looking for excursion ideas for North Europe cruise (Regal Princess)

We're going on a July 5,2017 11 day cruise from Copenhagen . Looking at excursions and wondering if fellow cruisers have booked any private excursions, or are booking Princess excursions exclusively. Open to ideas or sharing private tours.

We're going on a July 5,2017 11 day cruise from Copenhagen . Looking at excursions and wondering if fellow cruisers have booked any private excursions, or are booking Princess excursions exclusively. Open to ideas or sharing private tours.

We booked a private excursion with SPB Tours on their 2-day Deluxe Tour of St. Petersburg. Together with our passport, we just showed out tour voucher to the Russian immigration officer. We were not required for a downpayment and paid in cash the full amount of the tour. If paid by credit card, it is due on first day of tour. No regrets on that tour.

I have not done any, but SPB also offers excursions in there Baltic ports. I am pretty sure the website for them is spb-tours.com

If you want people to join you then you will need to post the request on your Roll Call.

Consider getting the Copenhagen Card if you will be in town for more than a day. Gets you transportation, a bunch of museum entries and canal boat tour. It is possible to take the train out to within a couple of blocks of the pier. Stockholm also has one but may not be a good value if you are not docking in town. Princess tour in St Petersburg is excellent, with great food and entertainment but local operators are cheaper. Note that 2 day tour runs around 9 hours a day so the folks that opted for the "Evening at Catherine Palace" or the ballet got around 5 hours on top of that. They were really dragging when they showed up for the 7:30 bus the next morning.

Get a copy of Rick Steves' Northern European Cruise Ports and see what there is to do in the ports that might not require an organized tour. EM

Try alla tours in st.petersburg.

long c cruiser

We booked a private excursion with SPB Tours on their 2-day Deluxe Tour of St. Petersburg. Together with our passport, we just showed out tour voucher to the Russian immigration officer. We were not required for a downpayment and paid in cash the full amount of the tour. If paid by credit card, it is due on first day of tour. No regrets on that tour.

Couldn't agree more. SPB does a wonderful tour of St. Petersburg. Check out trip advisor for reviews. We used SPB and were delighted with our experience. We saw much more than those who used Princess for far less money. Additionally, SPB uses only 20 passenger buses compared to the 40 passenger buses with Princess. They also provide headsets to hear the guide.

Go to your roll call and meet those that are on your sailing. They may be looking for others to join their private tours. Personally, besides SPB most of the baltic ports can easily be done on your own without a tour. However if tours is what you prefer then def check out your roll call.

I agree SPB tour company was the best! You can go on their website and book as many city tours that you want if I remember right you get them cheaper the more you book. Also go on your roll call and see if others want to join you.They can also choose as many or as few tour cities that they want, the more you have in a group the cheaper the tours for all of you. When you go on their web site you can request to all be on the same tour in each city. So we had anywhere from 16-20 people in our group as some people decided to tour on their own at some ports. SPB took great care of us, they spoke good English and we got to see a lot of things because our group was so small.

Unlike most on here my family really does not like to tours that are not with Princess.

We did this cruise last year and were on Princess tours and had a wonderful time. Yes the tours were not cheap but they were worth it in our opinion!!

I would recommend against the cruise line's excursions in St. Petersburg. You'll end up on a bus rather than in a small can style bus and won't be able to see nearly as much. In addition, the smaller tires usually offer perks like early admission to sights.

Unlike most on here my family really does not like to tours that are not with Princess.

 

We did this cruise last year and were on Princess tours and had a wonderful time. Yes the tours were not cheap but they were worth it in our opinion!!

We felt this way at one time because we bought into the fear of what happens if you don't get back to the ship. But, these tour companies survive on the cruise industry. They have it down pat and make sure everyone gets back on time. Otherwise, their business would be over.

I'm sure we would have enjoyed the tour of St. Petersburg with Princess but, we would have seen less, it would have cost more and the groups would have been larger. We talked with people who had taken the Princess tour and they were surprised at the things we had seen with SPB that they didn't see with Princess.

We booked a private excursion with SPB Tours on their 2-day Deluxe Tour of St. Petersburg.

We have also used this tour company in the past...excellent tours and tour guides (not just in St. Petersburg but in other Baltic ports as well). While some places were overcrowded (even in the fall and winter), this is not the fault of the tour company per se. Would recommend.

Here is the roll call link for your Regal cruise.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2431286

If paid by credit card, it is due on first day of tour. No regrets on that tour.

Can you pay SPB in ST Petersburg with Credit Card ? I thought you had to pre-pay before the tour date to use credit card. Much prefer credit card over carrying cash.

To be honest it was not that we could get left behind if with a non princess tour. We just liked what they had to offer.

