Disembarking in St. Petersburg

[Traveling Wifee]

My husband and I will be on the Serenade of the Seas the first week in July and have booked a private tour in St. Petersburg. Our guide has said that it can take an hour to process customs. The ship arrives at 7 and we meet our guide at 8. Any suggestions on what time to get in line to disembark? Thanks!

[Brigbound]

As soon as the announcement is made that you can proceed off the ship. This is going to depend on how fast the docking process takes which will not be known until the captain receives instruction from the port. When we were there for a couple days, we also had a private tour. They are very good about remaining flexible with ship times and delays. It's their job to do so.

[easyboy]

Those on ship's excursion are usually given priority to disembark. When we had a private tour, there was still a long line at Russian immigration booth but the process was not slow. It did not take us more than an hour from waiting to get off the ship to meet our tour guide outside the terminal building.

 

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Edited June 18, 2017 by easyboy

[cruzgryphon]

Don't believe it when they say those with excursions get priority disembarkation - when I was there last year, they weren't checking. The only priority was that those with excursions had their own passport control queues. The line will build fast - we were supposed to disembark at 8am and I went down around 7:50am and the line had already wound it's way up to deck 5. Even with that, I was out and through passport control by 8:30am.

[tidygirl]

We were in St Petersburg end of May on Norwegian. They didn't question about who we had our tour through (it was private) and it took us 45 mins to get through customs the first day. Second day breezed right through!

[calldave]

My husband and I will be on the Serenade of the Seas the first week in July and have booked a private tour in St. Petersburg. Our guide has said that it can take an hour to process customs. The ship arrives at 7 and we meet our guide at 8. Any suggestions on what time to get in line to disembark? Thanks!

 

 

 

We are on this same cruise the week before you (leaving June 24th). Friend me here and I'd be happy to send you a note on our experience.

 

 

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[Langley Cruisers]

Our guide has said that it can take an hour to process customs.

 

Your guide also has a list of those who are on the tour and they know how long it can take to clear. Shoot them an e-mail just to confirm it, but I have no doubt that if you line up early and disembark as soon as possible, your guide will be waiting for you. You may have to wait for others on your same tour, though.

[Armac]

Just back from St Petersburg on Vision. People who had booked a tour through the ship were let off first. We booked through SPB . One couple on our tour had problems with customs and we waited almost an hour for them. Not their fault they never did find out what the problem was. Russian customs are not very commutative ( or friendly). We waited about 20 minutes at customs, have your passport and tour receipt with you, they gave us a slip of paper in our passport that they take back at the end of the day so do not loose it. Your tour group will wait for you just get off the ship as soon as you can. The second day was a breeze.