"St Petersburg At Your Leisure"??

[s2sap]

Chica did you purchase your Hermitage tickets online. I see you had 2 teenagers with you - same as us. Did you simply book 2 x adults online and were you then given the 2 concessionary tickets at the entrance to the Hermitage for the kids.

 

We have just booked the "St P at your leisure tour" for both days in St P for four of us so we now need to firm up an itinerary if we are going to get the best out of this visit. Your reply to the OP in this thread has given us the confidence to do this on our own and saved us hundreds of $ - Thank You. It is not just about the $ ( but believe me it helps ) it is about doing your own thing.

 

This will be our 15th cruise and we very rarely now partake in cruise official tours. We have been to some unusual places ( Tripoli Libya, Syria , Jordan , Palestine , Jerusalem , Tel Aviv and more ) and would prefer when it is deemed safe to do so to do our own thing and always find that away from the cruise tours you find the "real" town/city/people.

 

It just seemed prudent to be more cautious about doing something potentially wrong in Russia - Siberia is a BIG place and I dont like the cold that much!

[Kingsbridge]

S2Sap, I think you would be better off going to the Hermitage on Day 1 and doing the HOHO bus and the fortress on Day 2. The reason I say this is that walking distances in St. Petersburg are deceptive because the blocks are very long (twice the length of an average blocks in most European cities). It is very easy to walk to the Hermitage from your drop off point. The Peter and Paul Fortress would be a very long, very roundabout walk, even if you just do it one way. If you get tired, you won't be able to just hail a cab. When HAL does an "on your own" tour similar to the one you are taking, they use the buses from the HOHO company and I never saw a HOHO bus running on a regular schedule. If it is running, then it would be practical to take it over but you'll have quite a hike back. On the HAL bus, there were guides who gave advice. If you make the Fortress your goal for the second day, you'll have the opportunity to get the lay of the land and to ask advice and information on the spot rather than just relying on the recollections of people who visited briefly. I would also suggest that you print a page from the internet with the cyrillic alphabet and our alphabet so that you can decipher signs. Good luck. You'll have a great time.

[TLCOhio]

Much better IMO to do an organised tour if you really want to see St. P. at its best!

 

Agree strongly with this above post that a smaller, custom tour will be much better in BOTH seeing and understanding all that is there in St. Petersburg. If walk by places and don't know what's important or its meaning, then you have missed so, so much.

 

Our guide, Jane or Zhenya with Anastasia, was super in having a "CONVERSATION" with us. That makes all of the positive difference to enjoy and experience things in the best manner. She loves her country and its long history. She shared that well and answered our questions, responding to our interests and needs. You're the customer. You should be happy! It was much better than being "forced marched" through the Hermitage in a group of 25-25 people with a guide barking out details to us as we walk quickly by these great art treasures.

 

We have done BOTH private tours and ship excursions. Guides are guides!!! Some are good and average. Some great, wonderful, interesting and entertaining. Some are less.

 

A personal guide is best and ideal, especially if you can have pre-tour communications and establish that "connection" for what you need and seek to fit your travel style and personal interests. Also, in a large group, it can be hard to hear and understand everything that is being shared, asked. But, personal tours/guides are not always possible, affordable, needed, etc., for all port stops.

 

Here some of my photo highlights for St. Petersburg and why you need to get in the right buildings, have a plan, etc.

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

Just back from a June 7-19 Solstice cruise from Barcelona that had stops in Villefranche, ports near Pisa and Rome, Naples, Kotor, Venice and Dubrovnik. Enjoyed great weather and a wonderful trip. Dozens of wonderful visuals with key highlights, tips, comments, etc. These postings are now at 25,730 views for this live/blog re-cap on our first sailing with Celebrity and much on wonderful Barcelona. Check these postings and added info at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1426474

 

For details and visuals, etc., from our July 1-16, 2010, Norway Coast/Fjords/Arctic Circle cruise experience from Copenhagen on the Silver Cloud, check out this posting. This posting is now at 47,775 views.

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1227923

 

Appreciate those who have “tuned in” for these two posts. Don’t be shy and feel free to comment and/or ask any questions of interest.

 

 

Private, personal tours can be worth it, especially in St. Petersburg. Here our group of four, with our guide, Jane or Zhenya, we are viewing one of the two da Vinci masterpieces at the Hermitage after an early admission. There are only 17 such painting by this artist existing in the world. We did an early admission at the Hermitage, adding to the enjoyment in this spectacular place AND museum. It is both!:

 

 

 

The Grand Staircase at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage:

 

 

 

At St. Petersburg’s Hermitage, just one of many, many great galleries:

 

 

 

Here is a wider shot of the Spilled Blood Church interior in St. Petersburg. Its exterior design is more traditionally "Russian" or Orthodox than St. Isaac.:

 

 

 

As we entered Catherine's Palace, here was the welcoming band.:

 

 

 

These St. Isaac interior green columns are covered in the semiprecious stone malachite:

 

[chica]

s2sap,

Yes I did purchase them online---just google it and you will get the site. You buy two tickets for the adults and you be emailed a voucher that you need to print out and show at the Hermitage. When you get to the Hermitage, skip the line and present your voucher (the line is to the left of the regular line--no one was in it when we got there). Someone escorted us to a ticket booth. You have to have the kids beside you and make sure they give you an actual ticket for the kids as well as your two adult tickets because you need to put a ticket in the turnstile for each individual to get in. Once you are in, you can get a map and do it yourself as we did, or there are guides there for about $100 for an hour and a half tour for the group. We enjoyed just wandering around. When you are ready or interested there is an internet cafe with the food cafe and kids can get 30 minutes internet time for about a dollar or maybe two. (they get 10 minutes more than adults for the same amount :) ) BTW if you go to Helsinki, they have free internet at City Hall for 30 minutes at a pop. Just go in and get a code and they will assign you to a computer. If your kids are like mine, internet time is gold :) You have to check bags and backpacks so do that after you get your tickets so you can go straight in.

Have fun---the kids loved the whole trip and especially our time in SPB.

Chica

 

Edited to add: We did the Hermitage the first day and so I might recommend that to you as well. It is easy to do and it will give you a feel for the city and help you better plan the second day. You can be on the lookout for that HOHO bus. The Hermitage is closed on Mondays though.

[s2sap]

Thanks to all for your help and input.

[AJM1973]

Took this two days in a row from Royal Caribbean. You are completely off the leash. We asked the guide if it was okay and we took the subway some distance to the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad (well worth it!). The subway/metro was very easy to navigate because it has English signs. The first day we went to the Hermitage (be sure to book your tickets online ahead of time - the lines were very long). You can go anywhere and do anything, just be back to the bus on time.

 

You can see a lot more with a package tour but they are just not our thing. It's more fun and more authentic to to be free. We were very happy with our two days in SPB.

 

The guides even provided good commentary on the drive in and out of town.

[F Markus]

We have returned from our cruise, and I can confirm that you have the time totally to your own disposal. The guide (or "escort" as RCCL called her) gave us a very entertaining presentation of St Petersburg on the way to the city centre. The bus took us to a square very close to the Russian Museum, the Winter Palace, Church of the Spilled Blood and Nevskij Prospect. There is a big (very expensive) souvenire shop where you can use the restrooms and get a map. We did exactly whatever we wanted (a metro tour, visit to the Hermitage, shopping...) and 6 hours later the bus was waiting outside the shop.

 

This is the way to experience St Petersburg, at your leisure, without personal visas.

[PC168]

Hi F Marcus,

 

I do not see tour PZS5 from RCCL website for this tour. May be it disappeared.

 

Thanks.