St. Petersburg Viking Excursions

[Floater67]

We are on the May 20, 2022 Homelands cruise. As many know, pax either use the “ship’s visa,” and take Viking Excursions, or must obtain the costly and complicated Russian visa to take independent tours or self-explore…Does anyone have a list of Viking excursions on previous cruises to help evaluate which is the better choice?

 

I’ll appreciate any info.

[Heidi13]

42 minutes ago, Floater67 said:

We are on the May 20, 2022 Homelands cruise. As many know, pax either use the “ship’s visa,” and take Viking Excursions, or must obtain the costly and complicated Russian visa to take independent tours or self-explore…Does anyone have a list of Viking excursions on previous cruises to help evaluate which is the better choice?

 

I’ll appreciate any info.

 

This is a common misconception that many cruise lines try to promote. If you wish to self-explore, or even leave an approved tour, you must acquire a Russian Visa. Should you want to stay ashore overnight, a Visa is also required.

 

However, in addition to the ship's tours, all the major tour providers in St Petersburg are exempt from the Visa requirement. Personally we used Alla, but any of the top 4 tour operators provide excellent tours. We spent 2 days ashore with Alla and did NOT require a Visa.

 

When you purchase a tour from an approved vendor, your daily tour ticket is your Visa.

[stretchcruz]

20 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

This is a common misconception that many cruise lines try to promote. If you wish to self-explore, or even leave an approved tour, you must acquire a Russian Visa. Should you want to stay ashore overnight, a Visa is also required.

 

However, in addition to the ship's tours, all the major tour providers in St Petersburg are exempt from the Visa requirement. Personally we used Alla, but any of the top 4 tour operators provide excellent tours. We spent 2 days ashore with Alla and did NOT require a Visa.

 

When you purchase a tour from an approved vendor, your daily tour ticket is your Visa.

We also used Alla for 2 days in St Petersburg. They took care of getting the "blanket visa" and our tour ticket with Alla was our way through customs. Highly recommend Alla tours, they were exceptional both before and during our trip. We spent a few extra dollars (not much) to have a private tour for 6 of us on a van. They customized it a bit for us and we could choose to spend extra time somewhere, or not. We went to a few extra places than the regular tour, and she even "let us loose" on a boulevard with shops and restaurants for over an hour. 

[LindaS272]

26 minutes ago, stretchcruz said:

We also used Alla for 2 days in St Petersburg. They took care of getting the "blanket visa" and our tour ticket with Alla was our way through customs. Highly recommend Alla tours, they were exceptional both before and during our trip. We spent a few extra dollars (not much) to have a private tour for 6 of us on a van. They customized it a bit for us and we could choose to spend extra time somewhere, or not. We went to a few extra places than the regular tour, and she even "let us loose" on a boulevard with shops and restaurants for over an hour. 

I echo the praise for Alla tours. We did three days with them in St. Petersburg in a small van (July 2019). Viking at that time did not offer three full day tours—we would have had to cobble together two different tours plus evening ballet separately, whereas Alla provided it all in one package, for far less, and in a much smaller vehicle. Highly recommended.

[dottythecat]

2 hours ago, Floater67 said:

We are on the May 20, 2022 Homelands cruise. As many know, pax either use the “ship’s visa,” and take Viking Excursions, or must obtain the costly and complicated Russian visa to take independent tours or self-explore…Does anyone have a list of Viking excursions on previous cruises to help evaluate which is the better choice?

 

I’ll appreciate any info.

We are also on the May 20 Homelands cruise. We plan to book a 2 day tour with Alla for our group of 6. Please note that a Roll Call has been started for this cruise.

[dwlmg]

Viking TV (Viking.tv) this week is featuring the Viking Homelands Itinerary. The presentation is about an hour and a half long. About half of it is a direct discussion of the itinerary and discussion of the available excursions. The second half is Q and A. There is a lot of good info here. You can stream it from Viking TV or find it on you tube.

[IWantToLiveOverTheSea]

Another vote for Alla!  

[Floater67]

14 hours ago, dwlmg said:

Viking TV (Viking.tv) this week is featuring the Viking Homelands Itinerary. The presentation is about an hour and a half long. About half of it is a direct discussion of the itinerary and discussion of the available excursions. The second half is Q and A. There is a lot of good info here. You can stream it from Viking TV or find it on you tube.

I saw that program. They specifically (and repeatedly) say the only options are Viking tours or getting a visa oneself. I really appreciate the clarification regarding Alla several have offered here. 

[SoccerMom#3]

Another vote for Alla Tours. They take care of everything!  

[timbloom]

Another vote for Alla. Cheaper than any ship organised comparable excursion and 1st class. Confirm what others say about the Visa

[Peregrina651]

Another vote for Alla and a suggestion that 6 people is the optimum group size.  We did 12 and it was too many.  

