Red October itinerary question

[hyuall]

On the Red October tours we are interested in the Hermitage, Peterhof and Peter and Paul Fortress. What other sites are "not to be missed?

[juliejoe]

Hi You All!

 

Have you received their suggested itinerary? We went with that and added a canal tour as well as a subway tour. We will take a sack lunch from the ship in order to allow the extra time needed.

 

From all I've been reading, NOTHING is to be missed in St. Petersburg.

 

I've been noticing such creative board names lately, sure makes me feel like a plain Jane just being juliejoe. Yours is very clever!

 

Julie

 

Deuteronomy 4:29

<')))><

Grand Princess 8/17/04 Baltic B2B with 8/27/04 Transatlantic & 11/27/04 Western Caribbean

 

 

[hyuall]

Thank you for the info. I had thought about adding a canal tour and doing the brown bagging thing one day. I do have an itiniary and presume they are all about the same until altered by the cruiser. Thanks again, hyuall

[Sampras]

Red October seems a very popular choice for shore excursions. Can you provide their website address? Could not locate it yesterday with a general search. Many thanks.

[hyuall]

It is redoctober.spb.ru. However, I saw on another post that it was not working for some reason (I tried it myself and it did not open today). You can e-mail them at:

rols@redoctober.spb.ru

or

redoctober@peterlink.ru

The name is: Red October Land-Sea Travel

[KathyMG]

Julie,

 

I noticed you are doing a canal cruise with Red October. I told them I would like that in our itinerary, and they said it was cost prohibitive unless we had enough people for a whole boat. So, we were going to do it on our own. Do you have a whole group going together?

 

Kathy

[juliejoe]

Kathy,

 

We have 8 in our RO group. The canal cruise will cost us $15 pp - which we feel is well worth it!

 

When we were just 4 people and she told us it would be $120, this is what I sent to her:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The boat tour is expensive at $120 USD. If you recommend this as a good use of our time, and we would not have to give up anything else, please keep us in mind to add to another larger group. We did not realize that it would involve renting a boat but thought it was something that has a regular and frequent departure schedule.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Laura sent this in reply:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>There are boat trips along rivers and canals with regular departure schedule but these excursions are in the Russian language and your guide will not be able to overcry a Russian guide speaking through the microphone, we already had bad experience once so now prefer to rent boats where our guides can speak English and you enjoy the trip.

 

However it is costly when you are only 4 people and we do understand that. We shall remember about your preference and if there are more requests for such a trip then we shall include you in the group and let you know accordingly.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

After we got our group up to 8 (with Laura's help!) we asked again about adding it and this was her reply:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Regarding the canal trip - that is a nice tour but to be honest you do not have much time for that, your timing on the itinerary is rather tight. However since you are not eating at any restaurant and bring boxed lunches with you we could squeeze that on your first day morning before the HERMITAGE. Pls advise if you wish that.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

So, we added it and we are all thrilled with the prospect of having our own boat with our guide. We should have some really great photo ops from the boat - provided the weather cooperates!

 

Hope this helps.

 

Julie

 

Deuteronomy 4:29

<')))><

Grand Princess 8/17/04 Baltic B2B with 8/27/04 Transatlantic & 11/27/04 Western Caribbean

[porky113]

They also offer a Folklore Show which is supposed to be really good. It's Russian dancers, full piece orchestra etc. We have booked that and it is one of the reasons we are touring St. Petersburg for this show. Check with red October, it's in the evening

Ed

[englit]

We are also interested in attending the Russian Folklore Show through Red October. Has anyone out there already done this? Could you let me know what it cost? I,m trying to find this out from RO so I can decide whether or not to add it to our itinerary; so far they have not replied to my inquiry. Also, we plan to do this after a full day touring with RO (10 hours) Would this be a good idea to do so or do you think we will be too exhausted from the tour? Thanks, Sue

[rockgarden]

We are doing a RO tour, two days - first day is 9-1/2 hrs and afterwards we are going to the Folkloric show.

I think it will be tiring but we won't have another chance, so we are going for it.

We are a total of 13 at $42 each, so if you can get up a nice group, the price goes down.

 

Rosemary

[shoshona2]

Hi everyone,

 

We were in St. Petersburg last August. please don't miss Catherine the Great's Palace and Peterhof (Peter the Great's Palace). You go to one one day and the other the next. They are the top sights in my estimation. We were in St. Petersburg 13 years ago and they weren't open to tourists. They are more important than a canal ride.

