Russian Immigration Check

[Kinkacruiser]

Once Emerald Princess docks in St Peterburg there is an immigration check. We are with SPB tours, so our ticket is our visa. I understand we will also need our passports and completed immigration cards which we'll receive the night before.

With regards to the queueing, I'm curious to know if there is any preference given to the ship tour participants Vs private tours and whether you experienced an orderly, efficient progression or did people jump the queue to get off the ship earlier.

Is it possible for a private tour group such as ours to move off together?

[CruiserBruce]

Everybody goes off together. The only ones not rushing off were the people who had later excursions. But all the people who wanted off immediately went off in a huge line. In our case, there were 4 or 5 immigration officials for 2000 people, so the process is a little slow.

 

The only way to stay together is to get in line together.

[John Bull]

Yes, Kinkacruiser, you've got the paperwork right. :)

Though if I want to be pedantic, your SPB tour ticket isn't actually a visa, it's proof that your tour has a visa-free status.

 

The immigration cards (they're nothing to do with visas, they're similar to immigration cards issued on international flights) will be delivered to your cabin or you can collect from Guest Relations. You will need to fill the information that's in your passport - name, passport number etc. Do that evening or early morning, don't leave it til you go ashore. The immigration form is a single sheet in two halves - fill in both halves but don't tear the form in half. Immigration officer will retain the immigration form & stamp your passport.

If you forget the form or make a mistake, spares are available in the Terminus.

You won't need another immigration form next time you go ashore, the stamp in your passport does the job - so lines are very much quicker.

 

There's no priority but Princess have a reputation for instructing those not on ship's tours to meet in a bar/theatre/whatever at a given time - a lot on local operators tours believe that this is to get them off the ship & into the immigration line after those on ship's tours. Many wisely ignore that instruction, instead meeting up near the gangway & getting off the ship as soon as it has been cleared to land.

And don't let Princess send you to a specific immigration line, go to the shortest. Princess have no authority to organise immigration lines.

 

Most of those on other cruise lines (including ourselves), have been off the ship, into our vans & away from the port before ship's groups headed to the gangway. No lines, no delay, we didn't even delay ship's tour passengers.

 

You really need to be sure everyone on your excursion gets together on the ship & goes ashore together - one couple getting off the ship ten minutes later can hold you up for an hour.

Best make contact with those in your group ahead of the cruise to swap names/cabin numbers Our operator provided e-mail addresses for the others, we traded cabin numbers & had a good little meeting on a sea-day, when we agree a place & time (about 7.45?).

Sweet as a nut both days. :cool:

 

JB :)

Edited March 23, 2014 by John Bull

[Travelanni]

Anyone who looks like their passport photo is too ill to travel (Will Kommen)

 

Hi John, I know this is off the subject but your signature always makes me smile as my passport photo, which makes me look about 90 and at death's door, bears it out. So I shared it with the lady Immigration Officer at the Port of Hull (UK) when boarding the ferry last week. She thought it was hilarious and wrote it down! Said it had made her day.

Would not try it with an Immigration Officer in Russia or the US though. Humour is not their strong point, even a smile seems to be suspect.

Anni

Edited March 23, 2014 by Travelanni

[spbstan]

Princess was one of the first to start the pressure and intimidation on passengers to get them to book only the tours they resell. It came to a head a few years ago that almost created riots because they signed off on a fake letter from "immigration officials" who supposedly stated that ship sold tours were allowed off the ship after clearance but independent and visa holders had to wait until 11:30 to disembark. They hired rent-a-cops to pull people out of line for immigration if they did not have ship sold tour. It was really a scandal. The Ministry of Transportation and also Immigration departments held a hearing and investigated. It was a hoax set up by the ships and the port agent and immigration did not know anything about it. Since that time 4 years ago Princess and others owned by Carnival have not tried those sorts of tricks due to threat to ban them from the port. A few cruise lines did not go along with it, including P&O. You can see videos taken of guards on ships blocking passengers trying get off that are still on YouTube. It was a mix of anger and panic.

But this year, letters have been going out encouraging passengers to cancel their excursions and book ship sold tours because booking with anyone else will be risky. One frightened cruiser wrote me privately and asked if there were really tanks and shootings in the streets of St Petersburg how she was told by customer service when she called after getting the letter.

So as mentioned above, ignore any instructions to meet in lounges or hallways to wait for a call because although they still try that stunt, it has gotten around the internet how people were never called and delayed their tours hours. Get all your group together, and be ready to disembark as soon as the gate opens.