[Dukefan]

I will give a shout-out for SPB Tours that we last used in 2019 on the Viking Homelands Cruise.  They were able to get our group of six into the Hermitage Museum on Monday when it is closed.  We have been to the Hermitage on other trips to St. Petersburg and every time it was overly crowded.  On this trip we were often times the only folks in a room. It was wonderful and the highlight of every other trip to the Baltic.   I gave our guide a list of the art we wanted to see and she was able to get us to each piece where we could study it as long as we chose without having to hurry on and fight through the crowd to see the next piece of art on outr list. Our guide was as excited as we were because she seldom gets to see the art without a major crowd.  She had college degrees in both art and history and was extremely knowledgeable and able to answer all of our questions both on the art and the museum itself.

[LindaS272]

3 hours ago, Dukefan said:

I will give a shout-out for SPB Tours that we last used in 2019 on the Viking Homelands Cruise.  They were able to get our group of six into the Hermitage Museum on Monday when it is closed.  We have been to the Hermitage on other trips to St. Petersburg and every time it was overly crowded.  On this trip we were often times the only folks in a room. It was wonderful and the highlight of every other trip to the Baltic.   I gave our guide a list of the art we wanted to see and she was able to get us to each piece where we could study it as long as we chose without having to hurry on and fight through the crowd to see the next piece of art on outr list. Our guide was as excited as we were because she seldom gets to see the art without a major crowd.  She had college degrees in both art and history and was extremely knowledgeable and able to answer all of our questions both on the art and the museum itself.

Very cool that you got to be there on a closed day. I recall our Alla guide in July 2019 bypassing the long lines waiting to get into all venues and checking us through quickly—we had crowds in places but not too many, and always had enough time to see what we wanted.

[Dukefan]

4 hours ago, LindaS272 said:

Very cool that you got to be there on a closed day. I recall our Alla guide in July 2019 bypassing the long lines waiting to get into all venues and checking us through quickly—we had crowds in places but not too many, and always had enough time to see what we wanted.

Yes the time I was at the Hermitage with Red October Tours as my guide they were able to take us to the front of the line at both the Hermitage and Catherine's Palace but once inside we still had to deal with the large crowds.  Whomever you use, if you are there on a Monday, ask them if they can arrange a tour on that day when they are closed.  It is great.  Since there are limited guards in the building the guide has to have a special licenses I think and can not let you out of their sight.  But it is a wonderful experience. 

[BluebonnetTexan]

Here's another vote for Alla. We used them in June 2019. While we had 14 in our group, that was far better than 35-40 in the similar Viking tour group and half the price. I also compared them with TJ Travel and SPG - all very similar with some very minor differences in their 2-day tours. We also added on the evening Faberge Museum tour with Alla. They took great care of us and our guide was probably the best I've ever had. I guess the big caveat these days is that my experience was pre-Covid, so I'm not sure what the policies are now. However, it should explicitly state on the 3rd party sites whether they provide the visa or not. 

[Dukefan]

Alla, TJ Travel and SPG are all very similiar on their standard two-day St. Petersburg Tours and you can't go wrong with any of them.   Of course, the most important thing for success is the quality of the guide that you get.

 

If you have been to St. Petersburg before and want to design your own tour detailing what you want to see and how much time you want to spend at each site, I recommend talking with each of them.  That is what we did on our last trip to St. Petersburg and it could not have had better results.  The reason we ended up with SPG is that they were able to piece together a tour that met our exact specifications including the Monday visit to the Hermitage.  They did tell us that the Monday visit could not be guaranteed until a day or so before our visit so we put together two schedules with them, one if we could get in the Hermitage on the day it is closed and one if we had to go on the day it was open.   Of course, we were very excited when we found out that they were able to get us in on Monday.

 

I should add that our tour cost more than their standard two-day tour but it was still less than the Viking two-day tour.   Part of the reason was because there were only six of us.  The other part was because we wanted box lunches for both days.  We couldn't see wasting our valuable time in St. Petersburg doing sit down lunches in cafes when we could eat in our mini-bus between sites.  Their box lunches ended up being great.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Dukefan

[lackcreativity]

2 hours ago, Dukefan said:

I should add that our tour cost more than their standard two-day tour but it was still less than the Viking two-day tour.   Part of the reason was because there were only six of us.  The other part was because we wanted box lunches for both days.  We couldn't see wasting our valuable time in St. Petersburg doing sit down lunches in cafes when we could eat in our mini-bus between sites.  Their box lunches ended up being great.

I understand the wish to see every bit that you can in St. Petersburg, and would have happily spent hours more in the Hermitage than we did on our Alla tour. The Monday visit sounds ideal. 

