St. Petersburg Tour problems

[gooch47]

Do I remember right that there was some kind of funny business that goes on with immigration in St. Petersburg related to tours? I can't remember if it had to do with Princess tours or private ones. Or am I having a total senior moment?

[caber]

You need a visa to go ashore in St Petersburg. If you take a Princess tour it includes a group visa. I have also heard that private tours do the same. If you want to go ashore on your own you have to apply for an individual visa.

[gooch47]

What i *thought* I remembered was that they were excessively delaying some passengers depending on what tour or tour group you were using. I did a search and did see that Princess or your independent tour operator takes care of the visa.

[katisdale]

We went to St. Petersburg last May. The only thing Princess did was have the Princess tours and the independent tours gather in separate rooms. We left the ship in a timely manner with no problems for our independent tour. We went with SPB who we highly recommend.

[TheSmartOne]

My sister and I used a private tour for our St Petersburg visit in 2010 on the Star Princess. Though I'd read all kinds of stories of people being delayed if they weren't on the Princess tour, we didn't have any issues for either of our days there. There were 10 of us from the CC roll call and we easily made it off the ship (even though the ship arrived late on the first day), were able to stay close to each other going through immigration, and then met back up in the lobby of the port.

 

Our tour company provided the visa services for us, so we simply had to print out a copy of our tour confirmation and have that with our passports when going through immigration.

 

It's an amazing place, hope you have a great adventure! :D

[capriccio]

Do I remember right that there was some kind of funny business that goes on with immigration in St. Petersburg related to tours? I can't remember if it had to do with Princess tours or private ones. Or am I having a total senior moment?

 

Not a senior moment - actually a very good memory! It was the summer of 2009 when the boards were lit up with ugly incidents disembarking in St. Petersburg (although we didn't have any issues, we just got in line earlier and cleared as soon as immigration opened). I thinkt the issue was rectified before that season was over.

[msk1]

In years past Princess was very ugly during the disembarkation process if one was with an independent tour. On our sailing it was particularly nasty--a crew member putting hands on a female passenger to block her exit. Her husband was/is an attorney. No more problems these days!

 

We used DenRus, based out of Florida. They were absolutely fabulous, handling the visa, etc. You will have a wonderful time in St. Petersburg!

 

msk1

[LindaandJeff]

We were there in 2009 also and had absolutely no issues disembarking and were one of the first ones off. Used Viktoria from Sp-b tours. Fabulous. Worth ever penny. She arranged our visa for us since she is licensed with the appropriate Russian authorities. We were able to have a truly personalized experience that we will never be able to duplicate.

[windsor26]

We never had any problems with immigration either but perhaps it was because it was a ship from UK

[Genessa]

we didn't have any "problems", but last July those of us on private tours had to assemble separately - people were inferring that there would be a delay - and the warnings about visas seemed designed to scare passengers into signing up for a ship's tour, but

 

there were no problems at all, no delayed disembarkments. We actually ended up off the ship very early

[sunshine nana]

I think all the carrying on private tour passengers did in 2009 changed the Princess policy. We were lied to about the visas and were held back from getting off the ship. But people were taking video and complaining on CC and trip advisor and before the summer was over, things changed. We were on in July 2009. It really did leave a bad impression of Princess and it was 2 years before we booked with them again.