Private car/tour recommendations Baltic Cruise

[sashas_mom]

Since I now have limited walking because of a foot injury, I'm concerned about the excursions for our Copenhagen to St. Petersburg cruise next year. Especially after reading some posts about the lack of help for

disabled people in Europe. I've always had so much help in figuring things out on these boards (thanks to Splinter...Hi there :) ), anyone have experience with private tours they can recommend?

Sasha'smom

[Sharon Lee]

Hi, Sasha'smom! We just got back from Rotterdam's Best of the Baltic's tour with my mid-80s parents. We mostly did "easy" shore excursions with them except for St. Petersburg where we were lucky to find Liberty Tours who specialize in tours for people with disabilities. My parents can both walk but not very well or very fast and both use a wheelchair to travel longer distances. Liberty has wheel chair vans but we just used their regular van, we had a ten passenger van all to ourselves for 4 of us. The driver, Serge (sp?), and guide, Olga, were both fantastic! Olga's English was excellent and she was very knowledgeable and personable. They were both extremely helpful and solicitous with my folks. Olga knew which places we could tackle and where all the restrooms were. It was helpful that my folks could walk a little bit, for short staircases mostly. But the Hermitage has a wheelchair lift for the short staircase in the entrance and elevators inside. Catharine's Palace was the most difficult with a longer staircase but they did allow the wheelchair inside. I can't recommend Liberty Tours highly enough. Natalia, who I discussed the tour with through email, was very helpful and rearranged the tour schedules several times to my specifications. And, all this was not expensive compared to HAL's shore excursions. We had two full days including lunches with van, driver and guide at an average of $150.00/person per day. This would have been less expensive but we kept adding things to her original schedule. Let me know if you have any questions - I would be happy to answer them. ~Sharon

 

Since I now have limited walking because of a foot injury' date=' I'm concerned about the excursions for our Copenhagen to St. Petersburg cruise next year. Especially after reading some posts about the lack of help for

disabled people in Europe. I've always had so much help in figuring things out on these boards (thanks to Splinter...Hi there :) ), anyone have experience with private tours they can recommend?

Sasha'smom[/quote']

[sashas_mom]

Hi Sharon,

 

You're a doll!!! Thanks so much for posting this information I really appreciate it. I will keep your suggestion in my file.

 

How long in advance did you book them and did you give them a deposit? Did you need a Visa or did they have one that covered you? Would I have to come up with more people for the van, or do they partner you with others?

 

Thanks again,

Eileen

[Sharon Lee]

Hi, Eileen!

Your are most welcome! Here is Liberty Tours email address: info@libertytour.ru

I think I started corresponding with them about two months in advance of our trip. They are evidently a fairly new organization, started by three women! Not only did they not ask for a deposit but I didn't have to pay them until the end of the second day of touring. Here is what Natalia said about payment and Visas: "For preparing your tour-tickets I need some information about you (4): name, birth date, birth place, citizenship, passport serial number, passport validity, ship’s name. You may just send us by fax (+7 812-375-80-67) or e-mail the copy of the passports. What about payment - usually it is made to a guide before or after the

tour by cash. But if you don't like to have a deal with cash you may pay

by bank transfer beforehead (if so - just tell us - and we will send you

the bill with our bank requisites)." She emailed us tour tickets which we printed out and presented to Russian customs with our passports. So, no, you don't need a visa if you travel with an accredited Russian tour company, they will handle the visa but you do have to give them all your passport information. This made me very nervous so I emailed the info rather than sending a copy. For the same reason I didn't want to send a bank transfer so we paid in cash. As it turned out all my worries were for naught, they are entirely honest as far as I could tell. The prices she gave me originally were in Euros but she was happy to accept the payment in US dollars. We also tipped Serge and Olga in US dollars. I don't know how they would work the van if you are traveling by yourself. There were four of us and they gave us a 10 passenger van with no other people. The price didn't seem to change based on the van not being full. However, I would imagine that your per person price would probably be cheaper if you found a few more people to travel with you. I have to say that my husband and I can walk fine and the tours, although a bit slower to accommodate my parents, were perfectly fine for us. So if you had some friends who wanted to go with you they wouldn't miss out anything for being on this "disability" tour. And it would most likely end up being a lot less expensive than the ship's tours. Here is our schedule:

Day 1 (06.07.2007)

9.30 a.m. -10:30 a.m. - city tour, part 1

10:30 p.m. -1:00 p.m.- the Hermitage (2.5 h)

1:0 p.m – 2:00 p.m. – lunch

2:00 p.m. – 5.30 p.m. - city tour, part 2, with visit of Peter and Paul

Fortress & Cathedral

Total approximate time - 8 hours.

