St. Petersburg excursions...suggested tour company

Trying to decide on best tour company to use while visiting St. Petersburg(2day stay)....any recommendations? Viking options seem quite expensive.

We are booked with Alla Tours for our Viking 2 day stay in STP next May. Highly recommended and easy to do business with.

We used Alla for private tours on two visits to SPB and found them to be excellent.

We also used Alla for two-day private tour and thought they were wonderful. We took the tour that included the Faberge egg Museum and loved it.

Also really enjoyed the Hermitage, the boat ride, and everything else. And you don't pay until you're taking the tour--no advance payment required.

We also used Alla last year for the 2-day tours. Exceptional tour.

We used TJ last month and they were phenominal. We highly recommend them.

12 of us last June 2017 used TJ Tours. Fantastic! Less expensive and more inclusive than Viking. Knowledgeable, personable guides speaking excellent American English. Their email is your Visa. Pay via credit card at end of 2nd day's tour.

https://st-petersburg-tours.ru/st-petersburg-tours

To its credit Viking's cruise director let our group off first for our St Pete Tour.

Photos...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/seacoast_nh/albums/72157682140797852/page4

We loved Alla. Very well organized throughout both days. We saw everything we wanted. English was probably better than ours, LOL. Our group decided to get off as soon as the ship cleared. I've heard that Viking tours gets off first but that was not our case at least. We were probably one of the first 10 people off. Much to our surprise Alla was already there so we started the tour early. Because of it we were allowed a longer tour for the day. Second day went just as smooth.

We just used TJ for a private tour for four people and others we know did a group tour at the same time. We all agreed it was wonderful. Request Alex. She was the absolute best tour guide. We loved spending our two days in SPB with her. I would use TJ again in a heartbeat.

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We used TJ Tours last month. Their 2 day excursion was wonderful. The first morning a bit of rain cancelled our boat ride and they immediately changed us to the subway which was great. Since we were the only 2 to do the ballet the first night, TJ provided an escort and driver for us. Quite the service and highly recommended.

Six of us used TJ last month also, but we did it a little differently from many. We gave TJ a list of what we wanted to see which varied in some respects from what most tours visit. TJ planned our 2-day tour perfectly. We had a fabulous guide Michael (who also works at the Hermitage), a driver, and a van. We loved the small group and the chance to choose what we visited. Cost was very reasonable.

We did a private 2 day tour with TJ in mid-May. As I wanted to revisit sights from my student exchange (late 70s) they customized a tour for us. On the 2nd morning, I mentioned that my husband wanted to try a certain traditional dish. Lunch on the 2nd day was to be a quick "grab and go" but we covered a lot of ground that morning. Noon passed by as did 1 pm and then our guide said -- lets go up this ally. She took us to one of her family's favourite places for a traditional lunch. We had a fabulous meal and a fun time with locals. What a great experience. Check out the local tour guides -- they all do a great job. Select the one that best meets your needs. Well worth it.

We, too, used Alla and had a great experience. Our guide was excellent, had lived in the US for several months, and had perfect English. She knew many of the folks at the Hermitage, as do the other guides. We were able to make special requests and she, and the driver, were excellent.

Six of us used TJ last month also, but we did it a little differently from many. We gave TJ a list of what we wanted to see which varied in some respects from what most tours visit. TJ planned our 2-day tour perfectly. We had a fabulous guide Michael (who also works at the Hermitage), a driver, and a van. We loved the small group and the chance to choose what we visited. Cost was very reasonable.

We did the same. Designed our own 2-day tour with what we wanted to see. It was great. The cost for two of us with a guide and a driver, doing exactly what we wanted to do, cost just under what the group tour on Viking was.

Six of us used TJ last month also, but we did it a little differently from many. We gave TJ a list of what we wanted to see which varied in some respects from what most tours visit. TJ planned our 2-day tour perfectly. We had a fabulous guide Michael (who also works at the Hermitage), a driver, and a van. We loved the small group and the chance to choose what we visited. Cost was very reasonable.

We had Michael. He's fantastic.

We used a smaller company - White Night Travel and found them to be excellent. Irina is the planner and she is amazing. We were a party of 4(originally 6 - 2 had to cancel). We were alone in many rooms at Peterhof's Grand Palace and in the Hermitage. I highly recommend sending some thoughts of itineraries to a couple of agencies and looking at the responses.

TJ Travel was fantastic ..our Viking Homelands cruise was mid May and the TJ tour was incredible as others have said. My only regret was that I didn't book TJ in our towns too..

TJ Travel was fantastic ..our Viking Homelands cruise was mid May and the TJ tour was incredible as others have said. My only regret was that I didn't book TJ in our towns too..

How funny. We had a group of 6 with Alla and we said the same thing. They did such a great job in SP that we all were sorry that we didn't book in other towns, as well. They tried to get us in some but it was such a last minute thing that it didn't work out. Live and learn.

We used DenRus tours for 2 days in April this year. There were 4 of us and we were able customize our tour exactly to our liking. Excellent guide and driver. We saw more than the Viking 2 day tour at a lower price.

Several years ago we used SPB Tours, for both a two-day tour and an evening activity. Was pleased with their service.

We tried to book Alla tours in each port, but unfortunately Tallinn was the only port we achieved the minimum pax. In Tallinn, we had an excellent walking tour with only 5 in the group.

If you use Alla in St Petersburg, they provide a discount on all other ports. Didn't even pay in Tallinn, as we paid in St Petersburg.

We used https://spb-tours.com for our 2 days in St.Petersburg on Princess in 2011. We needed to get off the ship quickly to maximize our time there. Princess tried to hold us back and let their groups go first but we managed to get off quickly. It was our favorite tour.

We used SPB for our three days in St. Petersburg when on Oceania two years ago and they were superior in every way.

Luckily our ship was docked downtown near the Hermitage so there was no long ride from the new terminal which is about one hour outside of the city. Only small ships can dock in the downtown area and I think the limit is two. While we were docked Silversea (one of their larger ships) occupied the other pier. There is no way to know for sure if your ship will be lucky enough to get a downtown spot. Our Oceania ship was one of the smaller ones and we had a captain who was Russian and maybe that helped also. The fact that we were docked for three full days might also have been a factor. In any case all the Viking ships are certainly candidates for the nearby spaces. Anything over about 60,000 tons would certainly be relegated to the new terminal outside the city. That new terminal can handle several very large ships at the same time so the disembarkation process can be much more hectic depending on how many ships are in port.

Another vote for TJ. Our party of 4 had a fantastic time with our guide Svetlana and our wonderful driver, Genaddy. We did their cruise passenger 2-day tour this past May, but tweaked it a bit to hit the sites we most wanted to see. We also included lunch both days and went to local places. Svetlana also made time for shopping, as she could see that my friend had that addiction. :D I had made all arrangements, but before the first day was half over, my friend whispered to me how great a tour it was. It really was the highlight of a wonderful cruise.

Becki

We were also very pleased with TJ.

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