Choosing a tour company in St. Pete

While trying to book a tour in St. Petersburg I'm getting more and more confused: what company to choose? I was suggested 4 companies: SPb, Alla Tours, Best Guides and TJ and I've already e-mailed them all. I liked all the answers, the prices are more or less the same, the suggested itinerary too, there are just a few differences. Please, help! Does anyone have suggestions, advices?

P.S. we are traveling with two children - 9 and 11 years old

Thanks in advance!

Jo

Hi Jo. I guess all the mentioned companies are good, more over – very good. But if you travel with children I would suggest Best Guides. They especially good in it. First, they have special children friendly tours. Second – they have several guides specially trained to work with children of different age.

One of these guides – Svetlans Starkova. She was our guide 2 years ago and she was fantastic. Ask for her. She is very good for grownups as well :)

Good luck! Jess :)

Hi Jo. I guess all the mentioned companies are good, more over – very good. But if you travel with children I would suggest Best Guides. They especially good in it. First, they have special children friendly tours. Second – they have several guides specially trained to work with children of different age.

One of these guides – Svetlans Starkova. She was our guide 2 years ago and she was fantastic. Ask for her. She is very good for grownups as well :)

 

Good luck! Jess :)

Haven't used Best Guides, but Jess's post certainly isn't the only one I've seen especially praising Best Guides if you have children.

If they don't have availability I'm sure you'll be very pleased with any of the others, but Best Guides is a good place to start.

JB :)

We are also going with our 9 and 11 year old sons this summer, so I am interested to see the replies you get.

My concern is that the "child friendly" tours are perhaps geared too young for my kids. They don't want to be princes or paint dolls, but they also probably won't want 3 hours of looking at Renaissance paintings in the Hermitage. I am trying to find a balance. They are however well traveled and have done well on tours with other adults before.

My leading contender right now is the Standard 2 day tour form TJ Travel. With slightly shorter days (including a later start time on Day 2), but including the things my boys are sure to love (hydrofoil to Peterhof, subway stop), I think they will manage it. Still debating doing a private tour but not sure we need to spent the extra almost $500.

Check out Best Guides - a 2-day full tour including lunches, is now only $238 p.p., and $198 for kids. Under 5's free.

At least one company has acknowledged the devaluation of the rouble against the dollar!

If you heard all the reviews on Best guides you wouldn't buy from them even for 238$. As well as from Alla tours. I went last year on their tour, it was so terrible you can't imagine. Now I am chosing betwen Insider, Drunk Bears, SPB Tours, Marina Wilson. Especially Marina Wilson and Spb were praised so much back to the ship.

James

I have read your disappointment with ALLA, and you seem to be spreading it all over the boards, but now you are down on Best Guides also? Since you did not use them, how can you come here and start knocking them?.

I find your posts harder and harder to believe.

If you had a bad experience, I feel bad for you, but I will guarantee, you are in the minority. Just about everyone else loved their tours. And I have also heard nothing but raves about Best Guides and their tours for young children.

Plus,. you say you toured with ALLA last year and I find it very strange that you are coming here NOW, to report a problem. :eek::eek::eek:

Cheers

Len

James,

I must say that I agree with Len. How can you make a comment about Best Guides when you have not toured with them? It is not fair to Best Guides and you have violated the forum rules in making a recommendation about a tour you have not taken.

I also highly doubt your allegations regarding Alla. If your posts on TripAdvisor contained the vitriolic rants that your posts on Cruise Critic do, then it is no wonder that your posts were removed.

These forums are designed to HELP other cruisers and there are moderators that view the posts to ascertain whether or not the posts meet the guidelines for posting. I have reported your posts to Cruise Critic moderators because you have violated many of the rules for posting on Cruise Critic.

Did you read the rules for posting in this forum?

If you click on the following link, you will find the rules:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=637817

**DO NOT POST HERE** until you've read the Rules for Posting in this Forum

Reviews/Recommendations of Tour Operators/Guides

Legitimate third-party reviews/recommendations for tour operators/guides *must* be posted as a reply to a request for the information.

Do NOT start a new thread with an unsolicited review/recommendation. It will be removed and your posting privileges may be suspended. Additionally, repeatedly posting the same “review” over and over in response to many threads is considered “spamming”. They also will be removed from the boards and posting privileges may be suspended.

You can't recommend a tour you haven't been on!

Members may no longer make recommendations for tours they haven't taken. If someone asks for a tour recommendation in a port, you can only recommend a tour if you've actually taken the tour; not if you've researched tours and plan to take a tour or someone told you about a good tour. You have to have taken the tour in order to recommend it.

