braemar

We have never travelled on this line before we usually are on Holland America and are travelling on this line in may 2016 and will be visiting St Petersburg has anyone else used this line and what are the tours like for Russia

Are you spending one or two days in St Petersburg?

If two days then I'd suggest arranging a private tour with Alla Tours or similar.

Nothing particularly wrong with the tours offered by FO but you'll get more done with Alla.

Also note that you will not need a Russian visa as long as you are with an officially approved tour company so you can't just go ashore and do your own thing, you will need to pre-book with the ship of a local company.

we will be there 2 days, don't know what tours FO has arranged or what time the ship berths, that is the difficulty. Apparently FO gives information 4-6 weeks before sailing, would be interested in this type of tour

how does one set up a group or what happens I know in other ports the buses are at the dock side ready to whisk you away to the various sites

Do you have to pre book or what

Sorry about all the questions

For Russian destinations you must pre-book due to the visa issues.

Companies like Alla Tours track the docking times of the ships and arrange their tours accordingly.

Hi

There is a lot of information on here that might help

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2171545

Have a great time

Fred.Olsen make a big thing of sailing their small ships right into the heart of destination ports and this was the case with our cruise to St Petersburg (2 days there in our case). It may not be so every time in every port but this definitely apply to the other 5 ports we called on our Baltic cruise. We were close enough to the city centre to get cathedrals etc in the background of our on deck photos.

We relied on F.O's visa and booked some shore tours - a city coach tour because my wife can't walk that well; a coach trip to visit the Faberge Eggs museum.

About five coach loads we saw went to the ballet one evening all dressed up as is required.

Some obviously did their own thing with their own visas and private tours. Lots visited the museums and went on river cruises using F.O. tours, a walking city tour etc. Plenty to do.

F.O usually send a semi-personalised shore tours book out about 2 months (?) before I believe: plenty of detail and candid information about how much walking is involved and quite precise about how many steps there are on each tour. City area maps for each port are included.

What we found was website shore tour bookings closed a few weeks before the cruise start date but the manager explained they are then available from the tour counter on board and via the cabin interactive tv which is a bit clunky but worked ok for us. It's nice being on a smaller ship where you can walk right up to the shore tours counter and be greeted with the tickets you just booked on the tv! No queuing. Duplicate shore tours were put on in some cases.

Braemar, nice comfortable ship, friendly crew, the entertainment you may not find thrilling but we enjoyed some of the performers' acts very much.

My wife, in-laws and I were on the Baltic Festivals cruise on Braemar in June/July 2014. We only booked excursions in Stockholm and St. Petersburg.

Stockholm was the Panoramic City tour was good but was unfortunately interrupted by an impromptu toilet stop at the Vassa museum which robbed us of half an hour of our two and a half hour tour. Braemar was able to berth so close to the city that in the afternoon we just walked back and looked round ourselves.

In St. Petersburg you have to go on the excursions or stay on board. We took in the Panoramic City Tour (again) which was good and included a stop at a nice shop for souvenirs, coffee and vodka. In the evening my wife and mother-in-law went to the ballet. Neither of them have ever expressed a liking for ballet but they were in Russia and they loved it. The next day we split. The in-laws took a tour of the Gulf of Finland, this was a bus tour with very little walking, they thoroughly enjoyed it. I think we trumped them though as we went to the Hermitage which was brilliant (if you like art etc.)

No need to really book any excursions elsewhere as Braemar gets to berth very close to the centres of cities like Tallin and Copenhagen.

Hope that helps.

are you given any free time to wander round and have set time to get back to the bus or are you escorted all time. on your tour did you visit the Peter and Paul Fortress and the palaces outside the city

We did Braemar for the first time with Fred in August and had a brilliant time. We tend to explore ports on our own or take a Hop on Hop on city bus.