On all of our tours we did not have a huge amount of people on the bus. And the guides we had were outstanding. Very knowledgeable and would bend over backwards for all of us on the bus.

Also when i priced it out against what you got with the other tours it was not much more.

To each his own, but we had a blast and would use Princess again for a Baltic cruise.

Happy it worked out for you. When we priced it out, Princess was $300 more pp than SPB.

Last year we did two tours per day, in St Petersburg both Princess tours. The 2 day tours looked great but very tiring. This is a port intensive cruise. We chose Peterhoff and the ballet in the evening one day, and subway tour and river cruise the next day. We saw a lot, tours were not crowded, and at Peterhoff we could look around the grounds while our guide lined up.

We were not exhausted by two very full days. Returned to ship and had a short break in between each tour. Passengers who went with Alla and SBP were very impressed with their service.

Can you pay SPB in ST Petersburg with Credit Card ? I thought you had to pre-pay before the tour date to use credit card. Much prefer credit card over carrying cash.

Yes, you can with SPB Tours.. Following is their guideline, specifically on curencies involved:

• Payment with Credit Card in St.Petersburg
  

If you choose to pay with credit card in St.Petetsburg, on the day of payment your card will be charged the US Dollar equivalent of your tour price in Rubles. The exchange rate will be that as set by the Russian State Central Bank on the day. Although SPB-Tours does not charge credit card fees or currency conversion fees, your bank might so you may wish to contact them to check as this is a charge that we have no control over.

Doing similar cruise in May. It would be great if you could explain how to get the Copenhagen card. Thanks.

If you want people to join you then you will need to post the request on your Roll Call.

 

Consider getting the Copenhagen Card if you will be in town for more than a day. Gets you transportation, a bunch of museum entries and canal boat tour. It is possible to take the train out to within a couple of blocks of the pier. Stockholm also has one but may not be a good value if you are not docking in town. Princess tour in St Petersburg is excellent, with great food and entertainment but local operators are cheaper. Note that 2 day tour runs around 9 hours a day so the folks that opted for the "Evening at Catherine Palace" or the ballet got around 5 hours on top of that. They were really dragging when they showed up for the 7:30 bus the next morning.

Doing similar cruise in May. It would be great if you could explain how to get the Copenhagen card. Thanks.

If you are staying in a hotel, you can ask the Concierge. We purchased ours at the front desk of the Crowne Plaza Hotel Copenhagen.

Yes, you can with SPB Tours.. Following is their guideline, specifically on curencies involved:

 

 

 

• Payment with Credit Card in St.Petersburg
  

If you choose to pay with credit card in St.Petetsburg, on the day of payment your card will be charged the US Dollar equivalent of your tour price in Rubles. The exchange rate will be that as set by the Russian State Central Bank on the day. Although SPB-Tours does not charge credit card fees or currency conversion fees, your bank might so you may wish to contact them to check as this is a charge that we have no control over.

Thanks you - does this cause a disruption for others ? e.g. do you have to stop at SPB office ?

The Copenhagen card was also available at the Tourist Information offices, and one was right across the street from our hotel.

The public transportation options are excellent in most of these cities, so you can easily explore all of the cities except St. Petersburg on your own if your prefer. The information desks of museums can help you if you have any questions about transportation.

You can also travel independently to Berlin, but given the distance, you might want to contact the tour provider you choose in St Petersburg, since many of them offer discounts on second cities on this cruise and it might be easier to let them handle the logistics.

If you can afford it, I'd recommend a private tour for just your family in St. Petersburg since there is so much to see, and this will let you maximize your time in this amazing city. We traveled with a 3 year old, so this was necessary, but many people were very happy with the 16 person private tours offered by the major tour operators.

My signature line has a review which details many of the excursion options; if you tell us a little more about your interests, we may be of more assistance.

We cruised the Baltic in 2015. We took a 2 day Princess tour for St. Petersberg. Used Alla for many of the other ports. We were very satisfied with both. Our Princess tour took us into the Hermitage on a day it was closed. No crowds, no lines. Yes, it was more expensive, but both of us felt better taking a Princess tour in Russia. Also the Princess tours tend to pass through the Russian processing faster.

Go to your roll call and meet those that are on your sailing. They may be looking for others to join their private tours. Personally, besides SPB most of the baltic ports can easily be done on your own without a tour. However if tours is what you prefer then def check out your roll call.

This is what we did, and it worked out very well. We ended with a group of 10 from our roll call, and did a wonderful tour with Alla. Our guide, Viktoria, opened her own agency, SPB tours the next year.

The other ports we basically did on our own. (Our sailing did not have the port for Berlin which I understand is a distance away. Instead we had Oslo, which we enjoyed greatly.)