St. Petersberg with a Baby

Hello,

My husband and I and our 11 month old will be visiting St. Petersberg and don't plan on using the ship's tours. It's a dream trip for me, so I don't want to miss too much. However, with the little man, I'm a little worried about a big group tour. I don't want him to be a problem for other tourists or the pace to be an issue for us. I'm pretty confident we can keep up, but he's a bit of a wildcard - as they are ;)

Anyway, does anyone have any experience traveling there with a baby doing the group tours? Would a private tour be a much better option? My initial thought is to just get the private tour, but the price tag is a little intense - like more than I paid pp for the cruise. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Can you see if there are other families with young kids on your roll call so you can do a private tour but keep the cost lower with more people?

We did a private tour in St. Petersburg for just our family with a 3.5 year old. The private tour enabled us to fully enjoy and explore St. Petersburg during our limited time there. Whenever my son got hungry or tired or whiny, we were able to immediately stop and bring him to a cafe to give him a break. When he enjoyed an activity or location, we were able to stay there longer without consideration for the group's needs, which avoided potential meltdowns. We also skipped the inevitable bathroom breaks and souvenir stands that a larger group would normally require. And when you are traveling with a toddler, those little things (having to wait an extra few minutes at a museum when your kid really wants to leave) can really make or break a tour with young children.

When I was pregnant with my first son, we took a cruise to Alaska. A woman who rode on the helicopter with me was alone, and I noticed her husband met her at the end of the tour. I asked her if they'd been separated (one of the reviews mentioned the helicopter company separated their large family and they felt that it ruined their tour, and I was wondering if couples were also sometimes separated, since I wanted to write a trip advisor review of the helicopter company). And then she explained to me that she had cancer, and taking a helicopter to the dogsled tour was her lifelong dream but her husband was afraid to fly so she went alone. And I remembered another review in which someone mentioned that their helicopter ride was ruined because a toddler screamed the whole time. I was so glad that this woman was able to enjoy her helicopter ride and that no one had disturbed her.

I don't know if you've traveled with your child before, but for me, one of the most stressful parts of traveling now is trying to ensure that my child doesn't ruin a once in a lifetime experience for other travelers. And for us, that has meant private tours wherever we can arrange them. The one time we were unable to take a private tour was a disaster (the Panamanian authorities do not let any passengers off cruise ships in Gatun Lake unless they are with a ship tour). My son got bored and starting making noise on an ecocruise, and it understandably annoyed the other passengers. And then we were unable to get back on the boat since the government wouldn't let us board the ship. My son was overtired and bored in the port, and screamed for a very long hour. If we'd had a tour guide and transportation, we could at least have driven around until he fell asleep and let him sleep in the car after the tour while we waited for clearance to reboard. Things are much calmer and more likely to go well when I can control the itinerary and make adjustments for my child's needs without hurting other passengers. I really wouldn't want to be on a large tour in St. Petersburg, since I would spend the whole time worrying about my child ruining everyone else's experience and therefore wouldn't be able to focus on enjoying the city.

But I do believe the private tour groups try to match families together, so hopefully you would have less stress worrying about your child.

Thank you so much for the advice. It's very helpful. We have traveled pretty extensively with my son - Belgium, France, England, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, and Germany. His passport arrived at 5 weeks old, and we went directly to Copenhagen. He's a pretty great little traveler, but since we spent a lot of time traveling before him, I am hyperaware of every little noise he makes and everything he needs. We've never done any kind of tour with him, so we've had a lot of freedom to work through the kinks.

I will definitely take your advice to heart. The group tours aren't cheap as they are, so it's probably worth a bit extra for the tailoring.

You are so considerate! You are right when you say a specific trip/ tour may be a lifelong dream & you would not want the opportunity ruined for someone because you little one was having a meltdown.

And from your point of view you would not be able to enjoy yourself worrying about others who may be impacted if said meltdown did occur. It is hard to keep a child focused on a long tour ...sometimes hard for an adult.

I certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness. Happy Traveling!

You are so considerate! You are right when you say a specific trip/ tour may be a lifelong dream & you would not want the opportunity ruined for someone because you little one was having a meltdown.

