St. Petersburg 2 day shore excursion

We took a 2 day tour of St. Petersburg coming off a ship. Authorized tour agencies can get you into the country without a visa. And there must be 50 or more tour companies offering city tours. TripAdvisor has a listing of the most popular guide companies.
We went with 10 people in an oversized van with a driver and tourguide. We were taken down alleys and back streets in order to get us to the Hermitage and other popular tourist sights before the 50 passenger full size buses get there. And because the smaller tours were so efficient, we saw more sights. The guides are absolutely fantastic in St. Petersburg, and we got a good feeling for how people live there.
It was just a great couple of days, and our weather was very good for the end of August. Don't go after that as the weather gets pretty horrendous--cold and rainy.

I completely agree with David. Me and my family had a wonderful time in St. Petersburg with using a private company!

I can't stress enough how relieving it was to maneuver the city center in a minibus while watching gigantic busses filled with frustrated people trying to park in overcrowded parking lots. We felt so bad for those poor folks.

We used Experience Russia for our tour and we absolutely loved it. Our tour guide was a local who is actually obtaining her PhD degree in the US! Her English was amazing, and her knowledge of art and history was impressive. If you book a tour with experience Russia, ask to have Mira as your guide!

Don't believe the cruise companies when they try to scare you into buying one of their expensive shore excursions. Local companies are great, and are far more enjoyable :) You'll also save a fortune by booking a tour with a local company instead of the cruise ship.

I haven't heard about J-travel in any of the forums. However, we booked the 2 full day excursion with Anastasia travel and we loved how we managed to get in front of the line for the Hermitage, only because we were a group of 8. Whatever you do, make sure you don't book a tour where it's 50 of you, like the cruise lines do.

For all things cruise related, the Cruise Critic site is far superior to Trip Advisor for detailed information on cruising. Here is the link to their Northern European and Baltic Cruises page: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/116-northern-europe-amp-baltic-sea/. There are lots of posts about the many excellent private tour companies in St. Petersburg doing shore excursions.

To answer the OP's question directly, I have never heard of J Travel. Is is possible you mean TJ Travel? TJ is one of the top tour companies for Saint Petersburg, along with Alla, Anastasia, Dancing Bear, Red Sun SPB, and others I can't think of now. All that I mentioned get consistently excellent reviews.

We loved St. Petersburg, that we did on a Vantage River Cruise in 2011.

My Son used Red October while on a Baltic cruise for two days of tours in St. Pete. Tours were excellent.