Alla Tours.....The Best At What They Do

[Spif Barwunkel]

Recently, Alla Tours has become victim to a "hack attack" perpetrated by an unscrupulous competitor(s) and flooding Alla's website with meaningless messages and posts. The result is an inability for potential clients to easily make contact and receive necessary information and guidelines. At the same time, this company(s) extols the virtues of it's tours via the CC website.

 

As former Alla clients, using their tours in six ports-of-call during a May 2015 Baltic cruise, my wife and I not only saw Copenhagen, Tallin, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Stockholm, we felt the pulse of each destination and became personally involved. That was due to the knowledge, professionalism, patience and friendship of each Alla Tour Guide.

 

Unfortunately, when a company is at the top of it's game it can become a target for other companies - not necessarily as good at the game - who attempt to compensate through the use of unethical business practices. Such is this case regarding Alla. There are good tour companies out there and not all play outside the rules. I would strongly suggest, when seeking one to enhance your Baltic vacation, do your research and make every effort, no matter how difficult, to get in touch with Alla. After all, they are the best at what they do.

 

Wally & Nancy

Satellite Beach, FL

[wozzasmum]

We used this company in St Petersburg for a two day tour and we could not recommend them more highly. From sorting out the visas, picking us up and returning us on time, taking us to wonderful places everything was excellent. It was a well balanced experience with lots of activity but interspersed were periods of travel which meant relaxation. Tour guide was very knowledgable and enthusiastic. We were very happy with our choice especially so because we were in a minibus and not a 56 seater coach as other people were!

[diesel1973]

I agree totally. 6 of us used them in 3 citys last May and were amazed on how their tours ran so organized and informative. No problems what so ever and definitely would use them again.

[aussiebarbara]

We used Alla Tours in 3 ports on a Baltic Cruise with Celebrity Silhouette in May this year. We chose Alla mainly because their itineraries in all 3 ports, particularly Stockholm coincided best with our "wish lists".

 

We arranged tours of Berlin, St Petersberg and Stockholm in advance of the cruise. We found when we arrived at the port of Warnemunde there was a train strike. The port is 2 1/2 hours from Berlin so if we hadn't arranged the cruise in advance we would have been obliged to take a ship's tour that would have been more expensive and included 56 people instead of a maximum of 16. The tour of Berlin was wonderful.

 

The 2 day Grand tour of St Petersberg was comprehensive. Around 10 hours on the first day and 9 on the second. It was a beautifully balanced itinerary of activities. I later met a Swiss woman who did the ship's tour and she said: "Nothing happened until 1 30 pm"! They queued to get off the ship, then to get through customs and then in the rain outside the Hermitage! After we cleared customs we were off! We did not queue outside the Hermitage but gained early entry.

 

We also did a canal tour. Certain places that include Amsterdam, Venice, London and St Petersberg cannot be truly appreciated until seen from the water. We visited Yusapov's palace that was domestic in scale and interesting from a historical perspective and had lunch in a lovely restaurant on one day. The ship's tour did not do the canal tour, visit Yusapov's palace or get a trip on the hydrofoil to shorten the commute and increase the number of attractions visited.

 

Our third tour was in Stockholm. We realised the ship berthed at Frihamen port, not Stadtgarten for the first time so was further away from Stockholm. If we did not tour the tour we could not have fitted in everything we wanted to do independently or with a ship's tour. We did a bus tour that gave a good overview of Stockholm and took us to a scenic high part that allowed us to look down on the 16 islands that make up Stockholm. The vista was so beautiful I will never forget. We also visited the Vasa Museum and had a walking tour through the Old Town. Perfect!

 

Cannot recommend Alla Tours highly enough. Unlike the ship's tours you get discounts for more than one excursion with them.

[Abuelos Aventureros]

My wife and I and two friends thoroughly enjoyed our Alla Tours in St. Petersburg and Berlin. The busses were comfortable and he guides knew their areas extremely well. We especially commend Elena in St. Petersburg for her description of what it was like to grow up in the Soviet Union and, now, life in Russia. We highly recommend this group.

[PhilipTravels]

You need only read many of these reviews to learn of the fantastic service received from Alla Tours. My wife and I used them not only in St. Petersburg but also in Helsinki and Stockholm. I'll focus here on St. Petersburg as it stretched over two days and was the most impressive. Our quide was Valentina Pilatova and she was exceptional. Our small van of a dozen persons were overwhelmed by her knowledge and ability to move around the city with such ease. I certainly don't remember ever having such a wonderful guide in any of my travels elsewhere. I will mention our group lunch on the last tour day. I believe we were all 'floored' by the quality of the restaurant we went to. Bravo Alla. The on-line support with Alla Tours before our booking was smooth and responsive. They had to make a few adjustments to our itinerary and it was done quickly and smoothly. Highly, highly recommended.

[Mum on Tour]

We used Alla tours in both St Petersburg and Gdansk in August this year. When I first booked, I wondered whether it would be worth the money, as I have never used private tour guides before - total cost for the two tours was $US620 per head. After having done the 3 day St Petersburg and one day Gdansk with Alla I can honestly say that it was totally worth every penny. I would have paid nearly 3 times as much if I had used the ship's tours. Another big plus in using Alla is that not only do you have small numbers (we were 4 people with a private guide & driver) and jump the queues, you also get to see absolutely everything, which is nearly impossible to achieve using the ship tours.

I recommend Alla to all my friends now, and will definitely use them in the future any time we are in ports that they service.

[Nana Sx4]

We used Alla Tours in Aug-Sept at 5 of their city locations on our Holland America Eurodam cruise. We did the 2 day Grand St Petersburg tour which was wonderful. Our guide, Svetlana, was excellent in providing us with an abundance of information about the city. She rearranged the schedule each day to avoid traffic delays and allowed us to visit places when there weren't as many crowds of tourists, therefore very little wait time. The days were very long, but so informative. There were 16 in our van, much more personable, than a whole bus full of people. We highly recommend Alla for St Petersburg and the other cities they also provide tours in. There was no problem getting back to the ship on time on either day.

[whsnightschool]

I highly recommend Alla tour as they are extremely professional in everything they do. Their communication was consistant and timely from beginning to end. We are so pleased we chose to do a private 2 day St. Petersburg tour with them. Not only was it cheaper than a group tour from the ship, it was flexible and could incorporate exactly what we wanted to do. We got front of the long queues and our guide, Polina was extremely knowledgable about everything. We had 5 adults in Our group and could see the herds in the large groups passing us (following the flags) looking enviously at our personalised tour. They are value for money and I was able to pay the deposit using a US $ visa "pressie " card which I just added a bit extra to, to cover the varying exchange rate etc. that way I did not have to send a credit card with a large limit on it. It worked well and great for piece of mind. We travelled on September 19 & 20 and we were on NCL.

Edited December 16, 2015 by whsnightschool
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