Ship Tour vs. SPB in St. Petersburg

[rfamily6]

Trying to understand why the two day Best of St. Petersburg tour with Princess is so much more expensive than the two day Deluxe Tour with SPB?

 

Anyone have experience with either of these tours?

 

 

 

 

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[GradUT]

Princess charges more because they can get a goodly number of their passengers to pay it.

 

They prey on the fear by passengers that they will be left behind in Russia if their non-ship-sponsored tour arrives late to the port. In the past, they have also intimated that only Princess could obtain Russian visas for a group tour.

 

Both of these are non-issues. No reputable Russian tour company (and there are loads of them in St.Petersburg) is going to risk getting their clients back late. It would ruin their business. Also, it's completely untrue that only the cruise line can get your visa. Again, any reputable tour company can and will do this for their clients.

 

Don't get suckered in to taking a ship's excursion in St. Petersburg. The number of people on the tour will far exceed the number on a group tour by a private company. (They are generally 12-16 passengers maximum on the private group tours.)

 

Look at the tours offered by SPB, Alla, TJ Travel or any of the many companies mentioned on this thread. You'll have a better tour and save yourself a bunch of money.

[nybumpkin]

My experience was with Alla, not SPB, and we were on Carnival Legend, not Princess - but I'd bet the ship's tour was similar. The people on our ship who booked through the cruise line all enjoyed their tours, but they were on large buses as opposed to the 16-passenger van we had with Alla. One of the ship's buses missed the Church of Spilled Blood because there was no place to park the full-sized bus. Not an issue with the van. And with only 16 people, we had a much more personalized tour than would have been possible with a group of 40-50.

[CruiserBruce]

Because it is how the cruise line/shore excursion business works. Been that way for a very long time.

[Pet Nit Noy]

Trying to understand why the two day Best of St. Petersburg tour with Princess is so much more expensive than the two day Deluxe Tour with SPB?

 

 

Because every cruise line -- not just Princess -- does such a good job of frightening its upcoming cruisers about their visit to St. Petersburg that by the time they've finished working us over we're willing to pay anything -- unless we've discovered this board and learned the truth!!

 

Typical scare tactic:

 

Ship's claim: There are two ways to visit St. Petersburg -- on your own which requires an independently acquired Russian visa or with a ship's excursion which requires no visa.

 

Reality: There are three ways to visit St. Petersburg, two of which do not require an independently obtained Russian visa.

 

Any licensed Russian tour company arranges for its clients to visit St Petersburg visa free. It doesn't matter if you are on a tour bought from the ship or from the many wonderful companies we talk about daily on this board. There are no legal differences between the ship's tour and the licensed Russian book-your-own tours. In both of those cases, you will 1) arrive/depart by ocean-going ship, 2) sleep on the ship, 3) depart within 72 hours, and 4) stay with your tour guide except for special circumstances like attending a ballet/eating dinner out/a few minutes of shopping within a limited space.

 

You'll need to apply for a visa only if you want to arrive in St. Petersburg, walk off the ship to travel on your own to all your destinations, and wander the city on your own. Some cruisers actually want to do that, but most of us are thrilled to get the benefit of a guide's information, ability to get us smoothly from one place to another, and get us into popular destinations without waiting in line. This last feature is where the small group book-you-own tour really shines compared to a ship's excursion. Privately booked tour groups can range from 2-16 people; ship's tours fill those 40+ passenger buses.

 

Anyone have experience with either of these tours?

 

Very few participants on this board take the ship's excursions. Happily, we have lots of experience booking with the licensed Russian tour companies and can offer lots of specifics.

 

Now that you have the facts, you're probably even more bewildered that anyone books the ship's excursions.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Pet Nit Noy

[mskaufman]

We used SPB and friends on our cruise used the ship tour. The differences in the tours were that with SPB we had a subway ride, took the hydrofoil to Peterhof and had a canal ride. The ship tour did not include those items and was more expensive. There are people who like ship tours and they have their reasons (other than the ship frightening them). However, if you are looking for value the major vendors in St. Petersburg are efficient and reliable.

[rfamily6]

Thank you for the responses. We just booked all our excursions with SPB.

 

 

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[mskaufman]

Thank you for the responses. We just booked all our excursions with SPB.

 

 

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Here is a link to some pictures to get you in the mood.

 

https://msknortherneurope.shutterfly.com/pictures/453

[Beemer46]

Hi. We are arriving in SPB on July 8, doing a two day tour with Alla. Has anyone had trouble printing off their tickets which come through Viator?

[dogs4fun]

Hi. We are arriving in SPB on July 8, doing a two day tour with Alla. Has anyone had trouble printing off their tickets which come through Viator?

Yes, on our cruise we had dinner with a couple that booked with SPB through Viator and had trouble printing their tour tickets. It seems to be a problem with Viator and not with the local tour companies. Email the tour company directly and they will send you the tour tickets via email.

[Pet Nit Noy]

Hi. We are arriving in SPB on July 8, doing a two day tour with Alla. Has anyone had trouble printing off their tickets which come through Viator?

 

 

Viator is nothing more than a booking consolidator. The company offers one- stop shopping for tours from a variety of providers. Convient, yes, but that means an extra step between the booking process and the actual tour. In your case, that extra step has resulted in problems printing the tickets.

 

Happily, you know the name of the company who will be conducting the tour. Happily, Alla is a great company with lots of satisfied cruisers who post on this site. Once you get the voucher by contacting Alla directly, I believe everything will go smoothly for you and you'll have a marvelous experience in St. Petersburg. If you've used Viator to schedule other shore excursions on this cruise, you might want to contact the actual tour providers to make sure everything is in order.

[heckofagator]

Here's a similar question I asked last week

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2507728