June Baltic Cruise

Have been reading posts where people go to St. Petersburg and take private tours! Do you need to get a visa for these tours? and which companies have people used that they liked and trust? Also staying in Stockholm a few days before - is it easy to get to a hotel in the center of the city from the airport - and upon leaving in Copenhagen, should a taxi be booked ahead of time to the airport? This is our 1st Oceania cruise and looking forward to it!

If using a reputable tour operator they arrange the visas, you merely need to show your tour confirmation when disembarking.

We used Alla tours who were superb, they make up a small van load of people so you don't even need to get a group together yourself, they also offered a discount if you had tours with them in some of the other ports along teh way, we went into Berlin with them and again it was a great tour. We did a two day tour with them and some of the group also went out in the evening for a vodka tasting.

Friends used SPB and they rated them highly too

The European ports section on cc has lots of positive comments on the tour operators in St. Petersburg. Ours was TJ, excellent prior communication via e-mail and excellent tour. They ask for you passport information. When you exit the ship and go through passport control in the terminal, you need to have your passport and your tour papers ready. They serve as visa.

Our tour was just our four family members in a comfortable van, the guide and the driver. But TJ offered to have us join another family group, we declined for various reasons.

We loved our 2 days with Red October. They were very willing to tailor an itinerary to our family interests.

We had also contacted Denrus, but they became unpleasant when we asked for changes to their standard itinerary.

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We used SPB tours for Saint Petersburg and several other baltic ports in June 2016 during our 10-day cruise on Oceania’s Marina. SIL highly recommended them and now we do too! In Talinn we signed up for a group tour, but no one else did. We expected them to cancel the tour or charge us for a private tour, but they didn’t. Our guide was terrific and we loved it. St Petersburg tour was also very good, except some pax in the small group were not considerate of others. This can happen on any group tour. SPB tours handled all the visas. I highly recommend them.

Enjoy your cruise on Marina! Oceania’s food service is among the best offered on sea or land [emoji106]

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Have been reading posts where people go to St. Petersburg and take private tours! Do you need to get a visa for these tours? and which companies have people used that they liked and trust? Also staying in Stockholm a few days before - is it easy to get to a hotel in the center of the city from the airport - and upon leaving in Copenhagen, should a taxi be booked ahead of time to the airport? This is our 1st Oceania cruise and looking forward to it!

Lots of information under the Ports of Call section on the main Cruise Critic "Boards" menu. Here is the site: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5

Look up the different ports or region- northern Europe for information.

Yes, it is very easy to go from the Stockholm airport to downtown using the high speed train - https://www.arlandaexpress.com/

We too used Alla tours not only in St. Petersburg but at other ports as well. We had an excellent experience with them. And our tour guide in St. Petersburg was fantastic.

We heard that people who used SPB were also happy.

This was a fantastic trip but very port intensive.

Have been reading posts where people go to St. Petersburg and take private tours! Do you need to get a visa for these tours? and which companies have people used that they liked and trust? Also staying in Stockholm a few days before - is it easy to get to a hotel in the center of the city from the airport - and upon leaving in Copenhagen, should a taxi be booked ahead of time to the airport? This is our 1st Oceania cruise and looking forward to it!

We are taking the London to Stockholm cruise June 2-12 on Marina. Is that the one you are taking? I will contact Alta tour operators to see what we can do with them. Hopefully less expensive than Oceania!

Any of the local St. Petersburg tour companies are way less costly than Oceania. We used SPB for 3 great days: https://spb-tours.com/ Also used them for a combined discount in 4 other ports.

We were on the Marina last September, started in Stockholm, ended in Copenhagen just like you did. We stayed at the Sheraton Stockholm which we felt was an excellent location, easy walking to many sites. Easy to get a taxi from the airport to the hotel. I downloaded the app & ordered it ahead of time. Copenhagen was another story. I could not find a way to preorder, unless it was through the cruise line which was way overpriced. The taxi line at the port was ridiculously long, if you plan to use, get an early disembarkation. We wound up leaving the line and walking to the public bus stop which was easy to use but we had at least a 20 minute wait before it arrived.

Regarding St. Petersburg, I put together a tour thru TJ and they were simply fabulous. I wound up with 30 people so they gave us 3 vans of 10. We loved our tour guide, Nadia, and the other guides also got rave reviews from my other groups. I looked into Alla & SPB also and found TJ the most reasonable as they were willing to negotiate their pricing as my group got larger. They were also incredibly responsive to all questions, requests & changes. I highly recommend them.

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thanks so much for the info. So you didn't get any of the excursions on the ship? We have a package where we can choose six excursions....

We are taking the London to Stockholm cruise June 2-12 on Marina. Is that the one you are taking? I will contact Alta tour operators to see what we can do with them. Hopefully less expensive than Oceania!

Much less than O for sure. We used Alla and were very pleased.

thanks so much for the info. So you didn't get any of the excursions on the ship? We have a package where we can choose six excursions....

You can take the on board credit instead of the excursions. It is 3 excursions each person. We do most of our excursions on our own. O excursions are extremely overpriced

thanks so much for the info. So you didn't get any of the excursions on the ship? We have a package where we can choose six excursions....

No, we took the OBC instead and used it for bar bill, spa etc. Not only are the outside excursions much less expensive, they are much smaller groups and you can customize to suit your desires. For instance, in St. Petersburg, a few in the group wanted to see the Grand Choral Synagogue. TJ willingly added a stop, no extra charge. You can't do that on a ship excursion.

We were on the Marina last September, started in Stockholm, ended in Copenhagen just like you did. We stayed at the Sheraton Stockholm which we felt was an excellent location, easy walking to many sites. Easy to get a taxi from the airport to the hotel. I downloaded the app & ordered it ahead of time. Copenhagen was another story. I could not find a way to preorder, unless it was through the cruise line which was way overpriced. The taxi line at the port was ridiculously long, if you plan to use, get an early disembarkation. We wound up leaving the line and walking to the public bus stop which was easy to use but we had at least a 20 minute wait before it arrived.

 

Regarding St. Petersburg, I put together a tour thru TJ and they were simply fabulous. I wound up with 30 people so they gave us 3 vans of 10. We loved our tour guide, Nadia, and the other guides also got rave reviews from my other groups. I looked into Alla & SPB also and found TJ the most reasonable as they were willing to negotiate their pricing as my group got larger. They were also incredibly responsive to all questions, requests & changes. I highly recommend them.

 

 

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I absolutely loved SPB. I used them in 4 ports. All vehicles, guides, meals, & tours were great. In St Petersburg, couple from Australia took ships tour. Drove by the Church Of The Spilled Blood, WE went inside. Plus, less by 30%.

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