St Petersberg tour with

[Barry@Preston]

We are booking a tour with Alla mainly due to the strong reviews on here. They seem to be the most popular choice of tour companies. I have to say up to now they have been excellent on helping us choose the right tour for us.

 

Hope to see some of you on our Alla tour and the ship.

[fabnfortysomething]

you may not be aware being a new poster that you are breaking the cruise critic rules by recommending a tour company you have not yet travelled with

 

have Alla promised you a discount if you post a review /recommendation on here?

if so you should email them back that they are risking you getting a warning by doing so

 

its a dog eat dog world amongst the various St Petersburg tour companies and whilst they all get rave reviews many of them resort to underhand tactics to get publicity  

[dogs4fun]

On 6/10/2019 at 9:34 PM, Stpetersberg said:

We are booking a tour with Alla mainly due to the strong reviews on here. They seem to be the most popular choice of tour companies. I have to say up to now they have been excellent on helping us choose the right tour for us.

 

Hope to see some of you on our Alla tour and the ship.

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

Alla does not ask people to post reviews or recommendations prior to taking her tours as this would be pointless and unethical - I know because I have used her company several times and, furthermore, I recently asked her if she ever asks clients to post on the Europe forum (she said NO).

She does offer a Cruise Critic discount (same as TJ, SPB, etc.). All comments about tours not yet taken are to be posted on the roll call for your sailing.

[Barry@Preston]

I never said that i was recommending Alla, I simply said that they had been helpful in assisting us which tour to take and that they seemed to obtain more top reviews than anyone else. Both of those comments were true. Also I have read dozens of similar comments on Cruise Critic.

 

As for offering a discount, yes they do, but it wasn't as much as other tour companies. We booked them because of their service to date not the cost, as we could have booked a similar tour cheaper.

 

I hope that explains my comments and apologies if I placed it in the wrong section.

[dogs4fun]

11 hours ago, Stpetersberg said:

I never said that i was recommending Alla, I simply said that they had been helpful in assisting us which tour to take and that they seemed to obtain more top reviews than anyone else. Both of those comments were true. Also I have read dozens of similar comments on Cruise Critic.

 

As for offering a discount, yes they do, but it wasn't as much as other tour companies. We booked them because of their service to date not the cost, as we could have booked a similar tour cheaper.

 

I hope that explains my comments and apologies if I placed it in the wrong section.

I understand and I hope that you did not take offense. We have used Alla's tours on several of our Russian trips and, we agree, her service is top notch.

It is against Cruise Critic rules to post a recommendation for a tour in which you have not participated (I do 'get' that you were not actually recommending her tours but some members can become upset if a post even comes close to the edge as many are quite loyal to the tour company with whom they toured in the Baltics).

A few weeks ago, there were posts on Cruise Critic detailing some unethical practices undertaken by one particular tour company - including spamming Cruise Critic roll calls and offering gifts for posting positive reviews on TripAdvisor (this company was, most assuredly, not Alla Tours). Anyway, at that time, I contacted Alla to ask her about practices on Cruise Critic roll calls and TripAdvisor to ascertain if the unethical practices employed by the company in question were common practices - she assured me that they were not. 

IMHO, some are "watching" these forums for violations and, as fabnfortysometing mentioned, the independent operators in St. Petersburg are very competitive and some do, in fact, stoop to underhanded tactics.

Hope you have a great cruise and enjoy the Baltics!

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by dogs4fun

[Barry@Preston]

Thanks for that and hopefully we will. We did actually go there last year but did a less hectic tour than what we are this time.

 

I also appreciate your comments and totally agree apart from some members being a bit touchy when tour operators are mentioned, to them I would say get a life as everyone is entitles to make reasonable comments which I believe mine were.

[fabnfortysomething]

2 hours ago, Stpetersberg said:

Thanks for that and hopefully we will. We did actually go there last year but did a less hectic tour than what we are this time.

 

I also appreciate your comments and totally agree apart from some members being a bit touchy when tour operators are mentioned, to them I would say get a life as everyone is entitles to make reasonable comments which I believe mine were.

 

if that was directed at me I was merely trying to avoid you some grief with the moderators by getting a slap on the wrist for violating board guidelines  

[Barry@Preston]

No it wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the people you mentioned who I said shouldn't be so touchy. And I don't believe I did violate the guidelines. As I said there are many similar postings similar to mine, so lets not argue and leave it at that.