St Petersburg taxi service to port

[cruzer57]

My wife and I are independent travelers and would like to see St Petersburg without the limits of the cruise tours. Does anyone have experience in getting from the Cargo Port of St. Petersburg to downtown on their own? Please let me know of your experiences.

 

Thanks

 

:confused:

[DEL67]

First of all, I assume that you know you need a visa. Ship excursions and independent tour companies provide temporary ones, but you will need to arrange for your own if you wish to visit St Petersburg on yourselves.

As for taxis, I am not sure. Perhaps things have changed, but there were not any at the pier when we were there a few years ago.

[Artemis]

May I suggest you go to the Baltics forum, as you will get all the information you are looking for and more. You may perform a keyword search of the archives or just start reading. I specifically recall a thread by an independent traveler who took a late spring/early summer trip and used taxis from the SPb port.

 

We just got back and had a blast. We did all of the ports on our own, except SPb--we used Denrus and have only great things to say about them and our guide and driver. Note that if do SPb without any guiding/driving support, you may want to research and pre-plan the logistics of your day to maximize what you can see and do. SPb is a big, congested city, and the most popular sites and attractions are fairly spread out. I'd consider relying on the subway as much as possible to avoid street traffic, which can really eat into your time.

[cruzer57]

Thanks. We do have Russian visas in hand. I am starting to rethink our plans since there seems to be a scarcity of reliable information. Holland America has been of no assistance in this matter. I appreciate your input.

[cadreamer]

There are definitely taxis on the dock and the cost is about $30 into the city. Coming back, most taxis can only bring you as far as the gate and then you have to pay the dock taxi $10 to bring you to the ship. There is a free port bus that runs fairly regularly. It is for the dock workers and is pretty basic but it worked for us. We had visas but we went with a guide who took us on public transportation. She charges $15 for her sevices and if you want a driver it is $15 more an hour plus admissions of course. Having the visa should make you more flexible. The two well known tour operators are Red October and Denrus. We have used them in the past but this time we went with Alla see - http://www.alla-tour.com - and had a wonderful time and were extremely impressed with her,from the initial planning to every aspect of the tour and in additon she is very personable and speaks great English. She is very flexible and is very willing to work with you on planning your tour.She has all the credentials to give tours for people without visas but since you already have yours, you should be able to come up with an interesting plan. We recommend her highly.