Saint-Petersburg Port Issues Summary 2015

Hello, cruisers!

The cruise season 2015 in Saint-Petersburg is coming to an end with only few port calls left. Therefore it's time to summarize the results. But let me introduce myself first.

My name is Kirill and I work in commercial department of "Passenger Port Saint-Petersburg "Marine façade". I am NOT connected to tour companies in any way and my only goal at this stage is to make services better INSIDE the Port.

Your forums helped me a lot in understanding the problems tourists face when coming to Saint-Petersburg. First I wanted to write an incognito post here under the name of some fictional tourist, but once I saw how responsive and helpful your community is, I decided that there's no need to =))

Here are main port issues I lined out for my self:

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

4. Wrong information spread by cruise lines through letters in terms of dangerous situation in the city d Saint-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.

Remember, I am here to make your stay in Saint-Petersburg better!

Let's summarize 2015 SPB Port experience here.

Thanks in advance for your helpful information.:)

Here's our experience re:your port issues based on our July 2015 HAL Eurodam visit to St. Petersburg:

1. and 4. I do not recall HAL sending out any letters spreading mis-information about visas or safety issues in SPB in order to encourage the sale of their excursions. (Of course, if they did send out such information, I would have just disregarded it because the posters on CC do a good job of letting people know it's all a bunch of hogwash.)

2. All of the passengers on HAL Eurodam were allowed to disembark whenever they wanted. There was no "tiered" disembarkation.

3. We found the immigration lines to move relatively quickly and well. There was no direction of passengers to a limited number of counters.

On the Regal Princess this Aug.we were allowed to leave at our convenience even tho we had booked private tour company. There were very short lines and we had no trouble.

HOWEVER, the cruiseline DID send out 2 emails and also stated onboard in a video (and face to face) that you needed a visa if you didn't book a cruise excursion. :( We spoke to passengers afterwards that were disappointed in the ship's tour after hearing about our private company experiences. And they were unaware they could have done St.P without a ship tour.

My name is Kirill and I work in commercial department of "Passenger Port Saint-Petersburg "Marine façade". I am NOT connected to tour companies in any way and my only goal at this stage is to make services better INSIDE the Port....

 

Here are main port issues I lined out for my self:

 

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)

Absolutely correct observation. The ships' excursion departments do not make money when passengers take private tours so there is a not very subtle effort to provide misinformation. But I think this behavior by the cruise line begins well before time onboard. There was a thread in which someone posted a copy of the letter sent by the cruise line intimidating cruisers who were interested in private tours. Nothing written in the letter was wrong, but what was left out of the letter was significant and, if known, would have lead many cruisers to make a totally different decision about private VS ship's excursions.

}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

This was not the case on our visit on an Oceania ship, but it must be enough of a problem since the private tour company with whom we worked warned me of this possibility. I printed out that warning -- which included the tour company's strong language that holding us on board was illegal -- and carried it with me when we went to disembark before the tour groups left. Showing our letter was not necessary. My husband and I were passengers number nine and ten off the ship with no issues. However, I'll point out that we left a full twenty minutes before the ship's tours were scheduled to meet in the lounge. If we had tried to exit while the bulk of the ship's tour groups were leaving, I can't say what the case might have been.

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

I'm not certain how much the ships' warnings focuses on the issue of crime. I'm not saying this hasn't happened. What I find far more common is a warning that ranges from simply suggesting to outright stating private tour companies are potentially unreliable about getting cruisers back to the ship on time. Furthermore, the warnings claim that cruisers who miss the sail away time from St Petersburg will have a very hard time making their own arrangements leaving the country to meet the ship at the next port of call. The cruise lines imply the Russian government will be so oppositional that cruisers may find themselves trapped in Russia with no way out.

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

Our first night returning to the ship, my husband and I were the only returning passengers at that particular time. We noticed there was no signage to indicate where we were supposed to report to officially exit St. Petersburg and go onboard the ship. Finding no signs, I simply walked into one of the lanes past one of the booths where we had exited in the morning. This, of course, turned out to be what we needed to do, but some signs would have been welcome.

I don't know how you're going to be able to change the behavior of the various cruise lines. Where is your leverage with them? You need to find a way to reach cruisers directly. To that end, you may want to play a more active role on this board. Any time some nervous cruiser posts about cruise line behavior, you may want to be the voice of SPB officialdom and set the record straight. We cruisers who have been there/done that try to come to the aid of new cruisers, but hearing what we're saying repeated by an official voice would be helpful.

Very good. We can't wait to visit St. Petersburg in May of 2015 Locomotiveman Tom

Thank you all for your feedback, hopefully we will have even more notes about past experience here from other participants of the forum.

Unfortunately we can not influence all the processes happening on board the cruise vessels, however in the century of internet communications information spread around the net is crucial, and that is why I am here.

We will take into consideration all of your concerns posted here and try to improve in each direction.

Thanks and keep posting.

Dear CC members,

I am still waiting for more useful experience from this year. Please do not leave me with the feeling that there is not much that we can improve for the whole autumn, winter and spring))

Thank you!

Hello Kirill, and thank you for reaching out to us.

We were in SPB Sept 10&11, aboard the NCL Star. I believe we were the only cruise ship in port on those dates.

We were on a private tour, and had no problem leaving the ship when we were ready. Prior to the 10th, I had asked a shore excursion staff member what to expect in terms of waiting to get through passport control. He said they advise their tour customers to be ready an hour before.

