St Petes June 2019

[holidayhelen]

We have been looking at our overnight in St Petes on 29th June 2019 - there are another 3 ships in port those days. 2 RCCL and a Marella. We are looking at Alla tours for a 2 day tour.

 

I am trying to work out the difference between the Grand Tour and the Must see tour. Any advice??

 

Should we book ASAP?

 

There is a comparison thread on here between Alla and SPB but its too long to trawl through - for us Alla looks good cos its smaller groups.

 

Any advice gratefully received.

 

Thanks

 

H

[GradUT]

The only real differences between the Grand Tour and Must See Tour is that the Grand Tour includes a visit to the Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral (where the tsars are entombed) and a visit to Yusopov's Palace (where Rasputin was killed). In lieu of these tours, the Must See Tour uses this time for a shorter first day and time for shopping on Nevsky Prospect on the second day. (We took the Grand Tour as we were interested in anything pertaining to Tsarist Russia and were very pleased.)

 

Prior to our Baltic cruise, I did a spreadsheet between the tours offered by Alla, SPB and TJ Travel and they were the same tours in many respects. I think you will be pleased with the Alla Tour. However, the group sizes with all of these tour companies are similar -- around 16 people per group. So don't expect your Alla tour to be significantly smaller than that.

 

There's no real need to book your Alla tour this far in advance. You should have no problem getting a booking 2 - 3 months prior to sailing.

[holidayhelen]

The only real differences between the Grand Tour and Must See Tour is that the Grand Tour includes a visit to the Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral (where the tsars are entombed) and a visit to Yusopov's Palace (where Rasputin was killed). In lieu of these tours, the Must See Tour uses this time for a shorter first day and time for shopping on Nevsky Prospect on the second day. (We took the Grand Tour as we were interested in anything pertaining to Tsarist Russia and were very pleased.)

 

Prior to our Baltic cruise, I did a spreadsheet between the tours offered by Alla, SPB and TJ Travel and they were the same tours in many respects. I think you will be pleased with the Alla Tour. However, the group sizes with all of these tour companies are similar -- around 16 people per group. So don't expect your Alla tour to be significantly smaller than that.

 

There's no real need to book your Alla tour this far in advance. You should have no problem getting a booking 2 - 3 months prior to sailing.

 

Thank you for that - I must say that we do not really want 2 hours shopping time - so the other tour is more appealing!!

[angie7911922]

Just to throw another one into the loop here, we used Anastasia's Travel, because we were able to do a private tour. We didn't have to worry about the small groups, or the set tours, or the differences between the tours. We picked where we wanted to go and they were able to create our tour around what we wanted. This was a huge selling point for us, because we didn't have to decide between any certain places and miss one or the other. 

[Giantfan13]

WE used SPB Tours and our time at Peter and Paul Cathedral to see the tombs of Peter the Great and the Romanovs was tremendous.  

Shopping in St Pete would be nice but my DW can shop anytime, here in the USA, we went to St Petersburg to see things we can't see anywhere else.  LOL

 

Cheers

Len

[dogs4fun]

GradUT neatly summed up the differences between the 2 tours. Personally, we prefer to see as much as possible when visiting a city for the first time. We return via land if we want to explore in more depth.

That said, our first visit to St. Petersburg was via cruise ship and we booked the Grand Tour with Alla - it was excellent. Be aware that tours do sell out for Alla, TJ and SPB as these are very popular and highly rated tour providers. Both Alla and TJ require no prepayment (so booking early guarantees your tour and you are not out any funds should you decide to cancel). SPB now requires prepayment for tours but I think you could receive a refund should you decide to cancel. In any event, after your cruise is booked,  it does no harm to guarantee your spot on the tour that you want as soon as you are certain of which tour you want and tour company you wish to use.