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Group tours, st Petersburg, Russia


Philox
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Good day, We are a Canadian couple, cruising on Princess regal, July 15, in the baltics, ( departing from Copenhagen)

we are looking for a private group tour for 2 days, in st Petersburg , visas included. ( Friday July 19 and 20)

can you give us some advice or suggest some tours options 

thank u so in advance 

regards

 

Also, do you know how far is the city center of Copenhagen from the cruise terminal ?

thanks again 

 

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Take some time and familiarize yourself with all the features of Cruise Critic.  There is a section here called Ports of Call.  That's where people ask questions about the ports they are visiting, and inquire about excursions.  Here is the link to the one that covers the Baltic:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/116-northern-europe-amp-baltic-sea/

 

Another feature of Cruise Critic is the ROLL CALLS.  this is where other CC members sailing with you can chat and set up group excursions.  There appear to be two roll calls for your cruise, neither very active.  This is probably because your ship boards passengers in nearly every port:  Copenhagen, Warnemunde, SPB, and Helsinki.

Here are links to the two roll calls.  I am asking the mods to combine the two.

 

 

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I can absolutely recommend TJ Travel...We (just the two of us with driver & guide) had an amazing 2 day tour in St Petersburg....Completely VIP no waiting in line anywhere and saw more and did more in those two days than we ever imagined possible....also added on a few must sees at a moments notice...Tatiana & Julia were so quick to always respond and by the time we arrived I felt like we had two new best friends arranging our visit to this unforgettable city.

 

You won't regret at least contacting them and some of the other major tour operator's and then just as I did go with your gut feeling.

 

Best of luck and enjoy !!

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We used Anastasia's Travel for our trip. And we loved them! They were fantastic to work with, let us arrange our own tour, and helped us find the things that we truly wanted to do while we were in St. Petersburg. We had our days packed full of things to do, and we were exhausted, but it never felt that way until we crawled into bed at night. Everything was new and fresh and exciting while we were touring. We got to skip the lines, and our tour guide was able to fill in all the little things that the guidebooks leave out! 

 

I think the key is to look at several companies and find the one that you are comfortable with! Enjoy your trip!

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I can recommend SPB for tours in St. Petersburg.  We used them in 2016 for a 3 day stop in St. Petersburg and took a train to Moscow the 2nd day.  Ours was a small group, 10 people I think.  They also have tours for other Baltic ports and you get a discount if you book multiple trips with SPB.

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I would suggest posting on the roll call for your sailing. If you check TripAdvisor, you will find many good independent companies recommended. Contact a few and see which best meets your needs.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g298507-Activities-c42-St_Petersburg_Northwestern_District.html

Edited by dogs4fun
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During our recent trip to SPB, I thoroughly researched all the premier local tour operators. All 4 that I researched provided very similar tours at a similar cost, including the visa exemption. Some of them even provide discounts in other Baltic ports.

 

We opted for Alla, as they provided overall extra minutes at attractions, but lunch on day 2 was a boxed lunch, while riding on the bus. The Alla Tour was exceptional, but also note other passengers taking other tour companies had similar feedback. Basically you won't go wrong with any of the tour companies already mentioned.

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19 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

During our recent trip to SPB, I thoroughly researched all the premier local tour operators. All 4 that I researched provided very similar tours at a similar cost, including the visa exemption. Some of them even provide discounts in other Baltic ports.

 

We opted for Alla, as they provided overall extra minutes at attractions, but lunch on day 2 was a boxed lunch, while riding on the bus. The Alla Tour was exceptional, but also note other passengers taking other tour companies had similar feedback. Basically you won't go wrong with any of the tour companies already mentioned.

Absolutely agree! We also used Alla Tours on several visits and had a fantastic time. The major independent companies all offer more or less the same tours at the same cost. It is wise to contact several and see which company offers the best "feel" for you.

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For most ports, the experience of others is most valuable in directing you away from useless tour operators.

 

But everyone on this thread has recommended the tour operator that they used.

And with good reason - as Heidi's post, ALL accredited  tour operators in St Petersburg have excellent reputations, I've not seen a bad word about any of them. 

 

You'll not get comparisons, because few if any cruisers have used more than one local tour operator. When folk return for a second visit they use the same tour operator - if they were well-pleased first-time-around, why wouldn't they.

So we all recommend the one that we used, in our case Alla.

But Best Guides do seem to have a particularly good reputation in catering for kids.

 

They all use 16-seat vans (some of DenRus' tours are in larger vehicles) which are so much more personal than ships' big buses, more flexible in their routing and timing, quicker to board and alight, quicker thro or around traffic, closer parking to some sights, etc.

 

There are quite marginal differences in itineraries and prices.

Some folk draw up spreadsheets with times, places, prices etc. I see that as overkill, but it's worth using the back of an envelope to compare against other offerings so that you don't miss anywhere that you consider to be a must-see

 

If you book with any of those mentioned on this thread, plus others including Best Guides, Red Oktober, & DenRus, you'll have a great experience.

 

JB :classic_smile:

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Hi Philox

We are on the same cruise and have booked with TJ. The deciding factor for us was that with TJ we can do both Faberge museum and St Isaac's Catherdral in the one tour (Exclusive Excursion with Faberge), whereas with Alla we would have had to miss out on St Isaacs if we did Faberge. We are also going to do the ballet as a night excursion

 

By the way - for some reason there does not seem to be an official Roll call for this cruise but we started a thread for this cruise if you wanted to join in. 