5-8 passport control booths are open for each side of the of the 3 terminals. Once you leave the ship, the wait in line is down around 10 minutes or less and the ship sold tours are usually staged last because they tend to be more chaotic with no instruction where to go to find their buses. On any day with 6-8 ships in port immigration has about 60-80 immigration officers spread between the 3 terminals, working in the morning of the arrival day.

[shoreham01]

We were on Celebrity Eclipse a couple of years ago and it was easy to just get off the ship the moment it was cleared. Just stand in an area near where you disembark and then go through immediately. We met the other members of our tour the other side of customs as we did not want the risk of someone arriving late and preventing us from meeting SPB tours who were superb.

 

The Celebrity group were delayed considerably as they all had to meet up in the theatre and then queue to get through customs in the rain. It was a long queue and many people were less than happy.

 

The customs officers were lovely to us. No problems at all. Plenty of smiles and very helpful. There is also a lovely area between customs and car park with plenty of souvenir shops.

 

We are hopefully going again in June providing the ships are still allowed to dock there.

[Alaskanb]

Anyone who looks like their passport photo is too ill to travel (Will Kommen)

 

Hi John, I know this is off the subject but your signature always makes me smile as my passport photo, which makes me look about 90 and at death's door, bears it out. So I shared it with the lady Immigration Officer at the Port of Hull (UK) when boarding the ferry last week. She thought it was hilarious and wrote it down! Said it had made her day.

Would not try it with an Immigration Officer in Russia or the US though. Humour is not their strong point, even a smile seems to be suspect.

Anni

When we entered Russia at St. P the immigration officers were definitely stern. However when I returned back to the ship and handed over my very sweaty passport --it had been in my waist security pouch all day--and explained why it was so wet the lady officer just roared with laughter :D

[John Bull]

Princess was one of the first to start the pressure and intimidation on passengers to get them to book only the tours they resell. .

 

 

And Princess are continuing to con their passengers.

This from their website

http://www.princess.com/learn/faq_answer/pre_cruise/prepare.jsp

Click on "visas" and scroll down to Russia, where it says:

.

Russian Tourist Visas are not required for Princess passengers participating in an organised Princess Cruises Shore Excursion. All passengers who participate in an organised Princess Cruises excursion in Russia, including private vehicle tours, may disembark the ship for their excursion without a Russian Tourist Visa provided they present the following to Russian Immigration:

•A valid passport

•A photocopy of the photo page of the passport

•A Princess Cruises excursion ticket

 

Passengers who wish to sightsee without purchasing a Princess Cruises Shore Excursion must obtain an individual Russian Tourist Visa before leaving home; visas cannot be obtained during the cruise.

 

This, as has been posted by so many people on so very many threads on CC, TripAdvisor, etc is a downright lie - and Princess know it.:mad:

 

Most other cruise lines are very coy with their phraseology, something like:

If you book your excursion with us you do not require a visa.

However, if you wish to go ashore independently you will have to purchase a Russian visa before leaving home.

Economical with the truth. They omit to say that you don't need a visa if you pre-book a tour with an approved local operator.

But at least they don't tell bare-faced lies.

 

JB in fightin' mood :)

[spbstan]

Although their web site skirts the lie, their customer service reps use much more aggressive false claims by phone. Asking them to put it in writing results in a quick exit from the conversation.

All general cruise lines do it also with very few exceptions. St Petersburg is almost a unique situation for them, very expensive tours with 50-80% markup and only 3-4% not buying something. A few cruise lines have passengers who don't question ship authority and 90% buy bus tours from the ship. The UK flag ships are like that. The aggressive posture those like Princess take, seems to backfire on them because about 50% now bypass booking Princess sold tours. In any event, the majority of passengers seem to be very passive and do not do any research before boarding the ship. Even those who do plan a bit more carefully usually just go by what others tell them so see and who to see it with. Way too much credibility is given to user reviews, for two reasons, the person reviewing has no knowledge to compare other venues, guides, companies, restaurants, activities etc. and second because there are a lot of shill posts pumping outfits with little or no track record.

There is more disinformation, either intentional or due to ignorance of the topic so confusion actually can be expected. Even here, I just read the port article about St Petersburg and saw dozens of errors in the first page. None that could get someone in trouble but surely gives an erroneous impression. I remember 10 years ago, reading parts of a well known guide book on the Baltic "written " by a well know TV travel celebrity and was shocked how inaccurate it was in things that really could get someone into trouble. I wrote to the publisher and they responded that they were not going to make corrections because " no one goes there, the book does not sell well enough to warrant the expense" Gee, I wonder if people do not buy the book because is so riddled with errors, not because "people do not go there"