Viking in St. Petersburg

[ropomo]

We are on the Viking Homelands coming up in a few months.  I have been following various threads on the Northern Europe/Baltic forum.  One subject that comes up a lot is the practice of "some" cruise lines lately, with the endorsement of the Russian government, is to physically prevent passengers from disembarking in St. Petersburg that are on private tours until all ship sponsored tour passengers have disembarked and cleared customs.  In some cases, this has resulted in passengers missing their rendezvous with their private tour guide.  Can someone that has done Viking in St. Petersburg recently comment on whether Viking engages in this practice?

[caskale]

We had no trouble getting off first,we just stood by the door and when they opened it up we were the first off. 

Our private tour company was there waiting for us.

[Dauntless]

21 minutes ago, caskale said:

We had no trouble getting off first,we just stood by the door and when they opened it up we were the first off. 

Our private tour company was there waiting for us.

 

Yes, that is the way to do it.  Viking Excursions will have starting times at the meeting point for that excursion and then they will leave from there.  The daily will tell you arrival time and then they have to be cleared so I would say maybe 30 min to an hour after that is when those tours will gather to depart.  I would say shot to gather to depart about 30 minutes after docking on the deck you will be departing from.  When they say you are free to go, take off.  We all cleared on or own and after going through arrival procedure our Company was right there and they told us where to wait until our group all had departed the ship.  We had not met before that so we had some time to exchanges pleasantries while we waited.  Not a big build up if you are early and the big groups don't hold you up.

[JenRonn1104]

We did the same thing.  Sat in the Living Room before docking and as soon as we heard the chime we got up and headed for the door.  We were the first 4 people off the ship.  No issues at all.