St. Petersburg lodging

I am not familiar with that particular hotel. But I can recommend a much cheaper option- a homestay. I had a great room on Nevsky Prospekt for about $40 a night.

I did not have a guide and had no problems getting around the city.

Hi I can't help you with the hotel, as I did 3 Baltic cruises for a total of 6 days in St. Petersburg and had the ship to sleep in

Whether or not you need a guide depends on what transportation you have, how you are doing your visas and your comfort level.

I will say this, you couldn't pay me any amount of money to drive in St. Petersburg...the drivers there were SFO Bay Area, LAX, Boston, NYC, Athens, Cairo drivers all rolled into one city.

I would like to offer a few tips though, we have a personal online travel journal of our trip (no advertising) it's like we met for coffee and I loaned it to you... type of thing.

The address is

ourpassportstamps.com

1st you should consider how many cruise ships are in port when planning your itinerary in St. Petersburg.
There are several sites to help you with that. If you go into our website address below and then into Karen's Cruise Corner I list them and then you will know how many ships will be converging on Peterhof, Catherines Palace, Hermitage and their hours in port.

1. I used Red October for 6 days, I have posted our 2 day itinerary on the website in the St. Petersburg Photo Album section which you can see as a guideline to either use a guide or do it on your own I was very pleased with them. We bypassed every line, and it was wonderful.

2. This city is just WOW, do as much research as you possibly can, check out videos from your library or Netflix..plan on sensory overload and the more you are prepared the more you will enjoy your time there. This city is nothing like any other city you will visit!

3. Weather was all over the board, so plan accordingly. I was bundled in mittens, scarf, etc etc and the next time I was in Capris and a light blouse.

So, if you decide to read about our trips to St. Pete
you will want to look in the Photo section, the where we've been section and for cruise ships in port with you Karen's cruise corner.

If you have any questions please let me know!

We stayed with a family; so I can't recommend accommodations for you, but it is NOT easy to find your way around because you can't read the street signs. Or the subway signs.

We hired a guide and I can recommend your doing that because of the poor conditions of the streets; and a guide can travel across town much faster since he will know the best streets and which ones are one-way.

STPB traffic is not like any city in the West. I would buy a city map first. The subway is efficient and fast; use it when you can.

"but it is NOT easy to find your way around because you can't read the street signs. Or the subway signs." However, you can easily teach yourself the Cyrillic alphabet- it took me about 2 days to learn. You don't have to learn the Russian language, but the ability to roughly pronounce words will help, particularly because certain words important to tourists are similar in Russian and English. For example, "restaurant" has a similar pronunciation, but looks like "PECTOPAH" in Cyrillic.

"STPB traffic is not like any city in the West"- that's the understatment of the year!

very true...

and let me tell you I tipped the driver as much as I tipped the guide...

Seriously, I was mentally making several deals with god throughout the day...

Hi Neighbor, My wife and I stayed at the Nevsky Inn Bed and Breakfast last May. Good budget lodging with a great location at around $100.00 usd a night(they also arranged and registered our visas). We managed to get around pretty good walking and using public transportation. Don't miss Peteroff- We took the hydrofoil ourselves (tip- they did not have any change at the ticket booth so bring exact change as we nearly missed the boat trying to get change).I can recommend a pretty good guide if you like. I hope you are also visiting Moscow as I wish we would have included more days there. Enjoy planning, John & Robin

Hi again, we have tried to e-mail some information to the e-mail address you sent but they keep being rejected. Maybe a typo? John & Robin

My friend and I also stayed at Nevsky Inn along the main street (Nevsky Prospect or Avenue). I arranged it using Hotels.com. It is exactly at the center of the city. Rooms are very small, and they do not have elevators, but nevertheless you are already in the center which was our preference. They also serve free breakfast. It is walking distance to the Winter Palace, and Cathedral of the Spilled Blood, etc. Along the avenue are fast food stalls like McDonalds, Subway, Pizza, KFC, etc. We had dinner at a restaurant a couple of buildings from the Inn, they serve not Russian but Georgian, and the food was great! Across the street is like a mall where you can bargain for amber jewelry and other souvenirs. You can also book tours with the Inn, or with street stalls scattered all over the place. I have just one warning though: while walking right in front of the Inn, a man tried to cover my face with a calendar he was trying to sell while at the same time trying to open my bag. So be very careful.

We stayed in the Petro Palace, one of the top rated hotels in the city and very close to the Hermitage, St Isaacs Cathedral and just 2 block off Nevsky Prospekt...check out the reviews and pictures at the site below...and fyi you should be able to beat the prices shown considerably (we paid about 1/2 what is shown for a very nice double with bath en suite). The hotel was also very helpful with the necessary endorsements to get a visa for your stay in Russia. Breakfast was good and plentiful. I second the caution against gypsie cabs...don't get in one that doesn't have a meter...the hotel will arrange for a legal cab anytime you want to use one, and they were priced very reasonably....

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g298507-d570087-Reviews-Petro_Palace_Hotel-St_Petersburg_North_West_Russia.html