 

We very much enjoyed the restaurant lunches we had on our three day tour with Alla. All three were nice restaurants with very good food, and gave us a welcome chance to relax for a while. Having the three day visit on the Russia and the Baltic Seas cruise allowed us that luxury, without causing us to miss any of the places we wanted to visit.

[LindaS272]

2 hours ago, lackcreativity said:

I understand the wish to see every bit that you can in St. Petersburg, and would have happily spent hours more in the Hermitage than we did on our Alla tour. The Monday visit sounds ideal. 

 

We very much enjoyed the restaurant lunches we had on our three day tour with Alla. All three were nice restaurants with very good food, and gave us a welcome chance to relax for a while. Having the three day visit on the Russia and the Baltic Seas cruise allowed us that luxury, without causing us to miss any of the places we wanted to visit.

Agreed. Having the three course lunches with local libations was part of the cultural experience for us. It also gave us a break and allowed time to talk with others on the tour. We had about 11 in our van.

[SM77]

On 5/21/2021 at 3:23 PM, Dukefan said:

I will give a shout-out for SPB Tours that we last used in 2019 on the Viking Homelands Cruise.  They were able to get our group of six into the Hermitage Museum on Monday when it is closed.  We have been to the Hermitage on other trips to St. Petersburg and every time it was overly crowded.  On this trip we were often times the only folks in a room. It was wonderful and the highlight of every other trip to the Baltic.   I gave our guide a list of the art we wanted to see and she was able to get us to each piece where we could study it as long as we chose without having to hurry on and fight through the crowd to see the next piece of art on outr list. Our guide was as excited as we were because she seldom gets to see the art without a major crowd.  She had college degrees in both art and history and was extremely knowledgeable and able to answer all of our questions both on the art and the museum itself.

We also used SPB Tours in 2018 and it was fabulous!  My only caveat was that at the time, they had changed their minimum size of group to be at least 8, otherwise the tour would be canceled.  However, SPB did honor the reservation - we only had 6 in our group.    I agree w/ Peregrina651, having only 6 made it so easy for us to get around quickly.  When we visited the Hermitage, we were there very early, bypassed the long lines and it was not too crowded(unlike the Louvre).  As long as you are w/ an official tour guide, you do not need to apply for a visa to visit St. Petersburg.  We covered so much ground in two days, much more efficient when it is a small group.  And we also enjoyed our lunches at the two restaurants we went to.  

[Poulsbo Cruisers]

On 5/21/2021 at 12:23 PM, Dukefan said:

I will give a shout-out for SPB Tours that we last used in 2019 on the Viking Homelands Cruise.  They were able to get our group of six into the Hermitage Museum on Monday when it is closed.  We have been to the Hermitage on other trips to St. Petersburg and every time it was overly crowded.  On this trip we were often times the only folks in a room. It was wonderful and the highlight of every other trip to the Baltic.   I gave our guide a list of the art we wanted to see and she was able to get us to each piece where we could study it as long as we chose without having to hurry on and fight through the crowd to see the next piece of art on outr list. Our guide was as excited as we were because she seldom gets to see the art without a major crowd.  She had college degrees in both art and history and was extremely knowledgeable and able to answer all of our questions both on the art and the museum itself.

Another shout out for SPB. We saw so much in the two days. And getting through customs couldn’t have been easier. 

[Heartgrove]

And another for SPB. We did the two-day tour in St. Petersburg while on a HAL cruise in 2017. Tonya was a very seasoned guide that really knew her stuff! A number of times we were at the head of the line, and she would run interference against other tourists for us. Our group was 14 but never had a problem staying together.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Heartgrove

[Dauntless]

Rules for the excursions seem to be evolving daily, as more get vaccinated.  By your cruise it might be back to where it was.  Alla here.  19 hours of tour in 2 days.  Early in Hermitage, loved the restaurant meal.  Could not be happier.

[TERRIER1]

Another vote for Alla. They took care of everything and actually arranged for the other 3 couples to join us from the Viking ship so I didn't have to seek out interested parties from the roll call. The excursion was two days and we had a fantastic guide and driver. We made an unplanned trip down to the St Petersburg subway and rode the metro. It was great. 

[TERRIER1]

On 5/20/2021 at 12:31 PM, Floater67 said:

I saw that program. They specifically (and repeatedly) say the only options are Viking tours or getting a visa oneself. I really appreciate the clarification regarding Alla several have offered here. 

 

Visa's are not required when with an approved tour organizations and certain criteria are met. Viking is not the only cruise line that alludes to obtaining a Visa by oneself. They all seem to do it. Basically the tour company is handling that for you but they make it seem as those you have to do it personally if you don't take the cruise line tour.

https://alla-tour.com/faq