need a private guide recommendation in St. Petersburg

We booked with Alla tours and were satisfied with them - I'd certainly use them again and recommend them to friends. I decided to use them because we read a review from another well-seasoned traveler and his review was favorable. Because of the time difference, email is the best way to contact them - then check later for an answer. It was pretty easy to find them by Googling Alla tours St. Petersburg: www.alla-tour.com

Thanks Brad! I'm checking them out now.

In his new guidebook Northern European Cruise Ports--that just came out--Rick recommends a walking tour company that also provides private guides. It's called Peterswalk, and the website is: www.peterswalk.com

Just used ALLA Tours last month and they are a good choice. They have vans With only 15 or 16 passengers. They were on time, well organized and the guide spoke good English but sometimes you must concentrate to keep up with the conversation. I found them to be reliable. I was on a cruise and chose the two day tour. The tour required no payment until the second day of our tour. I would not hesitate to recommend them and would use them
again. They have other tours in the Baltics.

http://www.spb-tours.com/st-petersburg/en/node Last September 2012 on our Baltic Cruise we used St.Petersburg Tours for 3 days of private tours. Contact Viktoria, the helpful owner. She can match you with others to cut down on costs if you desire. She responds quickly to e-mail. We found their good reviews on the Cruise Critic board. They will do custom tours to match your specific interests such as art, history, music, literature, food etc We had been to St. P before and had seen the major sights so we were looking for the more obscure as my husband studies Russian lit. and history. We had our own tour guide (Alexander) and driver (Max) who were fantastic. Alex had an ipad with old photos and short films he showed whilst traveling or walking. On the middle day we drove first to the Piskarevskoe Memorial Cemetery honoring one-half million WW2 victims (very moving poetry by Olga Bergholtz), Shlisselburg, and a short boat ride (with Russian school kids!) to the ancient Oreshek Fortress (org. 1299) and further outside the city to Lake Ladoga and the WW2 Siege of Leningrad "Road of Life" Museum and Diorama.

We used Alla Tours for 5 ports last summer and our tour guide in St. P was outstanding. Their website is easy to use and secure. We did the 2 day intense tour in St. P - very, very busy but we saw so much. As noted above, we paid by credit card in St. P and no issues whatsoever. Wear your moneybelt in the subways. We learned about them from cruise critic.

Used www.toursbylocals.com and got connected up with Elena Ulko and had a marvelous time sightseeing. Elena has her own tour company now, but at toursbylocals you can read about the various guides and also customer feedback.

Thanks to all! We have booked our tour and will be there in a couple of weeks. wish we had realized earlier than we could have gotten a visa and had a more independent visit there!