St Petersburg Question, help please

[sggorden]

We are on rcl and have one day in St Petersburg. We are going to take an excursion by rcl. Does anyone know why the private van tour is so much more than the private car. Has anyone been on either??? Thoughts please!

[fabnfortysomething]

probably because the private van is a 7 seater rather than private car for 4

 

but you will be able to get much better pricing from private tour operators in St Petersburg rather than going through the ship

[sggorden]

Thanks I am looking into that now, any suggestions?

[mskaufman]

There are four or five tour operators who get good reviews here. We used SPB and were very happy with the choice.

[Pet Nit Noy]

Thanks I am looking into that now, any suggestions?

 

Glance down the list of threads on the first couple of pages on this board and you'll be overwhelmed with suggestions.

 

I can spot four threads on page one alone whose titles suggest they include useful information. Page two offers three potentially useful threads. (Do no rule out a thread that focuses on children. You never know what nuggets it contains.) Page three contains five threads likely to be useful.

[Pet Nit Noy]

We are on rcl and have one day in St Petersburg. We are going to take an excursion by rcl. Does anyone know why the private van tour is so much more than the private car. Has anyone been on either??? Thoughts please!

 

 

Does the private car include the services of a guide plus a driver or only the services of a driver? I suspect it is the latter and that explains the price difference. The driver will get you from place to place but will offer no information. A guide will keep up a running commentary throughout the day and provide expert strategies for getting into sites without having to wait in line.

[kitkat343]

The private tour companies will offer you the option of a small group tour of 16 persons, or a private tour for just your family. We needed a private tour since we were traveling with a 3 year old, but would recommend that if you have the means to consider it despite the cost. There is so much to see in St. Petersburg that it is really helpful to be able to customize a tour, and skip through lesser rooms of some attractions that you aren't interested in, and limit yourself in the Hermitage to exactly the artwork from he periods that you love. But people are very happy with the 16 person groups also, so it is entirely up to you. But please don't take a ship tour, since you will pay more money to be in a larger group which means more waiting in St Petersburg. Our tour skipped all the lines at museum entrances (they don't let all the ship tours in at once since they would bottleneck inside museums and our group of 3 was able to cut in front of those groups on line.) The 16 person tours might also be able to cut in front of the lines.