Princess shore excursion st. Petersburg

[sobercamel]

Thinking of hiring van in st. Petersburg in august. Will be there on sunday and Monday. Will we be able to get into the popular places on sunday? What can we see on Sunday? Oh, hiring via crown princess excursions. Would love to hear others experiences, thanks so much.

[Pam in CA]

You are far better off booking with an independent tour company such as SPB Tours, which I highly recommend. They put groups together so you don't have to.

 

Your biggest problem hiring a van and driver is that they are not tour guides. A good tour guide will create an itinerary designed to take maximum advantage of local events, get you past other groups into sites, and be flexible based on what the people on the tour want to do. As you drive from place-to-place, a guide will fill you in and educate you on what you're seeing, something you'll miss. A tour guide will also know out-of-the-way local restaurants and help you order or make recommendations.

 

I really think you'll miss a lot just taking a van. SPB Tours also offers tours in most of the Baltic ports and will package port tours together. Here's a link to their site: http://www.spb-tours.com/

[DGSFlorida]

We just returned from our 2nd Baltic cruise. We used Princess for tours the first time in 2006, and SPB this time. The differences were 1/2 the cost and 1/2 the number of people with SPB. We also used them from Warnemunde to Berlin.

 

You cannot hire just anybody in St. Petersburg as the tour company must be approved as their tour ticket serves as your visa. SPB conveniently has an office at the port and from what I understand good relations with the government folks there.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

The tour companies also know whose palm to grease to gain quick access to the tourist sites and to keep ahead of the crowds .:D

 

 

[caribill]

Also, if you are hiring a van (with or without a driver), you will need to obtain Russian visas in advance of the trip. You would not need the visas touring with a company like SPB, DenRus, Red October, etc.

[donaldsc]

Thinking of hiring van in st. Petersburg in august. Will be there on sunday and Monday. Will we be able to get into the popular places on sunday? What can we see on Sunday? Oh, hiring via crown princess excursions. Would love to hear others experiences, thanks so much.

 

We used Alla tours in St. Petersburg. Our group size was smaller, the guide was great, and it was more than $100 cheaper than anything that Princess offered. Also, they were flexible and modified the tour slightly to suit our needs.

 

DON

[aquilegia]

Also, if you are hiring a van (with or without a driver), you will need to obtain Russian visas in advance of the trip. You would not need the visas touring with a company like SPB, DenRus, Red October, etc.

 

I think the OP's terminology may be confusing us here. Hiring a van suggests DIY, but his actual title is 'Princess shore excursion' and he says 'Oh, hiring via crown princess excursions'. My reading is that he is in fact doing some kind of ship's tour.

[caribill]

I think the OP's terminology may be confusing us here. Hiring a van suggests DIY, but his actual title is 'Princess shore excursion' and he says 'Oh, hiring via crown princess excursions'. My reading is that he is in fact doing some kind of ship's tour.

 

Yes, you read it better than I did.

[Giantfan13]

Thinking of hiring van in st. Petersburg in august. Will be there on sunday and Monday. Will we be able to get into the popular places on sunday? What can we see on Sunday? Oh, hiring via crown princess excursions. Would love to hear others experiences, thanks so much.

 

I would also recommend you use a private tour company for your time in St Petersburg. We used SPB Tours and they were simply fantastic.

 

For me, the problem with any ship's sponsored tour, besides, too expensive and too many people, they really don't care if you have a great time. They will get their business no matter how you liked their tours. Any of the good private tour companies, strive for your recommendation and they will literally, bend over backwards to insure that you have a great time in their city.

Any ship's sponsored tour will never achieve what a private tour company can deliver in St Petersburg.

 

Cheers

 

Len

[dogs4fun]

Thinking of hiring van in st. Petersburg in august. Will be there on sunday and Monday. Will we be able to get into the popular places on sunday? What can we see on Sunday? Oh, hiring via crown princess excursions. Would love to hear others experiences, thanks so much.

 

I assume that this would be a private van through Princess? If so, I would also suggest that you check-out the private tour operators in St. Petersburg ... you can book a private tour for less than the price of the Princess van (if $$ savings is of any importance).

We booked with Alla Tours in 2011 (for both SPB & Berlin) and all tours were fabulous.

There are several highly regarded tour operators in St. Petersburg that will obtain your visa "waivers" and tailor your private tour(s) to whatever you desire. :) These companies will also design your tour so that you see all the big tourist attractions (Peterhof, Catherine Palace, Hermitage, etc.) between Sunday & Monday so no need to worry about what is open/closed on which day.

[eetonaee]

I won't repeat all of the above so I'll just say we used SPB in St. Petersburg and Berlin in 2010 and were extremely happy