St. Petersburg, Russia Port Issues and Reviews 2016

Hello, dear cruisers!

The cruise season 2016 in St. Petersburg (Russia) is now officially completed. Therefore, it's time to summarize the results for us, but for you - to leave a comment or a proper review.

My name is Valeria and I am the press officer of "Passenger Port St.Petersburg "Marine façade". I am NOT connected to any tour company and my only goal at this stage is to make services better INSIDE the Port for YOU personally.

Your forums and replies in the past years helped us a lot in understanding the problems tourists face when coming to St. Petersburg. We do understand your anxiety :)

Here are the main port's issues we have lined out on the basis of past reviews:

1. Wrong information in terms of visas spread onboard the vessels (only shore excursions bought from cruise company allow pax to go on shore without having visa, which is not exact true)

2. Passengers who bought private shore excursions are being kept on board the vessel until the rest of passengers with standard cruise excursions leave the vessel and pass the immigrations control first

3. Vessel staff directing private tour passengers to a limited number of immigration counters which results in long lines to wait. Long queues in general when disembarking

4. Wrong information spread by cruise lines through letters in terms of dangerous situation in the city of St. Petersburg and encouraging to buy only "safe excursions on board the vessel"

I would highly appreciate if you correct me in case I am wrong in some points or maybe some of the above issues are not happening anymore.

I would also appreciate if you add some more concerns about operations in the port such as work of immigration and customs control, etc. Whatever you have found inconvinient?

Remember, I am here to make your stay in St. Petersburg better! Even perfect :)

Let's summarize 2016 St. Petersburg Port experience here.

Thanks in advance for your helpful information!

We cruised on Holland America. The only issue we had was the very misleading communication regarding visas. HAL made it seem that one would need to obtain visas if not on a HAL excursion. Having researched this independently, we knew this was not the case. Our private guide provided us with the appropriate documents.

We were able to debark as we wished and not kept on board while cruise ship tours got off.

Security clearance at the port was fast and efficient. Lines were short. However the lack of an ATM in the port was disappointing. Our USA bank did not sell rubles. We spent most of the first day without currency. Once we found an ATM in the subway, the fees were a bit more than expected and the per transaction withdrawal was limited and dispensed a very large bill which made it difficult to use at a small shop.

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We were on Norwegian Star (July 30 from Copenhagen), which stopped in St Petersburg August 4-5, 2016.

Passengers with tickets for the cruise line's excursions were allowed off the ship on the first day before independent guests. The public announcements on the ship claimed that the ship was not cleared for passengers to disembark, but we could see the cruise ship excursion guests leaving the ship and going into the immigration hall already.

We were on the Celebrity Eclipse, we booked a private tour and we were one of the first off and no one had priority disembarking. No mention was made that we had to do a ship excursion or that passengers on a ship excursion would disembark first. The port was handled the same as every other port on this wonderful cruise, only difference was the warning of pickpocketers that we received when we went to our rooms the night before we arrived in St Petersburg

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I was on the Norwegian Star in August (after hawkeyetise).

I was prepared for problems but I'm pleased to say that we didn't experience any.

We were in the venue when the ship port talk about St Petersburg was on, and I was pleased to hear them clearly say that Visas were required unless you took a ship or private tour.

Also, when arriving in St Petersburg, we were towards the front of the queue to disembark and was expecting to be held up until after the ship tours. We saw a few people start to head towards the terminal building and then we were allowed off. I'd say that the ship tour people got maybe a minute or two before us, and when we got into the building there were just a couple of people in each queue. The people behind us in the queue seemed to be a fairly even mix between people on ship and private tours.

Overall it was very smooth.

I didn't hang around in the terminal for any time, so don't have any other comments, but overall, we were much more impressed by St Petersburg this time compared to our last visit about 13 years ago. The city was always incredible, but we felt much more welcome this time.

Our dear friends,

Thank you very much for your detailed and informative feedback!

Double thanks for the positive feedback on your stay here in St.Petersburg, we are very happy to hear that!:D

We promise, that we will take (have already done) into consideration all of your concerns posted here and try to improve in each direction.

We also must add that, unfortunately, we can not influence on the processes happening on board of the cruise vessels, however in the century of internet communications information spread around the net is crucial, and that is why I have asked information about your experince.

It is very helpful and we will do our best to improve ourselves and make your stay way more better! :)

Thanks again!

Hi Valerie,

Thank you for taking the interest in cruisers visiting St Petersburg.

Yes, it's been a very positive experience for almost everyone.

Don't worry about having no control over cruise line policies- leave that to us ;)

JB :)

We were on Celebrity Silhouette in June and spent three wonderful (sunny) days in St. Petersburg. We had Russian visas because we visited Moscow pre-cruise and had no problems with the immigration staff or the cruise line holding us back. The lines were fairly long the first day but moved quickly as many of the lines were open. We were able to use Uber to return to the port each day as well. Hope to be back in Russia before our visas expire in 2019.

We were on Regal Princess in August. A little bit of disinformation from cruise staff, implying that if you weren't on a ship's tour you would need a visa - failing to mention that if you had booked a tour with a licensed tour company then the visa is automatically organised. (and speaking with our fellow savvy travellers, we all agreed that SPB tour companies and their guides - as ambassadors for your beautiful city - are the best)

That being said. No issues with getting off or the ship or being held back. I've been stuck in longer queues entering the US through LAX and the immigration staff were polite and efficient.

Looking forward to returning one day - soon...

For the future cruisers reading about 2016 and looking to 2017 this web site may help.

http://www.portspb.ru/en

Thanks

sightcrr

For someone that has not been there yet and has a cruise planned for 2017 can you let us know what services are offered at the port. I am assuming there are some gift shops but what else?

I think it is wonderful that you care about us cruise passengers enough to post here.

Thank you

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For someone that has not been there yet and has a cruise planned for 2017 can you let us know what services are offered at the port. I am assuming there are some gift shops but what else?

 

I think it is wonderful that you care about us cruise passengers enough to post here.

 

Thank you

 

 

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All services offered at the port can be found on the port website here:

http://www.portspb.ru/en/Services/passengers