Jewel of the Seas St Petersberg trip HOW MUCH?

[scusip]

Hi,

We are travelling on Jewel Of The Seas next July to Scandinavia and the Baltic, we are looking to do the 2 day trip around St. Petersberg and have been advised to use a Russian tour guide, but before booking would like to know how much Royal Caribbean charge for their tour and feedback on that, can anyone help?

 

Cheers

[Sue L]

Go on the RCCL website and then to before you board, you can't see all the tours that should be offered and see the prices. There are a whole bunch for St Petersburg. If you are not on a ship's tour you must make sure the private company will provide the visa and give you proof of it or you will be denied boarding.

[LonghornLady]

Absolutely go with a local Russian tour group. Much cheaper, much better, and they ALL take care of the visa for you. You can find lots of recommendations in the destinations area of CC. We used spb-tours and just loved them. My suggestion is to put together a group of no more than 8 people. They will help you with that. I posted on CC and found couples from Michigan, Florida, and Arizona. We were all about the same age, and it was interesting to meet some new folks. The more in the group, of course it is cheaper. But 8 people can easily be herded around, and changes can be made on the fly if needed. Again do NOT use the ship's excursions unless you want to deal with 50 other people, see less, and spend a LOT more.

[BMT]

We used the ship's tour. Excellent - had priority entry to all the sights.

 

Imagine missing the ship and being stuck in Russia? Get stuck in a traffic jam or the van has a breakdown? The ship will not wait for you if you are on a private tour.

 

This is the one place we always go on the ship's tours. Oh, and Egypt.

[rdhnd]

We used Denrus tours and had a great time. The price was one half of the ship excursion. They have a corporate office in the states so we did not need to pay in foriegn currency. As mentioned ... check out the ports of call board for the best info. Most all of the tour groups count on our business so they make it a point to get you to the ship on time. One missed ship and they would be out of clients... they do not want that type of reputation.

 

RDHND

[Modena]

We recently did the Baltic Cruise and booked our St. Petersburg tours with Royal Caribbean. The first day we did a full day tour of St. Petersburg, which also included a visit to the Pushkin Palace which included lunch. This tour cost approximately £100.00 per person. The next day we did a half day walking tour of St. Petersburg, which was approximately £25.00 per person. Both were very good tours with excellent guides.

[wetfish]

We were there last August - we booked with spb tours ( they also do one to Berlin from Warmenunde, also excellent!!) No way would you miss the boat in St Petersberg, they make the itinerary so you're back in plenty of time. (Its something I was scared of - even more so with the Berlin trip)

On our table were people who'd booked the cruise tours (we were with a sister cruise company...) and although they were really pleased with their outings it was obvious they didnt do half of what we did with Viktoria's company. Our guide was brilliant and we also had priority entry to the Hermitage - in fact, we jumped the 'early entry' queue and went straight in. Its worth a look - spb tours and the 'Pearl' itinerary... excellent.

[FTLcruisers]

We used Alla Tours - actually the first time we had done a private tour - and I can't say enough good things about her, her company and the tours. We had 8 people in a van with a wonderful guide - while the tour was planned out, we had the flexibility of skipping certain stops or staying a little longer if the group decided to do so. Being in a van also gave us the opportunity to ask questions about things we were seeing during our drive. We even added on a folk dance show the first night - van dropped us off and picked us up. I do not think we could have had the same experience during our 2 days in St Petersburg if we had taken the ship's tours. And Alla was wonderful - she greeted us each morning and at the end of the second day, gave each couple a DVD of St Petersburg to help us remember our trip.

 

Marianne

[mickfoxland]

another vote for denrus from here

terrific tour

we did the 2 day value tour

at least half the cost of the ships tour, and compared to the rccl tour we took in italy this year private tours are much better quality

and if you miss the boat there can be no better ciity than st petersburg to get stuck in

if you stayed there a week you would not cover it all

the russian tour companies know what they are doing and get you back in loads of time

have a great cruise to the baltic

follow the link for some pics if you want alook

 

http://community.webshots.com/user/mcahirst