St. Petersburg ship excursions

[travellover3]

For those who are uncomfortable with setting up private excursions or joining others on a private tour...

 

I can't say enough about how pleased we were with our Star Princess ship excursion in St. Petersburg on Aug 24-25. The cost seemed high, but was a great value for its quality and duration. We booked the Elite St. Petersburg tour with the evening visit to the Catherine Palace. Our guide, Svetlana, spoke excellent English and was extremely knowledgable and personable. Our bus had 25 people, and it didn't hurt that everyone was prompt for all boardings, getting us to places in a timely manner. Early entry was arranged for both the Hermitage on the first morning and Peterhof on the second. It was very intense...we saw all important historical sights and had 3 excellent meals with entertainment included. I highly recommend this excursion for anyone who has the stamina (I am 73) to do it. It far exceeded expectations. I never felt that a private tour could have more to offer than this had.

 

I have gone on private excursions on other cruises and am not so convinced that they are necessarily less costly and better. I hope this helps those who feel more secure using the ship's excursions, especially if recommended by others.

[MercedMike]

For those who are uncomfortable with setting up private excursions or joining others on a private tour...

 

I have gone on private excursions on other cruises and am not so convinced that they are necessarily less costly and better. I hope this helps those who feel more secure using the ship's excursions, especially if recommended by others.

 

Exactly! In our many cruises we have used a wide mixture of ship's excursions, independent excursions, and on rare occasions done it ourselves. If you don't want to do a lot of homework, it is so simple and easy to book the ship's excursions and they are usually excellent, as the OP notes about his St. P tour.

 

In some cases, in some ports, an independent excursion works very well. This is especially true if you have specific things you want to do, or if you have (as I do) any mobility limitations. You do have to do your homework and usually there is a lot of correspondence setting it up.

 

In Saint Petersburg, for example, after reviewing the ship's excursions and options on independent tours, we wound up booking privately with DenRus. This was not for the reason of saving money nor even because we believed it would be a "better" tour, but because we could arrange to do what we wanted to do at our pace. A particular attraction with DenRus that we really enjoyed was "Lunch with a Russian Family." You can check out our trip report and pictures at http://www.bully4.us/stpete.html

 

Both choices in St P get good reports and work very well. This board, by it's nature, has a bias toward independent tours. My suggestion is to do as we do in each port and on each ship, look at the ship's tours first, and then consider whether that works for you or you want to go independent. I would never suggest one way or the other way is the only way to do it all the time.

 

Thanks for a great report!

[Ashland]

I'm very happy you felt you had a good experience for the cost of the ship excursion and what was offered..Everyone has different expectations. We did do a very private tour (DH & myself) active 2 day and felt the experience gave us "more" than we ever expected possible with the flexability to make changes and add additional sights enroute..How ever anyone decides what arrangements they will make for a visit to Russia, they will have an amazing adventure in this beautiful city..

[sammiedawg]

Many people feel more comfortable on ship excursions but someone told us one third to one half of passengers are going to the private vendors in SPB. We loved our 2 day tour with SPB, first class experience for 8 of us traveling together with our private guide and driver. Anyone going to SPB should investigate both options.

[Ashland]

Many people feel more comfortable on ship excursions but someone told us one third to one half of passengers are going to the private vendors in SPB. We loved our 2 day tour with SPB, first class experience for 8 of us traveling together with our private guide and driver. Anyone going to SPB should investigate both options.

I think your estimates are very correct..I was surprised at just how many private tour operators were waiting in the terminal for passengers off the Jewel on Aug 17th....

[Giantfan13]

For those who are uncomfortable with setting up private excursions or joining others on a private tour...

 

I can't say enough about how pleased we were with our Star Princess ship excursion in St. Petersburg on Aug 24-25. The cost seemed high, but was a great value for its quality and duration. We booked the Elite St. Petersburg tour with the evening visit to the Catherine Palace. Our guide, Svetlana, spoke excellent English and was extremely knowledgable and personable. Our bus had 25 people, and it didn't hurt that everyone was prompt for all boardings, getting us to places in a timely manner. Early entry was arranged for both the Hermitage on the first morning and Peterhof on the second. It was very intense...we saw all important historical sights and had 3 excellent meals with entertainment included. I highly recommend this excursion for anyone who has the stamina (I am 73) to do it. It far exceeded expectations. I never felt that a private tour could have more to offer than this had.

 

I have gone on private excursions on other cruises and am not so convinced that they are necessarily less costly and better. I hope this helps those who feel more secure using the ship's excursions, especially if recommended by others.