I had my group together ready to leave the ship an hour before our tour was to start. As it turned out, we were outside the terminal and ready to go, before our tour guide and driver had even arrived! Perhaps it was quick because we were the only ship?

There were some lineups, but it did not take that long to get through, and we were able to get in any line we wanted.

Our ship delivered notices to our rooms before we got to Russia (see attachment).

Our group of 12 passed through passport control in a few minutes. We all noticed that the passport officers said absolutely nothing to us as we presented our documents, and just handed the stamped passport to us as our only indication that we were done!

The terminal building itself was easy to get around, and had nice souvenir stores open for us. There were restrooms available, chairs and good lighting. We were not sure though which door to exit; there were 2 sets of doors, and one had a screening area in front of it. We walked toward that area where the Russian officers were, and they just pointed to the other door.

The duty-free shop outside the terminal had good prices on items too, but stock was either low, or sold out out of many items when we went through on Sept. 11 in the afternoon.

Was on the same sailing as previous poster. I was stressed about St Petersburg immigration and it turned out to be non-issue and we too ended up waiting around the terminal (nice terminal, could use more benches) for a good 45 minutes waiting for the rest of our group. One couple did comment on the amount of time standing in the immigration line, so it must've been the timing. Maybe 5 minutes for us.

Interesting, we didn't receive the document the previous poster received, even if we didn't have a concierge.

Didn't see any signage about couples/groups going to immigration agent together so some went individually, others together. Better signage might speed things up on busier days.

Kirill

Thank you so much for offering your time and efforts to try and improve the cruise experience for many of our posters.

Looking at your list, for me, who did this cruise a few years ago, I can relate to most of your so called 'problems'. We cruised late August, but the reports from previous cruisers, many had experienced most of your concerns. There WERE long lines at immigration, where the cruisers were mixed in blaming some one. Some blamed Russian immigration for only having a couple of lines open and others blamed the cruise lines for their process of debarkation.

There were many, many reports of cruise lines trying to terrorize passengers with horror stories about no Russian visas and taking private excursions.

From what I have read for the past couple of years, most of these initial problems have been cleared up, but we still read every once in while about a cruise line trying to make it more difficult for passengers to use private tour companies.

Since I haven't been a recent cruiser it would be hard to suggest any improvements. Maybe having the people at immigration 'smile' every once in while would help nervous passengers. From all reports that has never happened as of yet. :D:D:D:D:D

Again, thanks for the offer to help.

Cheers

Len

We disembarked easily to meet our private tours in September,but on both days when returning to the ship at 4.00 pm there were long lines as only 1 booth open.

We visited on the Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas for 3 days/2 nights in June this year.

Our only issues were long lines at immigration on day 1 this was both directions - off the ship and then back on. Lines were much more reasonable on days 2 & 3.

We disembarked easily to meet our private tours in September,but on both days when returning to the ship at 4.00 pm there were long lines as only 1 booth open.

Dear grotbags,

Thanks for the information.

It would really help if you also tell us how much time you had to spend in a line due to only one booth was open.

Thanks.

We visited on the Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas for 3 days/2 nights in June this year.

 

Our only issues were long lines at immigration on day 1 this was both directions - off the ship and then back on. Lines were much more reasonable on days 2 & 3.

Dear Kryssa

I will ask you for the same as grotbags above. Can you tell us, how much time you spent in those lines.

Thanks!

We were on a private tour, and had no problem leaving the ship when we were ready. Prior to the 10th, I had asked a shore excursion staff member what to expect in terms of waiting to get through passport control. He said they advise their tour customers to be ready an hour before.

QuattroRomeo,

was it a representative of your private tour company, who advised you to leave an hour before the tour time? What company did you use?

Hi Mr Kaplin.

Thank you for taking a professional interest in this forum.

We were at Marine Façade in June, and we had a very positive experience there, much better than at the old Mafia-controlled commercial port on our previous visit some years ago.

We were on Celebrity Eclipse, and there was no disinformation on board about visa requirements for private tours.

Our passage through immigration entering Russia went smoothly both days, with minimal delays. The immigration officials were efficient, but could smile more. However, they tend to be like that world-wide, so maybe it's a qualification for the job!

On our return the first day we coincided with a load of ship's tour buses returning, and there was quite a melée waiting to go through immigration. We simply repaired upstairs to the bar till the queues subsided.

When we left the ship to go on the evening tour, we showed the lady immigration officer our Arctur tour tickets, but she demanded to see the actual theatre tickets for the ballet performance at the Alexandrinsky, which were in the possession of our tour guide outside in the lobby.

She phoned a male supervisor, and he was on the verge of letting us through when Tania our guide came through to immigration to show her the theatre tickets. Seven of our friends went through different immigration booths with no problem and no theatre tickets!

Sometimes I think these people make things difficult just because they can. I always smile and thank them regardless.

You should be very proud of the Marine Façade terminals and I am sure the investment was money well spent.

QuattroRomeo,

 

was it a representative of your private tour company, who advised you to leave an hour before the tour time? What company did you use?

No, it was the shore excursion staff on board the ship. I asked him what to expect for lineup processing time, based on his experience with previous sailings, and that is what he told me.

Our tour started at 9 am, so I had everyone meet on the ship for 8 am so we could leave the ship together and line up. But it only took maybe 5-10 minutes to get through the line on Sept.10!

Thank you all for your comments!