evening in st petersburg

[sandyruth]

please ,is it good to do an evening trip after a tiring day in st petersburg?also what do you suggest?we dont want to miss out but dont want to be soooo tired :confused:

[kadsd]

We are on Regatta 7/18/06 and would also like to do one or two evenings in St. Pete. We're thinking of a Folk show one night and dinner in a "typical" restaurant (with gypsy music?) another. It does get complicated after a FULL day of touring.

Which cruise are you on?

Kathy

[JodiBB]

Many people take one of the dinner/show tours at night. My husband and I decided to pass on it. We instead went back to the ship, had dinner in one of the fine dining/specialty restaurants and took in a movie, that was playing in the ship's theatre. We didn't realize how tired we were until we went to bed after the dinner (which was only about 10pm)...we had no regrets NOT taking an evening tour...but everyone who did go said they had a great time!

[sandyruth]

thanks for that,its obviously our choice i dont want a folk show but a concert or something like that, however dinner and bed is best!

[sandyruth]

sorry ,we are on constellation 26 august 2006

[dakrewser]

thanks for that,its obviously our choice i dont want a folk show but a concert or something like that, however dinner and bed is best!

 

The Russian Ballet & Opera web site has all the info you need on performances in Petersburg...

[42trvl]

We were in St. Pete on a cruise last summer. Personally, I was quite exhausted by the end of a full day of touring and very happy to return to the ship. Luckily, our cruise line brought a folk troupe on board one night, so we got to enjoy that in the comfort of our ship. I would have had a hard time going back out for a real concert or ballet. While they have some beautiful theatres, you will already be seeing many beautiful buildings while there and depending on what kind of conerts or ballets you see here, it's hard to say that what is there now is better - it's not like the old Soviet days. I also understand that many of the theatres are not air conditioned and some people coming back from evening theatre said it was quite hot. But, all seemed to enjoy.

[dbh62ark]

We had a sea day following our two-day port stop in St. Petersburg, so we chose to go out for the evening. It was wonderful, so we have no regrets and were not too tired the next day. One of the benefits in addition to the show was that we got to see the buildings all lit up at night, and it was spectacular!

 

Have a great trip,

Donna

[cruisemom42]

We chose to do the special Imperial Evening at Catherine's Palace, since we couldn't fit that into our 2-day overall schedule. It was a highlight of the trip for me. Seeing the rooms lit up at night, hearing the baroque music, and dining next door with a beautiful view of the palace facade (still light at 10pm) was unbelievable.

 

And that was after a full day's worth of sight-seeing (off the ship around 6:30am and not returning until around 5pm).

 

If you want to do the ballet or a concert, just check the schedules carefully. Many of the ballets tour in the summer, for example, and you might end up seeing the third-string performers (albeit in a beautiful setting).

 

Remember, if you choose to do something on your own (a concert or ballet), you WILL need a visa.

[MustangJean]

We did the same thing as CruiseMom - the Imperial Evening. That day, we started our tour at 6:30 am - returned to ship around 5, went on the evening tour at 6:30 returned at midnight. Next day we began the tour at 9:00 am so we had some time to sleep.

 

Yes, it will be hectic - but we were not tired, instead we found it easy to be awake because it was so exciting to be in Russia! We figured we might as well fit as much touring in as we could. The next day was Finland, and we only took a half-day tour and rested the remainder of the day.

 

We had no regrets - I suggest seeing as much as you can.

 

(I also recommend the Imperial Evening if it's on your tour list - it was expensive but worth it!)

[sandyruth]

thanks for you comments,the imperial evening sound great we may just have to do that however tired we are

[evoni]

The Imperial Evening sounds wonderful to me too. It seems to be an evening excursion offered by Princess. Unfortunately Celebrity (we are on the Constellation this summer) doesn't offer that excursion and DenRus told me they couldn't book it either.

 

Diana

[cruisemom42]

The Imperial Evening sounds wonderful to me too. It seems to be an evening excursion offered by Princess. Unfortunately Celebrity (we are on the Constellation this summer) doesn't offer that excursion and DenRus told me they couldn't book it either.

 

Diana

 

 

Perhaps you can double check if Celebrity offers it under a different name? We were there last May and I know for a fact that there were Celebrity passengers as well as Princess passengers in the large concert room at the palace -- although I think they might have gone to a different restaurant afterwards (seems like the group was smaller....but after such a long day and a couple of shots of Russian vodka, who can remember???)

[RJG1011]

We went last summer and toured with Red Oct. We opted for the folklore show and it was FABULOUS. I highly recommend it unless you are going in June when you can do a White Nights cruise. Don't do that after early July. We got stuck in traffic and wouldn't have much time if we returned to our ship. We opted to stay out and our guide took us to a store with a great lounge with lots of comfortable chairs, clean restrooms and chocolate and Vodka. We rested there and then continued on to the show. We had eaten lunch in a Russian restaurant as part of our tour, so missing dinner was not a problem. The ship served dinner late that night,so we went upstairs and at at the buffet when we returned at 11 PM. We were off at 7:30 the next morning for more touring. Yes, we were tired, but we figured we had so little time, we wanted to see as much as possible. It was well worth it.