“One Post Wonders” – will be removed from the boards. This phenomenon essentially amounts to single or multiple posts created by a brand-new member touting tour operators/businesses/guides/drivers in ports of call.

You have violated all of the above rules for posting so don't be surprised if your posts are removed.

You might want to contact Best Guides to ask them if they already have families with children of similar ages to yours registered in a group tour. Their website does state that they have different tours for children of different ages and you might want to email them for more details.

I would recommend considering a private tour if you can afford it, given the expense of traveling all the way to St. Petersburg. We really needed a private tour since our son was 3, and had a limited attention span. They were able to speed us through the sites so we saw the absolute highlights (in Catherine's palace the rooms get a bit repetitive on the way to the amber room, so we took our time in the first few rooms and then walked quickly to the amber room before my son got bored). It was nice being able to take breaks for food whenever he needed to, and to customize our tour according to the weather and our family's interests.

We are also going with our 9 and 11 year old sons this summer, so I am interested to see the replies you get.

 

My concern is that the "child friendly" tours are perhaps geared too young for my kids. They don't want to be princes or paint dolls, but they also probably won't want 3 hours of looking at Renaissance paintings in the Hermitage. I am trying to find a balance. They are however well traveled and have done well on tours with other adults before.

 

My leading contender right now is the Standard 2 day tour form TJ Travel. With slightly shorter days (including a later start time on Day 2), but including the things my boys are sure to love (hydrofoil to Peterhof, subway stop), I think they will manage it. Still debating doing a private tour but not sure we need to spent the extra almost $500.

Our private tour with TJ Travel was a VIP amazing two days....I couldn't imagine doing anything other than a private tour if you have children with you. The flexibility of changing or adding things at the spur of the moment would be and was well worth the extra cost. Enjoy and get the most out of your time for your family in this wonderful city.

If you heard all the reviews on Best guides you wouldn't buy from them even for 238$. As well as from Alla tours. I went last year on their tour, it was so terrible you can't imagine. Now I am chosing betwen Insider, Drunk Bears, SPB Tours, Marina Wilson. Especially Marina Wilson and Spb were praised so much back to the ship.

This (2 post) poster is very suspicious...:eek:

This (2 post) poster is very suspicious...:eek:

Agreed. He is a woman on TripAdvisor......

While trying to book a tour in St. Petersburg I'm getting more and more confused: what company to choose? I was suggested 4 companies: SPb, Alla Tours, Best Guides and TJ and I've already e-mailed them all. I liked all the answers, the prices are more or less the same, the suggested itinerary too, there are just a few differences. Please, help! Does anyone have suggestions, advices?

P.S. we are traveling with two children - 9 and 11 years old

Thanks in advance!

Jo

If you do not find a Best Guides child friendly tour that appeals to you, you might want to narrow down the itinerary choices from each of the four companies you are considering by looking at what is essential to you and what isn't. Take a look at the description of various sites on the Best Guides website or in Rick Steve's guidebook, etc. and decide if you need to see every possible palace and church or if you could skip some. Would the boat ride and hydrofoil trips break up the van time and the heavy palace/cathedral itineraries for the kids (and for you?!) If so, you can eliminate the tours that don't include those. Is a subway ride important? Do you want a sit down lunch with a little time to relax both days or is a packed lunch on the go ok for one day? Would you prefer to have lunch included so you don't have to worry about whether you will have enough or too many rubles or would you prefer to try to keep it a little cheaper on your own? You might have to compromise on some of what you want and don't want, but at least that should narrow your choices considerably. Good luck!

Agreed. He is a woman on TripAdvisor......

And he used to have more than 2 posts!

We visited St. Petersburg last August with a family group of ten which included children aged 9, 11, 12 and 15. We used SPB Tours and were very happy with their service. Our guide related very well to the various ages in the group and was happy to adjust the timing to suit the interests of the group. We did not have a specific children's tour, but saw the usual sights. This worked because our guide was able to engage the interest of the children with age appropriate information. She was an English teacher who acted as a tour guide in the school holidays.

Most people will only use one tour company, so it is hard to get comparisons. I can only say that SPB Tours worked well for us.

Thanks everyone! We've finally stopped on Best Guides mini-group tour and are sooo excited!

Are you bicyclists or Hell's Angels? Bikers in English English means the latter.

I suggest you contact someone like Tickets and Tours or another smaller tour operator to arrange a custom visit.

The last time I was involved with Russian motorcycles 40 years ago, they were Ural Soviet-era 500cc boxer motor copies of BMWs!

