St. Petersburg Cruise Excursion guides

Though we went to St. Petersburg on a ferry from Helsinki in June last year, I believe the same rules apply to cruise passengers. That is, for stays of less than 72 hours you do not need a visa. Strategy: see TripAdvisor for the top rated local guides or agencies. Examine their websites for the tours they offer and their prices. Choose one and make arrangements via email. We used Alla Tours. I'm sure others that have done a St. Pete cruise stop will be along to share their experiences. Have a great trip.

Galen is partly correct. If you arrive on a cruise ship, spend your overnights on the ship rather than on land, stay less than 72 hours, and either take the ship's land excursions or take a tour from an authorized company, you do not need a visa. But if you go on your own (without being accompanied by a guide from one of the companies that gets a visa "substitute" for you), you do need to get a visa, even if you arrive by cruise. See details on www.Cruisecritic.com (look at their ports review and their message boards - there's lots of info there). Here are some companies that do both group and private tours of St. Petersburg. If you use them, as you can see on their websites, you don't need a separate visa, and (by all accounts on Cruise Critic) you get a much better experience than taking one of the ship's shore excursions. I have no personal experience with any of these: http://www.alla-tour.com/ http://www.denrus.ru/ http://www.redoctober.us/ http://www.spb-tours.com/st-petersburg/en/ On Cruise Critic, you can sign up for the Roll Call for your sailing, so you can join up with others and make up your own tour group, to save money and still get a customized itinerary.

We were happy with Alla tours in 2010. We chose a "strenuous" tour to get away from less ambulatory cruise passengers. The strenous tour involved more walking and no lunch stop, so we packed sandwiches and snacks off the ship. I'm not sure they still offer a strenuous option (too many complaints about no lunch). I thought it was a good value. The tour, which included ten people, a driver and guide, in a 12 passenger van, cost $300 dollars (including tip) each. A visa alone is more than half that. Expect a lot of garbage from the ship, they repeatedly tell you that you won't be able to debark without taking one of their tours. Pure bunk, we were off the ship well before the tours were even formed up in their gathering place. They also say you can't bring food, but the customs person couldn't have cared less (as long as you have the documentation your tour tells you to carry). Another thing that's funny. On day one, customs stuffs a paper ticket inside your passport. At the end of the day, they fine you if you don't have it. On day two, no ticket and they didn't ask for one when we got back. Police are generally considered a corrupt nuisance, something to be avoided, in Russia. Our tour guide breathed a sigh of relief when a policeman on the side of the street didn't pick us to stop. Apparently, if they stop you, it's simply a shakedown to see how much they can get from you. Cruisecritic.com is a good place to start. I think most people there lean heavily toward cruise excursions (which are crowded, slow and expensive in my book) but otherwise there is good information - and a roll call section for people on your specific cruise.

Thanks for the feedback. This is really helpful. I have another question. For customs when you get back on the ship, do they search all of your stuff to see what you are bringing back on the ship? I have heard that is is hard to bring any currency (rubels?) out of the country. We like to bring some coins and small bills back as souveneirs. Will this be possible? What about items purchased in St. Petersburg. Any trouble bringing any of that back on the ship? If so, any tips or tricks on how to hide the currency/coins without being detected?

Although their customs is unlike any other country we've been in, we had no problem taking back the things we bought and some leftover money from our ATM stop on our cruise in 2011. I don't even remember them asking what we had. Go with one of the tour companies listed above and not the ship tour which is crowded and expensive. You can PM if you have any other questions.

I think I already PM'd this; for the thread: They didn't seem overly interested in what we brought back. We had only a small day pack that was clearly far from full. They might have been more interested if we appeared to be carrying a lot. We did bring an assortment of coins as souvenirs. I had heard about Russia's proscription from exporting currency, but they didn't even ask.