 

Day 2 (07.06.2007)

9.30 a. m. – 1:00 p.m. - Catharine’s palace in Pushkin

1:00 p. m. - 2:00 p. m. - lunch

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. - drive back to St. Petersburg

3.00 p.m – 4.00 p.m. – Bleeding Savior Church

Total approximate time - 7 hours.

 

This is all very flexible. Our driver and guide were willing to do anything we wanted within reason and traffic jams made some of the timing off a bit. We stopped often on the city tour and got out of the van to go into some churches. St. Nicholas' Cathedral was the most notable as there was a service going on when we went in with the most beautiful choir singing! This was our first stop on the first day and I would have been happy to stop touring right then, magical! Olga was a wonderful guide, full of information and happy to answer questions.

I hope this helps!

~Sharon

 

Hi Sharon' date='

 

You're a doll!!! Thanks so much for posting this information I really appreciate it. I will keep your suggestion in my file.

 

How long in advance did you book them and did you give them a deposit? Did you need a Visa or did they have one that covered you? Would I have to come up with more people for the van, or do they partner you with others?

 

Thanks again,

Eileen[/quote']

[sashas_mom]

This is fantastic! Thank you again for taking the time to write all of this.

 

Were they just outside the ship with a sign or something? How did you meet up with them?

 

I don't usually do private tours on a cruise because of my fear of not getting back to the ship in time and being left behind due to heavy traffic or something (which wouldn't be a concern the first day since the ship is staying overnight, but on the second day did that concern you? What time did your ship leave St. Petersburg? Does it matter which cruise line it is? We're using Princess.

 

Thanks again,

Eileen

[Sharon Lee]

Hi, Eileen,

The guide was supposed to meet us in the morning after customs with a sign saying "Liberty Tours" but we were taking so long because of some crew members trying to get through customs that Olga came right into the customs shed and really got things going. We were supposed to meet her at 9:30am which is after all the HAL tours left so it should have been quick but we didn't take into account that the crew would take longer to clear.

I agree with you, I don't normally do private tours either but HAL was asking so much for their tours and there was no guarantee that my folks would be able to see anything with a HAL tour because of their very slow walking that I was kind of forced into it. I am very glad I did! I found Liberty Tours mentioned earlier in this forum. I was concerned about getting back on time but I mentioned the times to Natalia so that our driver and guide knew what time we had to be back and their were very careful to take the traffic congestion into account. The Rotterdam sailed at 6pm on the second day so we should have been back by 5:30pm but I misremembered the time and told Olga that we had to be back by 4:30pm and we were, right on the button! So we lost an hour of touring but that was fine as we were all tired after two solid days of looking at massive yellow buildings and resplendent churches! I have only sailed with HAL so I can't tell you how Princess works but I would imagine it would be much the same. You could check with the Roll Call for your cruise and see if anyone there has any thoughts on the subject.

Olga, our guide, also works with another tour company (walking and bike tours) and as an interpreter, her English is excellent. You can contact her directly at: Olga Maximenkova, olgaruda@rambler.ru.

Please feel free to mention my recommendation to either Liberty Tours or to Olga if you contact either one.

I know you will have a great time whatever you decide to do! ~Sharon

 

 

 

This is fantastic! Thank you again for taking the time to write all of this.

 

Were they just outside the ship with a sign or something? How did you meet up with them?

 

I don't usually do private tours on a cruise because of my fear of not getting back to the ship in time and being left behind due to heavy traffic or something (which wouldn't be a concern the first day since the ship is staying overnight' date=' but on the second day did that concern you? What time did your ship leave St. Petersburg? Does it matter which cruise line it is? We're using Princess.

 

Thanks again,

Eileen[/quote']

[sashas_mom]

Thanks again, Sharon,

 

This has been very helpful.

 

Eileen