St. Petersburg - Princess night at Hermitage

[Embracedbylife]

Has anyone done this shore excursion - evening at the Hermitage? It's from 7pm-11:30pm and suppose to include a tour of the musuem and classical music.

 

I'm wondering if you had to wait for the group to leave really early around 6pm or more like 7:30pm or so...and how far is it from ship to hermitage? The reason i'm asking is we will be doing a day trip with a private guide from 10am-6pm then we may want to do the 7pm hermitage night with the princess tour, but it might be too rushed going back and forth. Any suggestions?

 

Or does the ship offer special evening entertainment on the ship while docked in Russia overnight?

[John in Cicero]

We did not take the particular shore excursion you asked about, but strongly encourage you to see the Hermitage somehow. It is truely fantastic.

 

And "yes" there was local entertainment performing on the ship in the evening of the overnight. It was fairly good, but I would not let that stop me from spending more time in the city.

 

One more thing: traffic in St Petersburg is "interesting". Traffic jams pop up for no apparent reason. Leave yourself adequate time between tours.

[Embracedbylife]

Thanks for this info! We'll be doing 2 full days with the tour guide from 10am-6pm and then 10am-3pm on the second day. We'll see the Hermitage on day 2 for about 3 hrs. So perhaps we'll not rush it and spend more time out and about on day 1 !

[tcdcruiser]

If you would really like to see the museum, maybe that's a great opportunity. We visited during the day (Princess tour) and between all the ships and the locals, it was virtually impossible to see and enjoy the collection. Way beyond the Louvre, the British Muesum, the Vatican Museuim or the Uffizi...packed, packed.