 

If that worked for you and helped you have a grand time in St Petersburg, bottom line, isn't that what counts??

We have friends that cruise 3 times a year for over 10 years and have NEVER done an independent tour of anything. They like the ship's tours and are completely satisfied with them.

As one poster said, this board is prejudiced towards independent tours. Most of us have used them and not one complaint as of yet. (just a few hiccups along the way).

Just the way I see it, most of the indies go way out of their way to try and make your stay in St Petersburg a great one. It's their business and it's your recommendation they seek, so I feel they will do more to make you like their tours than any ship's tour will ever do.

Second, they allow for changes to all itineraries as things progress, another thing a ships tour will never do. On our private tour with SPB, we had just glorious weather on day one so they rearranged things so we were able to do more outdoor activities that day in case of any inclement weather the following day. We had another magnificent day on day two, but who was to know that. Something like this simply isn't possible with any ship's tours. We also added a couple of stops as the day went on, to a market, to a liquor store, etc, again, somehting that is impossible on any ship's tour.

 

Again, ships tours are good, sometimes great, but for us, they just lack any flexibility, and sometimes couldn't care less if you enjoy the tour or not.

 

Cheers

 

Len

[Nana G]

Thanks to you all for your input. We are doing this cruise on Emerald and mainly for St. Petersburg. Although we have 19 cruises already taken, this will be our first to Europe! So, so many new experiences to deal with. The Princess excursion will definitely be for us but other ports we research may venture out to independent. Could anyone mention the price? It is still a bit out for us to book and wondered what it may cost. Thanks again.

Melody

[Sominex]

Thanks to you all for your input. We are doing this cruise on Emerald and mainly for St. Petersburg. Although we have 19 cruises already taken, this will be our first to Europe! So, so many new experiences to deal with. The Princess excursion will definitely be for us but other ports we research may venture out to independent. Could anyone mention the price? It is still a bit out for us to book and wondered what it may cost. Thanks again.

Melody

We're booking with Red October and have combined most of the ships individual tours into one tour with them. They are ready to do whatever you want to see. Haven't had next years cost yet but I'm sure it'll be around the $500 U.S. mark.

Som

[sammiedawg]

Private tours are much less expensive than ship tours, we think they are much better as well but I do not discount the OP's premise that many people are more comfortable on a ship tour.

We were in St Petersburg this past July, we got our quotes in the fall of 2009. Most hovered around $300 for the 2 day tour, some a little more, some slightly less. Ship tours were $599 for 2 days. You have to compare whether lunches are included, ( ours were not but they were not expensive) time frames, places visited. We felt we got a terrific price with SPB and we had input on what we wanted to see and do.

[Nana G]

Thanks for the info on ship tour prices. We are going to look into SPB and weigh our comfort level not going with a ship tour. Most helpful.

[travellover3]

Only the Elite St. Petersburg ship's tour was $599, and that included a full evening entertainment with dinner at Catherine Palace as well as the 2 full days of sightseeing. I believe the 2 day tour without the evening is $399 including lunches, photo permits, boat ride and all admissions. Fortunately for us, the tour included all that we wanted to see. On the other hand, we did Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen,Tallinn and Gdansk on our own (we did purchase the ship round trip bus for Gdansk, though).

 

For the sake of the very short time in Oslo (7-2), we opted to take the ship's tour (expensive...$85) to see the two places I really wanted to see. We were afraid that trying to negotiate public transportation to the Viking Ship museum and Vigeland Sculpture Park on a Sunday would leave us little time to enjoy them. That was a HUGE mistake, and I have already voiced my displeasure of that excursion to Princess. We had only 1/2 hr at the Viking Ships and 20 minutes at Vigeland. Aside from the tour beginning at 9:45, it took more than 1-1/2 hrs to get to and from the ski jump, and allowed 1/2 hour there. You can see the ski jump in 5 minutes. I absolutely do not recommend this excursion, unless Princess revises the itinerary.

 

The main reason I wrote this thread is to let people who don't want to make their own arrangements know that the ships do provide some very good excursions, and they should not feel it necessary to go out of their comfort zone.

[Giantfan13]

The main reason I wrote this thread is to let people who don't want to make their own arrangements know that the ships do provide some very good excursions, and they should not feel it necessary to go out of their comfort zone.

 

We all understand.

 

As they say, "Different strokes for different folks" :D:D:D:D

 

Cheers

 

Len