Shore excursions on Viking Ocean cruise Viking Homelands

Suggest you go to cruisecritic.com. They should have a roll call for your cruise date. If not you can start one. You can then find other cruisers on the same cruise date and can organize private shore excursions which may be cheaper and more intimate than the large bus excursions organized by the cruise ship. At the very least, you will get goodsuggestions and tips from other like cruisers.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1012

Yes, cruise critic is what I suggest, too. You can check on what to do and see in each port of call, and how to go about it.

I agree with signing up on cruise critic. They have a roll call section that is a social media site for people who are on your specific cruise. They generally plan a meet and greet event early in the cruise. I've never met anyone I wanted to hang out with regularly, but it was nice to feel like you knew someone before you boarded the boat.

That said. I felt like most of the cruise critic patrons use the ship's excursions almost exclusively. I've found that anything that can be done through the ship is available to plan independently for much less money. Without the 60 passenger bus, you can see more, pick the sights you are most interested in, and see them at your pace rather than with a busload of sometimes very slow tourists.

I've scheduled everything from SCUBA diving to private tours with local guides myself and always pay less than half what the ship charges (and have a much better experience).

Can't answer your question about those specific excursions and Alla tours, but if you want to do as Brad says, you can post
a question for each of your stops in the Forum for the specific country. Currently, you can read threads here for places where you'll be stopping, use wikipedia for info on the cities, check Trip Advisor things to do for excursions and guides. I'm doing this for a trans-Atlantic we're taking and have a couple RS guidebooks out of the library right now. Agree with others about Cruise Critic roll call.

By doing your own tour, you'll probably miss being taken to "local craft exhibits" where you are supposed to buy, buy, buy, giving you more time to do what you want to do.

In addition to Cruise Critic, get the book Rick Steves Northern European Cruise Ports (you'll see that many on Cruise Critic will recommend it as well). It has all the details of what you need to do to see each port on your own. You can then decide if you need or want a shore excursion. Many of the Baltic ports are easy to see on your own.

However, for St. Petersburg, you mostly likely want to do either the ship's excursion, or else a private tour (which can be "semi-private" with others), because if you truly do it on your own, you have to get a Russian visa - not cheap or easy. But by going to your Roll Call on Cruise Critic, you can get others to join a private tour, reducing the cost.

If you are booking a St. Petersburg tour, some of the companies offer a discount if you use them for other Baltic ports. In addition to Alla Tour, you'll see recommendations on Cruise Critic for Red October, DenRus, and SPB, among others.

I have been on two Baltic cruises and used Alla both times. First time for their package deal ( 4 or 5 cities for a set price) and second time only for St Petersburg 2 day tour.. Excellent guides in St. Petersburg both times, and other cities excellent to very good guides. She is in St Petersburg. Talking at table one night on the cruise, hearing the other comments,we thought her tour was superior. Hope you enjoy.