stoli1021 Posted September 1, 2009 #1 Share Posted September 1, 2009 Hello All, We will be traveling to the Baltic next year. We have never been to St. Petersburg and after everything we've read, It sounds like taking a private tour is the the way to go. With that said were looking for your advise. We would like to get some feedback on the good, bad and the ugly as far as tour companies go. Did you book on your own? From the US? Company names? Also some pricing. We want to do a 2 or 2.5 day tour. Will we need visa's for the private tours? How far in advance should we book? We don't want to get there and get stuck with a bad and expensive tour. Any feed back would be great. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travelcat2 Posted September 1, 2009 #2 Share Posted September 1, 2009 Hello All,We will be traveling to the Baltic next year. We have never been to St. Petersburg and after everything we've read, It sounds like taking a private tour is the the way to go. With that said were looking for your advise. We would like to get some feedback on the good, bad and the ugly as far as tour companies go. Did you book on your own? From the US? Company names? Also some pricing. We want to do a 2 or 2.5 day tour. Will we need visa's for the private tours? How far in advance should we book? We don't want to get there and get stuck with a bad and expensive tour. Any feed back would be great. Thanks Yes, private tours are the way to go. You will not need a visa, and, yes -- you can book online from the U.S. Here is a link to the section of CruiseCritic where private tour companies, etc. are discussed. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=192 There is a "search" section under the page numbers where you can narrow the threads. For instance, you can search "St. Petersburg private guides". The Baltic itinerary is wonderful -- a bit tiring, but wonderful:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruechalgrin Posted September 1, 2009 #3 Share Posted September 1, 2009 Hello All,We will be traveling to the Baltic next year. We have never been to St. Petersburg and after everything we've read, It sounds like taking a private tour is the the way to go. With that said were looking for your advise. We would like to get some feedback on the good, bad and the ugly as far as tour companies go. Did you book on your own? From the US? Company names? Also some pricing. We want to do a 2 or 2.5 day tour. Will we need visa's for the private tours? How far in advance should we book? We don't want to get there and get stuck with a bad and expensive tour. Any feed back would be great. Thanks We had the 2.5 day excursion with Red October. Our driver and guide were excellent. We had 4 people and it was a little over $2,000 including 2 lunches, admissions to all except Gold Room at Hermitage (which we would not reccomend). We booked it on our own through Red October arm in U.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shua22 Posted September 2, 2009 #4 Share Posted September 2, 2009 Just used Exeter - not inexpensive but worth it. Private guide, luxury car with driver. Admission to all the special places, including the Gold Room which I thought was very interesting -- they even had a seperate local guide for the Gold Room, Sergai, who was amazing. Out Exeter guide was Luda and she was lovely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nana541 Posted September 2, 2009 #5 Share Posted September 2, 2009 We had the 2.5 day excursion with Red October. Our driver and guide were excellent. We had 4 people and it was a little over $2,000 including 2 lunches, admissions to all except Gold Room at Hermitage (which we would not reccomend). We booked it on our own through Red October arm in U.S. Wow! We were in St Petersburg late last Aug. on the Voyager, had a private tour for two of our three days and loved our guide....but we paid $600 per day for 10 to 4 or so....admissions extra and lunch extra....but both of those very small dollars....we got the name of our guide company off the Rick Steves web site....they arranged for the VISA's so that was no problem or extra expense....Peters Walking Tours was the name though there was very little walking involved....we loved our guide she was a University English and French teacher....! So to recap our fees of $600 per day included 10 - 4 ish, the guide, car and driver....extra for admissions and lunch..we bought guide lunch...I was really sick and she kept stopping for the "grandmothers cure" free Vodka tasting rooms - she would apologize and say they were tacky and touristy but the free vodka was just what her "grandmother" would say I needed....the tour just got better and better thru out the day!!! I now love vodka :p Oh one more thing we had crappy weather the whole stay in St Pet but that did not in any way ruin our fabulous time!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare RachelG Posted September 2, 2009 #6 Share Posted September 2, 2009 We used Anastasia. It was about $600 per day for the 3 of us ($600 total, not person). Our guide was terrific. Cost included private van, driver, entrance to all the site we had scheduled. We paid extra for lunch. This was before excursions were included, but I calculated that what we paid was less than if we had seen the same sights on the ship's shore excursions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dreps Posted September 2, 2009 #7 Share Posted September 2, 2009 We just returned from the Baltics last weekend and used Regent's excursions throughout. For Saint Petersburg, we did one all-day excurison the first day, and two excursions per day the second and third days. (Some of our fellow passengers did a third excursion one evening.) While I can believe that private tours will "trump" Regent's "free" excursions, I will say that our Regent excursions were excellent. We had extremely knowledgeable guides, the groups were not excessively large, and we seldom had long lines to contend with because special arrangements were often made for access to the popular venues. Many were concerned that when Regent went to "free" excursions, the quality would be significantly compromised. Our experience in the Baltics has allayed my concerns. We have now sailed Regent 78 days, and I think the "free" excursions were comparable to paid excursions on the other Regent cruises we've taken. For our upcoming S. American cruise, I expect to primarily book Regent excursions again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoli1021 Posted September 2, 2009 Author #8 Share Posted September 2, 2009 Just used Exeter - not inexpensive but worth it. Private guide, luxury car with driver. Admission to all the special places, including the Gold Room which I thought was very interesting -- they even had a seperate local guide for the Gold Room, Sergai, who was amazing. Out Exeter guide was Luda and she was lovely Shua, do you have the web page for Exeter? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeLover Posted September 3, 2009 #9 Share Posted September 3, 2009 Normally, I would agree that private tours are the way to go. I returned about a week before Dreps from this cruise, and I did a few of the free excursions (and one that was an additional charge). If this were my first trip, I would print out the descriptions of all the excursions that are available through Regent, then you could do research on the cities, make a list of what you want to see, and compare with the offered excursions. Then you would know if you would prefer the cost of a private tour. After saying this, I must admit this was my 4th Baltic cruise, and I always get a personal visa in St. Petersburg, so I basically did not do the "highlights" of the cities. But I did on my first cruise, and I found them to be a great overall picture. As to St. Petersburg, I would recommend the "highlights" tour with Regent and then after looking over everything mentioned above, I would make my choice of private vs Regent. PS I agree with everything Dreps said about the quality of the tours I took. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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