Anchorcranker

I initially posted this as a reply to Hiltner #26 however, I think it got lost in a dispute between Hlitner and napokoguk over the desirability of getting a visa and I never got a reply so I will repeat it.

"We are taking our first cruise in 25 years on the Regal Princess in June and contemplating taking the TJ Tours "All Highlights" two day tour with a ballet excursion in the evening. I was a bit nervous about determining if TJ Tours is a reputable company and if this was a good tour but I taking it from your post that you were happy with the value of the tour and the company. Any recommendations, Thanks"

I thought it was obvious, but we are going to St. Petersburg. I note that there is also now a recent post suggesting that Dancing Bears is also a good tour company so any input and experiences would be appreciated. Thanks

On one of our trips to St Petersburg we did manage to obtain our own tourist Visa....but did it using a good Visa service that knew their way around the Russian procedures. We did not need a hotel letter....but not sure how the Visa service pulled it off. On subsequent trips we have used local licensed tour providers, our favorite being TJ Tours...which was wonderful. There is no way I would take a big bus cruise tour. Our TJ tour was in a new Mercedes van (that had 20 seats) but we were only 10 on the tour (with an excellent guide). With such a small group we were able to have some fun wandering around town (Nevsky Prospekt) where we our group (none of us knew each other before the tour) voted on which local cafe we wanted to visit for lunch. TJ also arranged evening ballet tickets (for just the two of us) for less money then the crowded cruise line ballet tour...and we had better seats. They actually sent us our own car/driver to get to and from the ballet. Another excellent tour provider is Alla.

 

Hank

We are new to this and this is my first post so I hope that I am doing it correctly.

We are taking our first cruise in 25 years on the Regal Princess in June and contemplating taking the TJ Tours "All Highlights" two day tour with a ballet excursion in the evening. I was a bit nervous about determining if TJ Tours is a reputable company and if this was a good tour but I taking it from your post that you were happy with the value of the tour and the company. Any recommendations, Thanks