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2636336-regal-princess-baltics-from-copenhagen-july-15-2019/?tab=comments#comment-57090301

 

Liesl and Steve

Edited by Tubulls
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On 3/19/2019 at 6:23 AM, dogs4fun said:

I would suggest posting on the roll call for your sailing. If you check TripAdvisor, you will find many good independent companies recommended. Contact a few and see which best meets your needs.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g298507-Activities-c42-St_Petersburg_Northwestern_District.html

There doesn't seem to be an official roll call for this cruise, although I did request that one be added. Cruise Critic replied that there was some IT issue, so couldn't do that at the time, but helped me create a thread under roll call.  Link in a post back to Philox

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5 hours ago, LHT28 said:

there does not seem to be anyone monitoring the roll calls

they are  a mess

Yes...and have you noticed how many general questions are being asked on the roll calls instead of on the specific date...Hard to believe someone isn't noticing this lately.💤

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37 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Yes...and have you noticed how many general questions are being asked on the roll calls instead of on the specific date...Hard to believe someone isn't noticing this lately.💤

there is  a thread in the Help forum on the problem

People posting in the Roll calls  have not figured out  to hit REPLY TO THIS TOPIC   & NOT  START A NEW TOPIC  so their post ends up in the roll call listings

:classic_blink:

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1 hour ago, LHT28 said:

there is  a thread in the Help forum on the problem

People posting in the Roll calls  have not figured out  to hit REPLY TO THIS TOPIC   & NOT  START A NEW TOPIC  so their post ends up in the roll call listings

:classic_blink:

I do not understand why people do not read the guidelines and such when they first join.

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To MicCanberra and LHT28

Ease up please guys! Everyone's holiday planning and engaging with cruise critic for the purpose of trying make their holiday a great and positive experience. 

For most cruises, there seems to be an official Roll Call - which makes it easy to use one thread. When we looked, we could not find one for this particular Princess cruise (15 July from Copengagen). So, we emailed Cruise Critic to ask if there was one and if not - could they please create one. At the time the said they couldn't due to some IT issues, and also that at the time, they could not see other topic thread for this cruise, and so suggested that we created a new topic. They emailed us the instructions and we started a thread. The fact that there are now more than one thread is not ideal - but would seem to be because it wasn't set up as a proper Roll Call by Cruise Critic in the first place, rather than incompetence and not understanding by those of us that are trying to plan and connect positively with others.   

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10 minutes ago, Tubulls said:

For most cruises, there seems to be an official Roll Call - which makes it easy to use one thread. When we looked, we could not find one for this particular Princess cruise (15 July from Copengagen). So, we emailed Cruise Critic to ask if there was one and if not - could they please create one. At the time the said they couldn't due to some IT issues, and also that at the time, they could not see other topic thread for this cruise, and so suggested that we created a new topic. They emailed us the instructions and we started a thread. The fact that there are now more than one thread is not ideal - but would seem to be because it wasn't set up as a proper Roll Call by Cruise Critic in the first place, rather than incompetence and not understanding by those of us that are trying to plan and connect positively with others.   

Yes - the roll call tool has been experiencing difficulties. In fact, the notice regarding roll call IT issues still appears when I enter the Europe forums.

Edited by dogs4fun
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16 minutes ago, Tubulls said:

To MicCanberra and LHT28

Ease up please guys! Everyone's holiday planning and engaging with cruise critic for the purpose of trying make their holiday a great and positive experience. 

For most cruises, there seems to be an official Roll Call - which makes it easy to use one thread. When we looked, we could not find one for this particular Princess cruise (15 July from Copengagen). So, we emailed Cruise Critic to ask if there was one and if not - could they please create one. At the time the said they couldn't due to some IT issues, and also that at the time, they could not see other topic thread for this cruise, and so suggested that we created a new topic. They emailed us the instructions and we started a thread. The fact that there are now more than one thread is not ideal - but would seem to be because it wasn't set up as a proper Roll Call by Cruise Critic in the first place, rather than incompetence and not understanding by those of us that are trying to plan and connect positively with others.   

I am sorry if I have offended you when it sounds like the system is glitching so you cannot search properly or see if other roll calls are already established. Then that is CCs fault and not yours, but what makes it worse is that the administrators will merge roll calls if they see them and have actually done this when it wasn't needed (i.e merged a 20 day cruise with a 60 day cruise that left on the same day).

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10 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

I am sorry if I have offended you when it sounds like the system is glitching so you cannot search properly or see if other roll calls are already established. Then that is CCs fault and not yours, but what makes it worse is that the administrators will merge roll calls if they see them and have actually done this when it wasn't needed (i.e merged a 20 day cruise with a 60 day cruise that left on the same day).

As of today, they seem to have merged the two threads that relate directly to this cruise - so that's been a positive outcome

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Just now, Tubulls said:

As of today, they seem to have merged the two threads that relate directly to this cruise - so that's been a positive outcome

if you  let them know there are more than one roll call they will merge them 

they do not go looking for duplicates

 

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