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How long to disembark in St Petersburg?


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I know this is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, but we have booked a tour with Alla tours in St Petersburg. We will be on the Celebrity Silhouette, due to dock at 07:00. tour meets at 08:30.

How long would those who have experienced disembarking in SP before allow to get off?

Should we be queuing at 07:00?

 

Thanks,

Ben.

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I'm sorry - we actually have absolutely no idea. The port announced that they will allow ships to let passengers on ship tours off first during the 2018 season, and independent excursion members will be given a later disembarkment time. Honestly, we don't know how these new regulations will affect passengers. Hopefully, people will post in May when the season starts so other passengers will be able to adjust their plans accordingly. My best advice is to email Alla closer to your tour to figure out how the new regulations affect disembarking. On previous forum posts, our best guess was they'd let you start later and end later, thus not affecting the total amount of time you spend in St. Petersburg (I was offered this as an option for my private tour, since I was traveling with a 3 year old and worried he wouldn't be able to stay on line for an hour and then tour all day in the city.)

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Just go line up early maybe not 7 am but by 7:30 ish

Just depends on the officials

Cruise lines like to get their groups off first but they rarely put you to the back of the line for independent travellers

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I'm sorry - we actually have absolutely no idea. The port announced that they will allow ships to let passengers on ship tours off first during the 2018 season, and independent excursion members will be given a later disembarkment time. Honestly, we don't know how these new regulations will affect passengers. Hopefully, people will post in May when the season starts so other passengers will be able to adjust their plans accordingly. My best advice is to email Alla closer to your tour to figure out how the new regulations affect disembarking. On previous forum posts, our best guess was they'd let you start later and end later, thus not affecting the total amount of time you spend in St. Petersburg (I was offered this as an option for my private tour, since I was traveling with a 3 year old and worried he wouldn't be able to stay on line for an hour and then tour all day in the city.)

 

That'll be us then as we are going early May.

I will report back accordingly.

I have contacted Alla to see what they advise.

 

Thanks.

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That'll be us then as we are going early May.

I will report back accordingly.

I have contacted Alla to see what they advise.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Kitkat's post is spot-on.

 

So you'll be our guinea-pigs ;)

 

Your experience would be greatly appreciated on this forum after your visit.

 

JB :)

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Hi.

Alla tours have replied to my query, and say they have been advised by the port that private tours are not to start until 1.5 hours after the ships docking time.

Apparently Alla tours have had that policy in place since 2014, so everything is the same for them.

I was advised to allow 40-60 minutes for disembarkation.

I will report my experiences once experienced.

 

Ben.

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Hi.

Alla tours have replied to my query, and say they have been advised by the port that private tours are not to start until 1.5 hours after the ships docking time.

Apparently Alla tours have had that policy in place since 2014, so everything is the same for them.

I was advised to allow 40-60 minutes for disembarkation.

I will report my experiences once experienced.

 

Ben.

 

Thanks!

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Hi.

Alla tours have replied to my query, and say they have been advised by the port that private tours are not to start until 1.5 hours after the ships docking time.

Apparently Alla tours have had that policy in place since 2014, so everything is the same for them.

I was advised to allow 40-60 minutes for disembarkation.

I will report my experiences once experienced.

 

Ben.

That's a bit odd as our ship docks at 7am in late August and Alla expect to pick us up at 7.30am!

 

Sent from my SM-A320Y using Tapatalk

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That's a bit odd as our ship docks at 7am in late August and Alla expect to pick us up at 7.30am!

 

Sent from my SM-A320Y using Tapatalk

 

Our instructions from Alla for day 1 of our 2 day SPG grand tour in July indicates meeting at the ship at 8:30am.

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We're doing St. Petersburg with TJ Travel. We just got an update from them changing our tour meeting time on the first day from 7:00 to 8:30 due to the changes in the port regulations. On the second day, our start time moved a half an hour earlier than originally scheduled, so it looks like they're working the changes into their schedules.

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We're doing St. Petersburg with TJ Travel. We just got an update from them changing our tour meeting time on the first day from 7:00 to 8:30 due to the changes in the port regulations. On the second day, our start time moved a half an hour earlier than originally scheduled, so it looks like they're working the changes into their schedules.

 

 

Thanks for updating! We are w TJ in July. I’m sure we will hear more when we get closer!

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Originally, the times were set depending on the number of ships in port. So they may have information regarding those specifications that make it different later in the year. Your time may or may not change.
We are the only ship in port when we go at the end of August 2018 so maybe Alla still expect to get us off the ship quite quickly ...

 

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That's a bit odd as our ship docks at 7am in late August and Alla expect to pick us up at 7.30am!

