St. Petersburg/Moscow Tour

We have narrowed our tour of St. Petersburg/ Moscow down two companies Best Guides, or Insider Tours. Now I'm stuck they both seem like great companies and their rates are pretty much the same. Can someone who has been with them before give us some advice? Thanks!

We did our SP tour with Insider and highly recommend them. You will find more people on Cruise Critic have completed their tour with Best Guides and they were also very happy with them. Both are excellent and I don't think you can go wrong with either of them

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We have narrowed our tour of St. Petersburg/ Moscow down two companies Best Guides, or Insider Tours. Now I'm stuck they both seem like great companies and their rates are pretty much the same. Can someone who has been with them before give us some advice? Thanks!

Since both of these companies are excellent, perhaps the better way to decide would be to compare the destinations, group size, meal options, etc.

I'm inferring from your post that you'll be making a three-day port call and plan on visiting Moscow. Am I right? That's a long, tiring haul and opinions about making the trip are strongly divided.

We hired TJ Travel last May. They were fantastic, and no more expensive than Viking's shore excursions, probably less. I highly recommend them. Our tour guide in St. Petersburg was Nadia and in Berlin it was Boris. Their email address is info@st-petersburg-tours.ru

Had a 5-star Two Day Exclusive Saint Petersburg tour including the Faberge Museum. It was very well organised including the hydrofoil to Petergof and a trip on the Metro system. The tour was booked with TJ Travel for the 10-11 June 2017.

It included transportation in a Mercedes Mini bus with 8 pax. Speedy entry was provided at the Catherine Palace, Faberge Museum, Hermitage, Church of the Spilt Blood and Peter and Paul Cathedral. The guide for both days was excellent. The last day being Sunday we were running slightly early and as a bonus we visited the 1900 Russian 3 funnel cruiser Aurora.

The company is very well recommended and at a great price.

We're not seeing any comments on Alla tours (bookable through Viator in the US). Has anyone used them? Now we are thinking about TJ travel instead. Help!

We used TJ Travel at the recommendation of some friends who are very frequent cruisers and could not be more satisfied. If your cruise stops in Berlin (Warnemude) request Boris, and definitely ask for Nadia in SP. You will not be sorry. An additional bonus is that their prices were less than the Viking's shore excursions!

We're not seeing any comments on Alla tours (bookable through Viator in the US). Has anyone used them? Now we are thinking about TJ travel instead. Help!

Yes, tons of cruisers have used Alla Tours - I have utilized her tours (several times, in fact) and they are excellent. You will find many posts on cruise critic extolling the virtues of Alla Tours and, on Trip Advisor, Alla is rated very highly (higher, in fact, than TJ). Simply because a particular thread is all about TJ does not mean that they are a tour company that is superior to Alla Tours - there are many fine companies in Saint Petersburg and all are frequently mentioned on cruise critic (Alla, Best Guides, SpB, TJ). Check with several of them and see which best fits with your desires. BTW - TJ is also bookable through Viator in the US.

Here is a cruise critic post from today regarding Alla Tours:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=53429443&postcount=5

The OP was asking about Best Guides and Insider Tours - both companies with excellent reputations. They were not asking about TJ.

We're not seeing any comments on Alla tours (bookable through Viator in the US). Has anyone used them? Now we are thinking about TJ travel instead. Help!

What is the appeal of booking through Viator? My practice is to deal directly with the company that will be delivering the service or accommodation and avoid using Viator. In the few instances where I've gone to the Viator web site -- and where I could also identify the actual provider -- the prices have been higher through Viator. (After all, they're entitled to make money for their booking services.)

The case for using Viator seems particularly weak when dealing with well-known and well-admired companies like Alla, TJ, SPB, Best Guides, and more. Obviously others disagree or Viator wouldn't be in business, but I'd really like to hear someone make the case for using a middleman.

Thanks all, for your info! We've used Viator with great tours for several Islands in the Caribbean so that's why we booked the SPB with them..(also, at the time we booked no-one else was doing the Faberge also).

Also interested to see if anyone on this cruise is doing any special tour in Berlin.???

Just an FYI:

Viator is just a middle-man broker for tours. You can book anything they offer through the tourism site or website of the independent company and tailoring the tour to your wants/needs. You'd save money by booking direct as well.

Just an FYI:

Viator is just a middle-man broker for tours. You can book anything they offer through the tourism site or website of the independent company and tailoring the tour to your wants/needs. You'd save money by booking direct as well.

Well said! :)

We booked with TJ Tours, excellent value and all the sights plus the Feberge Museum in the evening. We were amazed to be upgraded from our expected tour with a group, to a private tour. Anna our guide and Alexander our driver were totally professional, very knowledgeable about St Petersburg and a delight to be with for two days. Anna took us to all of the key sights, managing crowds well, so that we had a good experience. Alexander found the best places to park and was always there ready for us when we finished. The tour booking by email was straightforward, there were regular email updates from the company. No money was paid until the end of the second day. We paid by credit card and it was as expected. The meal on the first day was fantastic, Russian vegetable soup and beef stroganoff. The second day in the city, we ate in a fascinating restaurant, but I didn't like the food quite as much, although my husband was very happy to eat mine as well as his! Overall excellent in all respects.