[englit]

Originally posted by porky113:

They also offer a Folklore Show which is supposed to be really good. It's Russian dancers, full piece orchestra etc. We have booked that and it is one of the reasons we are touring St. Petersburg for this show. Check with red October, it's in the evening

Ed[/quote

 

porky113

 

Do you know any of the specifics on this folklore show? Where is it held? What time does RO pick you up? How long is this performance? Do you have to pay a photo fee to take pictures? How much? How about seeing cossack dancers? Do you know if they are a part of the show? Answers to any of these questions would be greatly appreciated. Hope you really enjoy the performance.

[Images]

Why are you willing to be slaves to Red October and their scheduling, and rules about what you can do and see? I know many of you think this is the only way you can see St.Petersburg, but there is another way with much more freedom. St. Petersburg is not a city to be afraid of. Are you afraid to see Paris or London on your own?? All you need is a Russian Visa and you can tour on your own easily, and use a guide when you need to. You can go on a canal cruise at any time you want for just a few dollars. They run all day long, yes in Russian, but what fun it was!! You can go to an excellent folklore show (the best I've ever seen) at the Nikolaevsky Palace e-mail folkshow@mail.wplus.net for $15, 2 hour show including champange and refreshments at intermission. You can spend as much time as you wish at the Hermitage. You can wander the city on your own, or you can use a guide part of the time as we did. We didn't just tour the subway, we used it.

 

I know this sounds harsh, but for those that want to do St.Petersburg on their own schedule instead of Red Octobers, there is a very easy way to do it. Pallidium will give you free visa support. Yes, you must fill out the papers and send your passport to the Russian Consolute, but they send it back in 2-3 weeks with the visa inside. No big deal.

 

If you want to read my cruise review of our Baltic cruise and how we spent our 2 days in Russia, it's posted here at Cruise Critic Cruise Review, Grandeur of the Seas, August 23, 2003.

 

Red October is great if you feel you can follow their lead, but there is another way to see St.Petersburg, and some of us have done it very sucessfully.

 

Lorrie

[Andee]

When we added up all the costs, Palladium was no cheaper than Red October. Palladium is more like an a la carte meal, and RO an all inclusive resort.

 

RO was very willing to adapt their itinerary to our interests, and we had a wondferful two days seeing exactly what we wanted with an excellent guide.

[porky113]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by englit:

Originally posted by porky113:

They also offer a Folklore Show which is supposed to be really good. It's Russian dancers, full piece orchestra etc. We have booked that and it is one of the reasons we are touring St. Petersburg for this show. Check with red October, it's in the evening

Ed[/quote Russian Folklore show performed by the Russian

> > Cossacs. The company

> > is excellent and we are sure you will enjoy that very much. This

> > folklore dance & sing group consists of 50 proffessional

> dancers and

> > singers. They will perform at airconditioned, one of the

> best concert

> > halls (capacity 500

> > seats) located at Pulkovskaya hotel.

> > The performance start at 08:00 pm and is over by 10:00 pm,

> so you will

> > be back to ship by 10:30 pm.

> >

> > Per Person Cost including transfers, guide's assistance and theater

> > tickets

> > is: USD 54 pp if you are four, USD 49 pp if you are six,

> and USD 46

> > pp if you are eight.

 

 

porky113

 

Do you know any of the specifics on this folklore show? Where is it held? What time does RO pick you up? How long is this performance? Do you have to pay a photo fee to take pictures? How much? How about seeing cossack dancers? Do you know if they are a part of the show? Answers to any of these questions would be greatly appreciated. Hope you really enjoy the performance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[englit]

Thanks Ed for providing me with all the details.

 

 

 

sounds like a great evening.

[drwong]

"Slaves to Red October?!?" I thought RO was extremely accommodating in taking us to see the things we wanted to see. We gave them a list of places we wanted to go, and they managed to fit them all into our two days in St. Pete. We did have to make the obligatory stops at the RO store (ostensibly to pay for the tour), but we were able to dictate our own schedule. We even scheduled a shopping visit to a Russian supermarket and a lunch with a ballerina with the Bolshoi.

 

Note that unless you have a functional knowledge of Russian or can read Cyrilic, it's going to be hard to tour the city on your own, as the bulk of the Russian populace doesn't speak English, unlike their Scandanavian neighbors.

 

From the Insignia's Inaugural sailing (4/3/2004)

 

[NH Cruiser]

Can any of you tell me the number of people that can comfortably be on the Red October two-day tours. I read somewhere that 6-8 was a good size group, but we may have as many as 10. Is that a problem?

 

Jean and Bill

[FLJudi]

We toured with RO for two days last summer with 9 people. The Mercedes Sprinter van was quite comfortable for all of us. No problem keeping together, hearing the guide, etc. Van was large enought to hold ten if I remember - we were not cramped.

 

FLJudi

 

Constellation British Isles/Norwegian Fjords