St Petersburg Private Tour

[keep on cruising]

Four of us are considering taking a private tour in St Petersburg rather than the ship's tour when we dock the first week of July. Two companies have been recommended - Red October and Odyssey. Has anyone had experience - good or bad - with Odyssey?

 

Thanks for all comments.

[aztex]

Haven't heard of Odyssey - wonder if they meant Denrus, which is another highly recommended company?

[liveinmb]

We used Red October last summer and were very satisfied. Before we settled on a final itinerary, we did a lot of revisions, and they had no problem with that. They took care of everything, including the visa. You don't pay in advance, but while you are on tour. They stop at their store where you take care of the financial part. We also did some shopping in the store.

[md115]

We also toured with Red October. They were superb. Very flexible. One of the many nice things was we were able to avoid the lines at every site. Out guide was Helen.

[alanmal]

Another good thing is that Red October has a US rep. that you deal with. He is on the internet from very early to very late and you get replys usually with-in an hour. I got my shore tickets yesterday from him for June 8th on the Jewel of the Sea. His e-mail is info@redoctober.us

 

 

 

 

 

al

[mtlcever]

First Ive ever heard of Odyssey. We used RO last year and it was fantastic. dido what everyone else has said about them.

[keep on cruising]

We decided to go with Red October. Still working with them to refine the itinerary. But I will definitely share our experience when we get back

[NancyIL]

There's a lot of info about St. Petersburg on the Baltic Ports board: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=192

 

My group is using DenRus: http://www.denrus.ru/

[Coopdedoop]

We used Denrus last summer. They were sooo helpful. We were worried that we needed special Russian visas, but Olga was great and very reassuring that it was not necessary. She sent us lots of information and it worked out perfectly. We saw so much and especially loved going to the grocery store, the subway stations, Hermitage, Catherine's Palace, shopping, etc. but there just isn't enough time to see it all. The only problem that we had was fighting fatigue the first day as the clocks are changed each day for the previous three days before getting into St. Petersburg, and it felt like we were up at 4:00 a.m. The second day we were aclimatized and much more alert.

[Images]

We used two different private companies. For the first day we used Palladium, they also helped us get our Visas. This was wonderful because we toured on our own for 1/2 a day. Palladium.spb.ru is their contact info.

 

On day 2 we used a private guide, Olga Stepanova. She is recommended on several sites. She charges $10 an hour and will take you wherever you'd like. She took a bus to the port where we met her. We then took mini-buses for .25-.50 per ride, per person. We also took the metro. It was excellent. Her e-mail is stepanovao@hotmail.com. She'll also book a car if you wish. We did the canal cruise on our own on the first day and went to the Russian Folk Dance at a Palace that evening. Palladium bought the tickets for us and we paid them when we arrived. They drove us back to the ship that night for an extra charge. We had to pay an extra charge for them to go into the port. During daylight hours it was fine taking the bus that is inside the port, and goes to the port entrance.

[DON M.]

There's a lot of info about St. Petersburg on the Baltic Ports board: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=192

 

My group is using DenRus: http://www.denrus.ru/

Alot of good St. Petersberg info also at http://www.rus-net.net

[SaylorGirl]

We are doing St. Petersburg on our own but in checking out all the companies and what they offered I found DenRus to be very helpful and their prices are very reasonable, I've also heard really good things about them. Red October didn't even return my e-mail! I also was in touch with Pallidium they seemed to be very reasonable also.

[Jane110]

Never heard of Odessey.

 

Red October and Denrus are the two most well known and I've never heard a negative comment about either of them. People rave about both companies.

 

Jane

[ld33bug]

Just got back from crusing on Jewel of the Seas---we went thru Red October for our 2-days in St. Petersburg. It was absolutely awesome! I honestly believe that we were able to see more sites and learn more history/facts by planning our excursion this way. Even though it might seem like a bit more money, it was definitely worth it! The company is very professional, organized, and willing to make this "your vacation" whatever it takes. In fact, we tipped them at the end of our two days more than we had planned on because we were so impressed and had such a good time. We choose a very full 2-day program (no night activities) for just my husband and myself in a car. The driver only spoke Russian but was very courteous (opened/closed all doors, stored any purchases in trunk, felt we could leave personal items in the vehicle with him when we weren't there) and the guide spoke excellent English and she offered extra information/trivia at each place we went. One of the good things about seeing St. Petersburg with this company is that they took us thru to the front of the lines and right in to begin our tour. Ekaterina (Katherine, our tour guide) was always on the lookout to give us the best tour "without the crowds" so we could hear her easily and max our time. Very professional! Can't say enough about Red October! We were very satisfied and would gladly recommend them to anyone. Oh, probably worth mentioning, they provided excellent guidance prior to cruising regarding disembarking on the 1st morning in St. Petersburg. Take their advice no matter what the cruise line says. Before reaching port, we were asked to pre-register at the guest relations desk onboard if we were taking an independent tour. We did NOT do this because I believe they would've put us on a list that would've flagged us as not being able to leave until after ALL tours had departed (about 9:30am). We would've lost about 1 1/2 hours of our tours for that 1st day....not acceptable to me. We followed the last of the Moscow tour people (they are the 1st & earliest off the ship because of the length of their excursion) off the ship and thru Russian immigration...no problems.

 

We also investigated DenRus but only discounted them because of a gut feeling I had when I read their program and initial email to me (english wasn't so good or proper, my opinion only; their initial program wasn't as good for about the same price but I'm confident that adjustments could've been done). I'm sure they would've been good too as I had heard good things about them before I requested information. Please feel free to contact me if you want more info.

 

Hope you found this helpful! Enjoy---Angela