 

Sent from my SM-A320Y using Tapatalk

 

Hi pukekolive,

probably worth asking them in the private message bit of your Alla account login, but I'm sure they will be in touch before August anyway.

I have been impressed with their communication.

 

Ben.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Pukeolive don’t depend on cruisett.com for correct information on how many ships are in port on a certain day. Search for each cruise port schedule where you are going to stop or go to cruiseportschedules.com and search for the dates you are going to be in port. When I looked on cruisett for how many ships were going to be in port along with us in SPB it said just us when I checked the cruise port schedule it said 7 ships are there the same day we are.

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Pukeolive don’t depend on cruisett.com for correct information on how many ships are in port on a certain day. Search for each cruise port schedule where you are going to stop or go to cruiseportschedules.com and search for the dates you are going to be in port. When I looked on cruisett for how many ships were going to be in port along with us in SPB it said just us when I checked the cruise port schedule it said 7 ships are there the same day we are.
I'm also going by the Alla rollcalls as they offer a cruise to each ship in port on any day, Preziosa is the only 1 in port that day and they advised us we are the first to book.

 

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We just did a Baltic cruise on the Regal Princess. Getting thru customs was tough. We booked a private tour and were told by the ship that we had to meet in a dining room to get a number and be called by that number to go thru customs. Being good little sheep we did that only to find that when we got to the customs line there were many on private tours who just left the ship on their own and ship tours had been given priority. No one asked for a number or stopped anyone leaving on their own. The wait at customs was about 45 minutes.

 

The second day, was about 5 minutes. Seems they have to scan your info into the computer the first day and the second day off you are already in the computer, so just breeze thru.

 

So, make sure to leave plenty of time ahead of your planned tour meeting time on the first day.

 

Oh, coming back the first day, most tours end at the same time so there were 1500-2000 people all coming back at the same time. There was one x-ray machine at the entrance to the terminal for all those people! Needless to say, the folks with evening tours were stressed. Turns out that the tour companies could actually wait to leave the port until later than the advertised departure time and still make the performances, so I didn't hear of anyone missing the evening activities.

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We may have been fortunate in early May but disembarkation took about 20 minutes the first day and about 5 minutes the second day. We had a tour booked with TJ Travel and they were waiting for us when we came through customs.

 

Really enjoyed the 2 day tour with TJ Travel and would highly recommend this company

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For our cruise in June, I emailed Alla specifically about this issue and they were not concerned at all, just repeated to meet them at 8:30. For the evening ballet we will not be returning to the ship, instead they will take us to a local restaurant from where we will proceed to the ballet.

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I got notification from Best Guides:

"please be aware that on your first day in St. Petersburg disembarkation and passport control could take one hour or more due to very long queues. Please make yourself ready for disembarkation in advance and try to be at the head of the queues"

 

This was my experience last year on NCL Getaway, meaning I finally got through to find my tour bus had left without me! Fortunately it got resolved and I joined my tour later.

 

The second day was very quick to disembark, however I wonder if the queues are worse when it is a larger ship?

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We were there last year on the Celebrity Silhouette.

We got in line at 6:30am and there were already about a dozen people in line. The line quickly grew after us. Our ship docked at 7:00 but it took a while to clear. They started allowing us off the ship about 7:30. When you leave the ship, you are sent into a building with several custom windows. It was absolutely packed with people. We were very lucky and were directed up a flight of stairs where there were another row of custom windows. It still took us about an hour to get through. The first day you get off the ship, the officers really look at your documents. We figured they spent about 2 minutes per person.

If you are taking a private tour with others on the ship, be sure you are all together as you get into the lines or you'll be waiting on stragglers.

The people on the ship's tours do get to get off the ship first.

We talked to friends that got in line around 7:30 and they told us that the customs windows got so backed up that they quit allowing people to leave the ship for about 45 minutes to allow the crowd to die down. They had 8:30 meet up times for their tour and didn't get off the ship until after 10:00!!

Our meet up time was also 8:30 and we were only about 15 minutes late. The nice thing about your tour group all gathering together on the ship is that your tour isn't going to leave without you and since you're all together, you get on the bus and are ready to go.

 

On day 2, is took only a few minutes to get through and on day 3, it was precursory. If I remember correctly, on days 2 and 3, groups left at different times, so not everyone was trying to get off the ship all at once.

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Expect to be the second group to be dismissed. We were the second group let off and we got off the ship at 8.30am and by the time we got thru customs it was 9.45am. Our Alla bus of 15 waited for another 3 groups and we left the port about 10.10am.

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Since the rules have changed in 2018, it is important to know the dates of your experiences. Also remember that the rules supposedly only go into effect when there are a lot of ships in port(number not specified). That may be why the experiences are so varied.

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