disembarkation in St Petersburg from Breakaway

[1025cruise]

I am planning to take independent visa. Is it ok to DIY this port that way. Travelling with kids so want to be flexible. Thanks for any input.

 

You don't specify your citizenship, but obtaining an independent visa is typically extremely expensive and difficult. This is the one port that is heavily suggested to not DIY, either do a ship's tour or pre-arrange one with one of the many vendors.

[Moulshree]

I am from India. From what I have researched the visa is not that difficult or expensive from here. My cruise is next June...just a little case of extra early planning...:). Also not really sure if the kids would like the tours as they are long. So was kind of thinking if I could do one day DIY and next day take a tour on my own and kids can stay on ship which they are really happy doing.

[dogs4fun]

I am from India. From what I have researched the visa is not that difficult or expensive from here. My cruise is next June...just a little case of extra early planning...:). Also not really sure if the kids would like the tours as they are long. So was kind of thinking if I could do one day DIY and next day take a tour on my own and kids can stay on ship which they are really happy doing.

I would suggest that you take your children to the Grand Maket - I believe that they would enjoy it.

https://grandmaket.ru/en/

[rslinky]

Was Sunday your sea day? so day 3?

 

Sunday was not the sea day but our day in Germany which was day 2. After a 13 hour trip to Berlin, we were just tired and so tried first thing in the morning to book. I think the notice to book came with the daily left each evening. If I were you, I would try to book it earlier. They have to have it up and ready when they distribute the info to cabin. You might get lucky and get a jump on every one else.

[heliwoman]

Sunday was not the sea day but our day in Germany which was day 2. After a 13 hour trip to Berlin, we were just tired and so tried first thing in the morning to book. I think the notice to book came with the daily left each evening. If I were you, I would try to book it earlier. They have to have it up and ready when they distribute the info to cabin. You might get lucky and get a jump on every one else.

 

Thanks! I plan to do this when we get on the boat. I've read elsewhere that you can also sign up via the kiosks and will try that when we get on board.

[Clay Clayton]

On our cruise, they opened reservations for the groups on Sunday and we were in SPB On Wed and Thursday. We waited til Mon morning to reserve and ended up in group E and didn’t get to meet our guide until 10:30.

How many reservations can one person make? We have a group of 20 on our roll call and it would sure make it simpler if we were all in the same group leaving the ship.

[hehny]

People on the port boards are starting to report back on how rigidly their cruise lines are implementing the rule change (ship tours first).

[sharonann24]

I have just emailed our contact at Alla Tours to inquire about our ability to disembark and make our tour. I will post when I hear back from her.

[pe4all]

I have just emailed our contact at Alla Tours to inquire about our ability to disembark and make our tour. I will post when I hear back from her.

I emailed BestGuides yesterday also, after reading this thread. They are well aware of the immigration slowness, and emailed me back literally within 5 minutes telling me they would wait for all to clear immigration.

[sharonann24]

For anyone taking an Alla tour go to the website and log in. They’re have posted a very extensive email about disembarking and the tour. They will wait until all have gotten off ship before starting the tours.

[fsiemiet]

For those who were late on their 1st day in SPB, did the tour company (Alla or SPB} extend the tour at the back end?

[fabnfortysomething]

For those who were late on their 1st day in SPB, did the tour company (Alla or SPB} extend the tour at the back end?

 

oh yes they make up the time

in fact would suggest later meet time to avoid the crazy immigration queues

[twruger]

I am from India. From what I have researched the visa is not that difficult or expensive from here. My cruise is next June...just a little case of extra early planning...:). Also not really sure if the kids would like the tours as they are long. So was kind of thinking if I could do one day DIY and next day take a tour on my own and kids can stay on ship which they are really happy doing.

 

You should find out if you DIY if you can still get early entry into the main attractions. We saw at least 500+ in line for Catherine's Palace, yet we arrived and were then inside within 5 minutes. Same with all other sites, Hermitage, Church on Spilled Blood, etc. This may be an advantage of tour groups, and not sure if you can get same or not going solo.

[Steff79]

great review, thank you. interesting to read what you did all the time :-))

[kitkat343]

I am planning to take independent visa. Is it ok to DIY this port that way. Travelling with kids so want to be flexible. Thanks for any input.

We traveled with a 3.5 year old, and chose a private tour for just our family. However, we are from the US so the cost of three visas would have been slightly more than the cost for the private tour (the tour company did not charge for my son, but he would have needed to pay for a full visa).

 

My son loved his baltic cruise, and is 7 now and tells me all the time we need to go back so his little brother can see St. Petersburg and Stockholm (I was pregnant on the cruise so the little one didn't get to see anything!). There is a lot of info about this trip for young kids in my review in my signature lines, and I think its a great trip for children (not easy but really rewarding.) Everywhere but St. Petersburg it was really easy to DIY (we didn't go to Berlin and were on the Star, which docked directly in Stockholm. You might have a little more trouble in Stockholm than we did if you are sailing NCL). The public transportation system was excellent everywhere and we had a really easy time getting around.

 

People on the Baltic boards have reported being able to successfully tour St. Petersburg independently, but I wouldn't choose to do it with young children. I think there's just too much to see to be able to lose time to getting lost or making mistakes due to your lack of knowledge. For example, as someone pointed out above, our tour guide knew exactly which entrance to take us to to skip all lines. And these are huge lines now. They also know how to time the tours to avoid traffic and knew exactly where to take us in the Hermitage - all we needed to do was tell her which artwork we wanted to see, and she brought us to those paintings and showed us a few of the spectacular rooms that had amazing architecture that I wouldn't have been able to find on my own. Whenever my son got whiny and tired, we asked her where the nearest cafe was and she brought us right there. By giving our son breaks we were able to see everything in St. Petersburg. I'd at least contact the private tour companies and get some price quotes to see if you can consider this. The truth is you could wind up in a very long customs line, spend a lot of time getting lost trying to find your way around St. Petersburg and then stand on a lot of lines to get into the museums so that would not be ideal with kids (I had friends who tried to tour st Petersburg independently on a land tour and this was their experience and they hated the city. And that was without their kids. We all loved it, and I think a big part of that was our ability to avoid travel difficulties which are hard to navigate with kids.

[jk928]

Do passengers in the Haven get priority on getting off the ship in St Petersburg? How early can they get off?

Edited August 26, 2018 by jk928
Spelling

[Markj]

If youre not on an NCL organised tour - where the groups are taken off in time to meet their busses - then you can disembark as soon as the ship has finished its legal clearances.

 

Simply let the concierge know you are ready to go and you will be escorted to the exit

[rsato]

I used SPB for the Baltics excursion (and recommend them highly!). It really doesn't matter how you work the system to get off the ship first (Haven concierge, early line sitters, etc) as your fellow van-mates all have to get off the ship before you can leave. The guides figure out a great plan to get you to all of the attractions...