under construction). Since I don't love mosaics we could have skipped the interior visit (and a ton of people would disagree with me, which is why our advice might help point you in the right direction but you ultimately need to decide for yourself).

Also research the Hermitage, since you could spend weeks in there and need to know ahead of time if there are specific paintings/genres that you would be happiest focusing on.

For lunch, Stolle is extremely fast (they have really yummy savory or sweet pies). I would imagine you could even order them to go in order to save more time.

We were on a 2 day tour, and on day one we did:

an overview of the city (including an outside stop at the Church of the Spilled blood and stop at Palace Square)

visit to the subway

Catherine's Palace

Peterhof

canal cruise

We visited the Hermitage first thing on Day 2, which was honestly the only real absolute highlight for me from day 2. On Day one I'd have dropped the canal cruise and possibly the subway visit (which was interesting and quick so you could discuss that as an option with your tour guide) in favor of at least some time in the Hermitage. But it also depends on how you like to travel - we had a 3 year old, so we didn't stay anywhere very long and only hit the highlights such as skipping the middle rooms in Catherine's palace since it started to get a little repetitive and my 3.5 year old was only going to have so long of an attention span.

Labor Day/May day is not a huge holiday. Everything should be open and if everything traffic should be lighter. Some sights might be busier than a typical weekday but still quieter than summer. Agree with others. I would skip any of the out of town palaces. Hermitage, canals, spilled blood and Nevsky Prospekt will take a full day. If you are ok rushing through things you could probably also go to Peterhof.

It is said that if you spent 1 minute looking at each exhibit in the Hermitage, it would take 11 years to see everything! If you wish to go, you should certainly - as Kitkat said - research what you want to see and prioritise that, otherwise you will waste a lot of time wandering aimlessly!