Viking Homelands - Ultimate St. Petersburg

We will be taking the Viking Homelands Cruise this summer and have opted to do the two day Ultimate St. Petersburg excursion. For those of you that have done this excursion I am wondering if there are any options for gift shopping or if the time is filled with touring historic sites. I am wondering how much cash to get exchanged. I don’t want to use a credit card in Russia. Thanks!

We will be taking the Viking Homelands Cruise this summer and have opted to do the two day Ultimate St. Petersburg excursion. For those of you that have done this excursion I am wondering if there are any options for gift shopping or if the time is filled with touring historic sites. I am wondering how much cash to get exchanged. I don’t want to use a credit card in Russia. Thanks!

Good question. I know I have read similar questions elsewhere so I did a search (on the right hand side of front page of this forum) for 'credit card russia'. There are a number of posts which give the pros and cons of using a credit card in Russia - but also lots of advice about what currencies to use and where to get those currencies. I hope that advice is helpful for you. I should have added ... some Russian businesses prefer to be paid in US dollars rather than Russian Rubles so you may wish to take that into consideration. Again, hopefully those other posts provide some useful information.

We were in St Petersburg for 2 days last year with Viking. We booked with Alla Tours for 2 days. Less than half the price of the Viking excursion. We had a group of 6 and elected a private group for the 6 of us, but their maximum group is 16 I believe. They take care of the visas, etc, and with the smaller group in a van you can see everything up close and personal. We even rode the subway. I hate buses and huge groups and for us a private tour was the way to go. There are several companies that do this in St Petersburg and you will not be herded like cattle as you will on a Viking tour. As far as money, we paid them with a credit card with no problems, they had the credit card machine in front of us when we paid...nobody walked off with our credit card. They were also very flexible...if we wanted to stop somewhere we could (within restraints of course). If I were you I would do some more research before just booking with Viking and paying twice what you need to.

We were in St Petersburg for 2 days last year with Viking. We booked with Alla Tours for 2 days. Less than half the price of the Viking excursion. We had a group of 6 and elected a private group for the 6 of us, but their maximum group is 16 I believe. They take care of the visas, etc, and with the smaller group in a van you can see everything up close and personal. We even rode the subway. I hate buses and huge groups and for us a private tour was the way to go. There are several companies that do this in St Petersburg and you will not be herded like cattle as you will on a Viking tour. As far as money, we paid them with a credit card with no problems, they had the credit card machine in front of us when we paid...nobody walked off with our credit card. They were also very flexible...if we wanted to stop somewhere we could (within restraints of course). If I were you I would do some more research before just booking with Viking and paying twice what you need to.

Great advice. We did the same but with TJ Tours. Great tour, more inclusive, half price. Small group in agile Mercedes fan.

Never needed any currency but did pay at tour end with a credit card. No credit card funny stuff issues.

If you want to pay them in currency as one couple did, let them know and they take to to a real bank for exchange.

Another satisfied Alla tour participant here. We were able to join a small group from our roll call, 14 of us total and the organizer had included a trip to the Faberge Museum, it was another high light in our 2 day tour. Like several posters have mentioned, we loved being in a small group. Everything ran like clockwork and we saw so much. Enjoy your cruise.

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We used TJ as well. I organized the group and capped it at 8 people. It was terrific. I don’t think you can go wrong with them or with Alla for all the reasons stated.

We toured St.P 10 years ago with Alla and to be honest with you, I thought that our small group of 12 could have done better with half that number, even if it would have cost us more money to do it. The smaller the group, the more you can accomplish in a day.

We capped our group at 6. It cost a little more but was worth it.