We are also going with our 9 and 11 year old sons this summer, so I am interested to see the replies you get.

 

My concern is that the "child friendly" tours are perhaps geared too young for my kids. They don't want to be princes or paint dolls, but they also probably won't want 3 hours of looking at Renaissance paintings in the Hermitage. I am trying to find a balance. They are however well traveled and have done well on tours with other adults before.

 

My leading contender right now is the Standard 2 day tour form TJ Travel. With slightly shorter days (including a later start time on Day 2), but including the things my boys are sure to love (hydrofoil to Peterhof, subway stop), I think they will manage it. Still debating doing a private tour but not sure we need to spent the extra almost $500.

Consider timing your arrival at Peterhof to coincide with the launch of the main fountain (11:00 AM). You'll need to arrive about 15 minutes early to snag a rail space. The fountain starts slowly with the fountains that shoot straight up from the island. Over the next five or so minutes, more fountains get turned on and the overall water pressure grows -- all done to the official anthem of St Petersburg. If the timing won't work out for the launch, plan on spending a lot of time touring the grounds to see the "lesser" fountains. Lots of tricks and surprises included in these lesser fiuntains. In fact, if you're going to Catherine's palace, consider skipping the interior of Peterhof and just doing the fountains .

Before you visit Catherine's palace encourage your kids to learn about the mystery of what happened to the Amber Room during the siege of Leningrad.

Hi, there.

 

Does anyone know of a tour operator in St Petersburg which does tours for bikers?

My cousin's family (with two youngsters) and myself are ardent bikers. The boys can't stand big bus tours. I'm not sure what to do, and we don't have much time to make our choices.

Before you book a bicycle or motorcycle tour in SP make sure to ask about the traffic. I thought it was terrible and the drivers make up their own rules. Riding bicycles would be extremely dangerous (in my view, of course).

Hi Jo. I guess all the mentioned companies are good, more over – very good. But if you travel with children I would suggest Best Guides. They especially good in it. First, they have special children friendly tours. Second – they have several guides specially trained to work with children of different age.

One of these guides – Svetlans Starkova. She was our guide 2 years ago and she was fantastic. Ask for her. She is very good for grownups as well :)

 

Good luck! Jess :)

I'd happily recommend Best Guides and Svetlana Starkova as well. We (with our 6 and 3 year old boys) did a two day tour with her last week. Utterly excellent, kids loved it and got heaps out of it, six year old was in tears when we finished and Svetlana had to leave. Svetlana has great English, is knowledgeable and flexible - couldn't have asked for more.

Just back from our cruise and did the 2 day Russian Treasures tour with SPB , with a modification of a hydrofoil trip from Peterhof. We had 5 kids in our group, all boys 8 to 12, including my 9 an 11 year olds. Alexander was a great tour guide and the kids did really well.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My wife and I were in St Petersburg in June of this year 2015. I booked the 3 day tour with TJ Tours and loved it. We were on the RCCL Serenade of the Seas and stayed 2 nights and 3 days in St Petersburg. The 3 day tour included a Russian lunch every day which was very good. Our tour guide Tatyana was great and knew everything. It was especially nice to get into the Hermitage Museum an hour before it opened. The 3 day tour pretty much covered everything in St Petersburg. Excellent.

My wife got a migraine just before lunch on day one. TJ Tours arranged for one of their taxis to take her back to the ship. She did not feel like finishing the remaining 2 1/2 days, and TJ Tours cancelled her tour and was not going to charge her. I insisted on paying something for her 1/2 day, lunch and taxi ride back to the ship. They talked and said $50. A lot of tour companies would have charged for her entire tour. I tipped the tour guide and driver as if she had stayed. It was not fair to them to loose out.

I felt very comfortable being with TJ Tours. They took care of everyone. I will book with them anytime I can.

We used SPB tours last week in St. Petersburg with our 2 and 11 year old. There were other children on the tour age 4,6, 8, 11, and 14. Our guide was great with the kids and the adults. ( She is a teacher during the school year.) They even provided a carseat for our 2 year old, which was a life saver.

How far out will the tour companies book? For example, we are on the Serenade of the Seas, departing Copenhagen on May 29, 2016, and will be in St. Petersburg on Thursday, June 2 (only one day). I tried looking at SPB Tours' website to see what excursions are available, but I get an error message -- something about that ship or date being incorrect.

Is it too early just yet for them to have late May 2016 info posted?

Kellie - we are sailing in June 2016 and have contacted TJ Tours - we booked a private tour for 8. We did not have a problem booking this early.

Thanks, Larry. I will look into them as well.