Red October tour and Celebrity

[Brett209]

Hi there. We are on the verge of using Red October tours for an upcoming Celebrity cruise. Can any former Celebrity Baltic cruisers detail for me the process of getting off the ship at the St. Petersburg port.

 

Specifically, did Celebrity try to prevent independent tour passengers from disembarking?

 

What was the customs process like? I understand you need your passport and the independent tour ticket...so can someone confirm that it is no big deal without an independent visa?

 

I just read the Celebrity booklet sent to us before our late July cruise and it has one page of stern warnings about using a private tour without your own tourist visas...scary stuff but it contradicts what I've read here from former cruisers!

 

Thanks for the info!

[Wirral]

My son and I are travelling on Constellation on 30th July. Like you we have had our documentation booklet but there is no mention about private tours and tourist visas. This does not worry us as we are taking a private tour but have visas. We are English so we obviously have another type of documentation but I find that funny. Is there anything else that is different if you are not American?

[kinghw]

Brett209:

 

We were in St P on the Constellation in late May and had a private tour with DenRus. The pre cruise literature had all of the same warnings as you have seen. During the cruise Celebrity asked all of the passengers with private tour arrangements to provide Guest Relations with the tour company and time of the tour. We did this and a day or so prior to arriving in St. P we got an envelope under our door with instructions to go to one of the lounges 15 minutes before our tour time and with a couple of passes like tender passes.

 

We made the mistake of following these instructions, delaying the start of our tour by about 20-30 minutes. By the time Celebrity let us off the ship a line of about 20 minutes had formed at the border station. My wife and I were the only ones in our tour group so that didn't delay things too badly. Most of the other passengers that had made independent tour arrangements were more savvy than we were and just went down and got off the ship without this needless delay. Despite cruise ship (mis)information you do not need a private visa for this process, RO and DenRus provide group visas for their tours. We were asked to show tour tickets by the Russian border officials. They also required a copy of the passport photo/information pages.

[jaxon41]

Hope the OP hasn't left, yet. I posted this elsewhere, also. We did Celebrity's Century in late May. The ship mistakenly did not send all independent tour people to the same meeting place. It was a total mess as one person in our group was holding all the DenRus tickets -- we couldn't find them; they couldn't find us. It caused us an hour delay in our tour, and almost a lost day. The ship didn't want to let us out of the lounge without our DenRus tickets and would do nothing to tell us where the others had been sent -- we did go looking, but to no avail. I was really angry about the ship's obvious mess up with no attempt to correct it or help. We kept being told, "No one leaves without going through me, so they will be sent here." Wrong!! Finally, fearing our group would leave without us, and griping at the top of my lungs, the young man gave us out disembarkation tickets and we made our way to the gangplank, where a crew member was holding our DenRus tickets, the rest of our group having left an hour before. Just be sure all the members in your party have their tickets, and plan to meet on land outside the immigration hut. DO NOT TRUST THE SHIP to try to assist when they have caused a glitch.

[alcman]

We were on the July 2 Constellation and had Red october tickets for 8 people with the tour starting at 7:30 am. The ship insnstructed us to fill out a form in advance and they left a priority pass in our room the night before. We went to the assigned lounge at the appointed time of 7:15 and got a No. 1 debarkation card. At 7:20 am we were brought by a Celebrity employee to the gang plank and had no trouble leaving the ship and getting our tour in a timely manner. While I anticipated the worst, it worked very smoothly. I think they were sensitive to all the criticism that has been said about the process.

 

Jerry

[mikenmar]

Jerry,

 

What if you did not fill out the forms or report to the lounge? Do you know of anyone that did not follow the ships instructions? We are using RO on the Aug 20th when on the Aug 13th cruise on the Constellation.

 

Thank you,

Marion

[alcman]

Marion,

 

I didn't know anyone who did not follow the instructions, although many voiced an anticipatory claim that they were not going to be stopped by Celebrity if the program cause them to miss the tour. Our group agree that if it seemed we were being delayed, we would simply leave. However, that was not the case and we got off promptly, escorted by a Celebrity employee, in plenty of time to meet our 7:30 am tour.

 

Jerry

[ShamrockFL]

What if you did not fill out the forms or report to the lounge? Do you know of anyone that did not follow the ships instructions?Marion

 

None of our group followed the instructions - we did that very well incidentally - filled out no forms - didn't go to a holding pen. We arranged as a group to meet on the landing prior to the gangplank exit, and when the Moscow tour group was exiting (first ones allowed off on the first day), we attempted to follow but were delayed slightly by the Celebrity people, but then they let us go. Second day we did the same thing and got right off without a problem. As a previous poster indicated, no visa is needed if you are with an organized tour e.g. Red October or Denrus. We did RO - excellent.