St Petersburg you must book ship tours or a private tour which covers a visa for you, as you cannot leave independently otherwise unless you have obtained your own visa. For this reason we advance booked the tours we wanted to go on before leaving GB. On day 1 I did Peterhof Park tour £45. We both went on Evening on the waterways of St Petersburg for £45 each. On day 2 we both went on Panoramic Drive - the Gulf of Finland for £35 each. Bookable trips priced from £35 to £95.

The bus stopped a couple of times but only for enough time to take a few photos. By St. Isaacs Cathedral, by the Church of the Spilled Blood, On the river with a view over to the Winter Palace (would rather have stopped at the Winter Palace) and next to The Aurora (the gunship that fired the first shot in the Russian revolution) We passed the Peter and Paul Forts but didn't have time to stop. Then there was the stop at the souvenir shop. You were allowed to wander at the stops but there really wasn't enough time to wander off.

Good evening (to nitmm01),

I've dug out the Shore Tours book (A4 size) that F.O sent us about 2 months before cruise departure date, Aug 2015. There were 21 tours for St P., one on each page and the page layout matched what was also displayed in a similar format on the company's website at the time, ranging from a couple of hours on a coach with five stops and a visit to a large craft store through to various combinations of museum visits/river cruises/tours including some city walking and metro trasin travel experiences and the legendary ballet, spread over the two days.

I will take a small risk and suggest that nearer the time you will feel spoilt for choice - or take a private party option organised by F.O - it has its own page in my book; or travel around independently with your own visas.

We booked on board the Braemar for an Iceland taster cruise in Aug 2016 but the shore tour details that far ahead were also not listed or confirmed so the future tours manager photocopied the tours from a recent July 2015 similar cruise as an indication of what to expect. I hope the info you're getting on this forum is an approximate indication of what to expect in Russia.

I posted this on the 'Excursion Prices' thread a day or two ago (#8):-

It is actually very easy to search Fred's website for details of excursions which have been offered in the past along with approximate prices when the excursion was last offered.

If you go to the 'places we visit' tab on the top of their website, you can search destinations from their. The site does prefer to send you into cruises offered rather than ports of call and shore excursions, but if you are careful which link you use you can get into any port of call and the shore excursions previouisly offered.

The only exception to this I can find is if a port of call is not on any cruise planned by Fred in the future, so any port in any of their current brochures should be easily searchable. This does not mean the same excursions will be available in the future, but most are the usual offerings.

To help you get started, the link to the St. Petersberg port of call and the shore tours is below:-

http://www.fredolsencruises.com/places-we-visit/port/st-petersburg?continent=Europe&region=baltic-cruises

Scroll down the page a bit until you get to the shore tours - if you click 'St Petersberg cruises' you will loose the ability to see all tours offered in the past.

Excursions for cruises are usually available to view and book on your 'Manage my cruises' section a while before the excursion book lands on the doormat and I have known some excursions booked up before the book arrives, e.g. for Greenland. That may not be the case for St Petersberg - I do not know as it is one of the few places we have not yet visited.

Happy searching,

Barbara

:)your brill many thanks that's just what I wanted

We did a Baltic cruise with Fred in September 2013. We thoroughly enjoyed it and were extremely lucky with the weather.

We don't generally take expensive ship excursions. In SPB we did the 2 day Comfort Tour with Alla and it was excellent. There was only one other couple from our ship on the excursion so it was like having a private tour.

There is plenty of information on the Northern Europe forum.

When we went to St Petersberg we booked on line with Alla Tours. Beautiful air conditioned bus no waiting at any venue just walked through 2 days with lunches . one cold \( a choice and 1 in a restaurant saw everything we wanted to and less than the cruise ship price for 1 tour!!. paid by credit card in roubles best bet by far as the " money man" gets on the bus on the 2nd day and wants "pristine dollars or credit card peanuts compared to dollars . Thoroughly enjoyed it and Julie ( University Graduate) spoke better English than me!!!

Sorry forgot to mention you do NOT need a visa is using Alla tours it is all taken care of and the immigration lady said good morning Rosemary with a smile !!:)