St Petersburg Tour, When to book?

Our cruise is scheduled for July of 2018. When should I plan on booking a tour. Don't want to wait too long when best options may be unavailable but don't want to book too early and loose flexibility. How long can I wait and be sure of being able to book the tour I want?

Our cruise is scheduled for July of 2018. When should I plan on booking a tour. Don't want to wait too long when best options may be unavailable but don't want to book too early and loose flexibility. How long can I wait and be sure of being able to book the tour I want?

Do you already know the tour you want to book?

If this is your first visit to St. Petersburg and you anticipate taking a standard tour, you can probably contact some appealing tour companies about 10 months. If you anticipate taking a tour with lots of customization, you probably ought to begin the process a month or so earlier.

Do you already know the tour you want to book?

 

If this is your first visit to St. Petersburg and you anticipate taking a standard tour, you can probably contact some appealing tour companies about 10 months. If you anticipate taking a tour with lots of customization, you probably ought to begin the process a month or so earlier.

Do not yet know what tour we are interested in. We're currently schedule for three days in SPB and yes, it is our first visit. From your suggestion I'd want to think about booking sometime around beginning to end of September. I'll certainly be doing lots of research before then.

We did a Baltic cruise last year and used 'Alla Tours' for 3 excursions, (Scandinavia, Denmark and St Petersburg) It worked out cheaper than the ships tours and was in a minvan with only 12 people, much easier to find everyone! We went to exactly the same places and had lunch included on 2 days. The service they provided was excellent and they took dollars as payment as well as roubles.

Lovetotravel's spreadsheet is very useful if you go to SPB for 2 rather than 3 days. (It's similar to one I made for myself.) But the 3 day tours, understandably, include more and most, if not all, tour companies won't allow you to book a group 2-day tour if you are docked for 3 days. You'll also want to double-check the info as tours may have changed. For example, the spreadsheet for the Alla Grand 2-day Tour (which we took) shows that the Metro ride is optional. It's now definitely included.

Also, FWIW, Alla now requires payment in rubles. I don't know about the others.