Princess Russia 2 day excursion

St. Petersburg, Russia

Princess Cruise

2-day Discovery Exclusive 2-day excursion

Price: $629.95 per person

We were excited to see Russia and all the history stated on the excursion description, when we booked this Princess 2 day excursion. It says strenuous, and the Princess rep stated the first day is supposed to be 14 hours. And here in lies the problem because 14 hours would have been fine. When we signed up online the starting time states 7am. Onboard our tickets said to be in the lounge at 6:15am. We then returned to the port parking lot at 4:30pm we had to be back to the bus (thru Russia customs again) at 6:05pm for the evening part of the excursion. We departed promptly at 6:05, had dinner in Russia with our group at 10pm and returned to the ship at 12:35am. By the time we walked to our room it was 1:00am. The second day we had to be thru customs and at the bus at 6:55am. My husband and I were unable to attend the second day of the excursion because I didn’t think I could function for a full day excursion on less than 5 hours sleep. I went to the excursion desk on Princess asking for some type of compensation for not attending the second day of my 2 day excursion. I was told by the shore excursion mgr. that they were not responsible and no money could be refunded. I was told I should have checked with the shore excursion department when I arrived onboard to ask for more information for details about this excursion. Really?

Why, after they sold me the excursion, are they not responsible? A phone call from Princess upon my return home said they “were sorry” I should have been prepared for a “strenuous 14 hour day”. As I said fourteen hours would have been fine! They were not running late, this was what was planned. Dinner was at 10pm and then the long ride back to the ship.

The first day of the excursion was fantastic and I’m glad I participated. But a second full day on only a few hours sleep, not to mention pouring rain, was pushing what should have been a fantastic excursion to a tortuous and expensive port.

The total I spent on Princess excursions this trip was over $3000.00. What a shame Princess wasn’t responsible for any of it. Guess they didn’t make any money. lol

This was my first Princess cruise, we were in the owners suite. I have many cruises on Royal and Celebrity…on one occasion we were partially refunded an excursion price, so it’s not unheard of.

Thanks for letting me vent and I hope I’ve explained enough so if anyone participates they know what to expect.

Lets put your post in a different light. You made a choice/decision to book a strenuous 2 day excursion (the itinerary was available before booking) at the usual overpriced Princess prices. After realizing that you had booked more then you could handle, you canceled day two with less then 1 days notice. According to the booking terms, you were not entitled to any refund. So now, you want to blame Princess? This sure sounds like a very elitest attitude. We do not like cruise line excursions, seldom to ever book one (and we have spent years on cruise ships)....but in your situation think that Princess has done absolutely nothing wrong. Just because you book a very expensive cabin does not mean you can simply flaunt tour booking rules. And the fact that you booked over $3000 of Princess excursions, which was your choice, is not justification for you to be treated in an elite manner.

To be blunt, if you have an issue with the ridiculously overpriced Princess excursions, then you should have done what many of us do and simply booked private excursions (often less then half the cost of the cruise line excursions) where you could have had some control over the itinerary and pace. Once you make the choice to join a large group tour, you are simply one more member of the group and should be treated no different then any other passenger whether in an owners suite or an inside cabin.

We have previously been in St Petersburg (and will be there again in about 3 weeks) and there is nothing "tortuous or expensive" about St Petersburg...other then the fact that you made a choice to book an overpriced strenuous cruise line tour. You could have booked a less strenuous cruise line tour, or simply booked a private tour (at far less cost) with an itinerary that better suited your endurance. As a comparison, we have a 2 day private tour coming up in St Petersburg that costs us $188 per person for the two full days (we selected a private tour with the itinerary that we wanted..and it will be a very small group). We also added an evening at the ballet (Swan Lake) for another $127 per person (includes decent seats plus private car transfers) so our 2 days will cost about $300 per person! And this is for a small group...not a large bus tour!

Yes, we are being a bit hard on you....but that is only because you published a post that puts the blame everywhere but where it belongs.....on you!

Hank

P.S. Had to chuckle when you tried to play the blame game with the weather. Not sure booking an "owners suite" gets you an guarantee of good weather :)

I agree with the comments made by previous poster. When we visited SPB we booked a 2 day tour with Alla Tours, which was excellent. We were given the itinerary and timings beforehand.

It was obvious that it would be two very full days. Therefore, we did not book anything for the evening. Neither are we interested in ballet or folklore shows. After the first day we were glad we could go back to the ship and have an early night, so we could enjoy the next day.

You must have known what your trips involved before booking them. I can't see a cruise line giving up their commissions because you decide you don't want to do something. Sorry, you entered into a contract, so you have to abide by the T&Cs.

My husband and I are in excellent shape and do many strenuous excursions...we didn't know we would be giving up a good night's sleep!

Then if you are so fit I would have thought five hours sleep adequate.

Sorry, but if you know it is their rule that you don't get a refund on the excursion if you cancel it after a certain time, I would think there should be a really good excuse for an exception to be made.

I just did a day and evening excursion like this (with a private company) and we knew we'd be getting back late and having to go out early again the next day. I would guess that you expected you'd be operating the second day on less sleep than you might imagine. It was actually your own decision to bow out based on the late night and the weather, don't see how Princess is responsible for either.

for St. Petersburg excursioners...if you have 2 days and you don't want to be tired on the 2nd day, don't mess with an evening excursion. If you take an evening excursion, you're going to be tired the 2nd day. It's worth seeing anyway.

I also don't think there would be refunds for rain, unless the weather was so inclement it would have prevented any type of touring.

We did actually ask to skip the last stop on the 2nd day excursion because some members of the group were too tired...didn't ask for any refund though.

I gotta say, the private 2 day plus evening excursion I just did cost significantly less than the Princess price (and it was a private tour for 4).

I am really sorry about your experiences - St. Petersburg was the absolute highlight of our Baltic cruise, and it is a shame you missed one day there. We had a similar problem on our son's first cruise, which was the Panama Canal roundtrip. The Panama Canal Authority doesn't let anyone off at Gatun lake unless they are part of a ship tour, so it was the only ship tour we took with our then 2 year old. We signed up for a short tour Gatun Lakes Cruise and Locks so we would be able to give our son a nap before he got overtired. Unfortunately, we were not informed until the day before Panama when it was too late to switch tours that there would be a substantial gap between when our tour ends, and when we would be allowed to reboard the ship. We were told at the end of the tour that we would be allowed back on the ship in an hour when it docked. The ship arrived on time one hour later, but no one was allowed to board for another hour, and the Panamanian authorities would not tell us when we would be allowed to board. That led to two very long hours standing outside of an elevator at the port in Colon with a screaming toddler who needed to nap. If we had known about this gap ahead of time, we would have either chosen a longer tour with the Embera Indians or simply disembarked in Colon and taken a cab from Colon to the nearby Gatun locks.

I had wanted to discuss the tour with the shore excursion desk, but they were open for very limited hours when we took our cruise three years ago, and since our time was spent chasing after a toddler or trying to recover from chasing after a toddler, we weren't able to make it to the desk early in the cruise.

The lesson I learned was to never take a ship tour again, since we normally book private tours and that gives us the ability to change the schedule (and also the ability to avoid imposing our toddler on people trying to enjoy their vacation). Our private tour in St. Petersburg let us add time at the end of the first day and end early on the second since the weather was perfect the first day. So sorry for that experience.