 

And from your point of view you would not be able to enjoy yourself worrying about others who may be impacted if said meltdown did occur. It is hard to keep a child focused on a long tour ...sometimes hard for an adult.

 

I certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness. Happy Traveling!

I second this "shout out". Thank you for thinking of others. I think, and someone can correct me, that TJ tours have tours especially designed for children. Something like this might work for you.

<<<Karen>>>

Something else to consider in Russia.... We found that many of the tours involved quite a hike from bus drop-off to site as they were never created with parking, buses, etc. in mind. This might be difficult for you or not. Keep in mind that it also rains a lot in summer, at least from my perspective. I really would go with the private tour all the way around as you will be able to control where you go and how long you stay. For instance, if he might really be fascinated with the fountains at Peterhof, or not.

It's interesting because I can't think of one long treck to/from a tour stop, but maybe it was because we were in a van and not a bus.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Best Guides have tours specifically designed for children.

Best Guides have tours specifically designed for children.

I stand corrected :o.

<<<Karen>>>

Best Guides have a lot of nice ideas for children's tours, so you should look at their page even if you choose a different company:

http://www.bestguides-spb.com/children-page.html

We did a Med cruise with several family members including my granddaughter, age 3. She is very active and made relaxing dining impossible. We did some tours that worked out OK, she did get tired. Dad had to carry her.

I think an 11 month baby is easier than a three year old.

UPDATE: Thank you all for your information. We are now back from our cruise. For those that may be in the same situation, here's my thoughts:

We did a lot of research and ended up booking a private guide with a private car for 2 days for less than it was going to cost our family for a ship shore excursion and just slightly more than a group tour with a separate tour company. We probably looked at 20 different companies including costs, itineraries, and trip advisor reviews and found one that we were fairly confident would be great at about 40% less than average. The itinerary wasn't as ambitious as some, but we decided seeing more of a few things would make more sense than a little of a ton of things. We still managed to pack a lot of places in and toured from about 9am-7pm the first day and 9am - 5pm the second day. Passport control was breezy.

Our little man did great! He did get fussy, hungry, tired, etc, but we kept him in a carrier and made sure we had plenty of snacks for him and he napped as needed while we were still touring. I actually think he would have been just fine in a group tour, but it was so worth the little extra for the personalized attention and ability to move at our own (still fairly rigorous) pace. We were able to spend more time with him in the fountain areas of Peterhof when he was more interested and stop for a couple minutes in the Hermitage when he needed a minute to cool off (it was very warm and crowded), and go to a restaurant the was more suited to our family. It was also so relaxing not to have to worry about anyone else getting frustrated with us or us feeling like we were hurting someone else's experience. Our tour guide and driver were absolutely fantastic with us and our son. We really couldn't have asked for anything better of them. Even without the baby, I think the private tour was so worth being able to stop at the grocery store, go back to a shopping area, move easier at all of the destinations, and ask as many questions as we wanted.

That said, there were a ton of people with little kids on the group tours. I can't speak to how that went, but it seemed like a very popular choice. If you don't want a private tour, I don't think you should fear a group tour. If you absolutely want no children on your tour, I think you should definitely go the private route.

If you're looking for a private tour and are scared of the price, ask everyone! There were at least 3 companies that sent us quotes below their website. We ended up booking with a company that normally does walking tours, but they arranged a car. Just ask. It can't hurt. The reality is that visiting Russia is expensive no matter how you do it. A visa is expensive. Tours without a visa are expensive. This is not a place to plan to visit on a very tight budget. The cost of visas for 3 of us would have cost more than our tour price. Once you can make peace with that and if you can afford it, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for most people!

We loved St. Petersburg! Feel free to let me know if you have more questions!

Who did you use for your tour? We plan on going next year and, although we don't have children, we are looking for a good reasonably priced private tour. This will be our third trip to St Pete and we want to see different places plus revisit some old favorites. A walking tour in the center area would be great as many of the sights we want to see are located there. But we do want to go back to Peterhof and see the Alexander Palace both located outside the city so a car and driver would be needed.

<<<Karen>>>

I am so glad everything worked out for you!

We will also be traveling with our son -- 13 months old -- I'm interested to hear about your use of a carrier verses a stroller. Loriruckman@yahoo.com