by AirForce54
The best two days - make them count. The city is just gorgeous and filled with art and rich in history! I'd say - the highlight of my trip!
Visited: Jul 16, 2017
by Erin08
We were excited to visit St. Petersburg and arranged three excursions: 2 half-day trips (each half day being about 5 hours) and a night-time drawbridge excursion through the cruise ship company. St. Petersburg is massive and fascinating and full of history. We specifically signed up for the half day trips rather than the full day trips because we thought two full day trips was excessive both from an overkill perspective and a stamina perspective (and we are fit)(if you're a history buff and want to soak up as much as possible and see as many sites as possible it might be for you). The first day was a small group (8 hour) on a small bus with a terrific guide (Maria) and driver (Nick). We got on and off the bus several times and had a good hour tour around the Peter and Paul Fortress and another hour at the Church of the Spilled Blood (beautiful and amazing!). Maria is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic and her English is excellent. Traffic into and out of town from the cruise ship ate into our allotted time on both days, and the disembarkation process the first day was tailored to passengers who had booked excursions through Celebrity. We had read a prior review saying everyone could get off at the same time, but Celebrity seems to have changed its organization for this port of call since that review. Celebrity excursion passengers were allowed off first, and all others had to queue for "tickets" to disembark subsequently in groups (we were group 6 of 16). Passport control was easy the first day because enough of the booths were staffed. The other 6 folks on our tour had to wait for us to disembark before we could take off on our first day. There was no way to coordinate with these folks ahead of time to know we were on the same tour and coordinate our disembarkation. The second half day tour was with the same folks so we came up with a plan to have one person get the same non-Celebrity excursion disembarkation group "tickets" for the second day so we could get a timely start, only to find out that everyone could simply walk off the ship the second day and go through passport control again (which was easier the second time). All 8 of us met up early at 8:30 for the 9:00 meeting with our guide. Trouble here was that unbeknownst to us, the tour company had picked up 6 other people from a different cruise line and didn't get to us until 9:30. Their "first day of St. Petersburg" was our "second day of St. Petersburg" so we heard a lot of the same thing from the guide (but made different stops). Our focus for the second day was Peterhof, the summer palace outside of town. Maria decided to add in a brief stop at St. Isaac's Cathedral and at a souvenir shop (our only one) before heading out of town to get to Peterhof. Most of us were appreciative of that even though traffic was thick and parking was nearly impossible. It took quite a while to get out of town and head out to Peterhof, and at one point, traffic came to a standstill due to an accident. One of the folks who had joined our tour from the other cruise ship publicly criticized Maria as if it were her fault that we were running behind and hit traffic and wanted to know how we were going to make up time, or if the tour would be extended. She was extremely rude and thoughtless to criticize our guide who was clearly affected by this person but made the best of it. We had about an hour to tour the grounds of Peterhof with Maria guiding again. What a beautiful place. If you can find an excursion that allows for more dedicated time here, take it. One hour was just enough to have a pleasant stroll, take in the beauty and be on our way. I managed to grab a one Euro program/guide in English on the way in. All other souvenir kiosks were limited in their English versions which cost seven Euro. One suggestion for this port: get rubles if you can from a currency exchange place before you travel. We were told before the cruise that most places would accept Euros, but several places would not, and we missed getting specific souvenirs at those places. Folks simply refused to accept Euros. I don't have the description of this excursion in front of me, but another passenger and I both thought that a stop for lunch was included on both half day tours. There was no stop for lunch so either eat a filling breakfast and/or bring your own snacks and drinks along for these days).
Visited: Jul 25, 2018
by hindenm
Worth the trip just to be in st. Petersburg for 2 days absolutely astounding location would recommend it to everyone. Amazing architecture and the colours are unbelievable a real eye opener to see such wealth in Russia and so well preserved even after 80 years of communist rule
by MicTob0906
Amazing country. People are so friendly, and quite funny as well.. We took the excursion to The Metro's, and it was great! Exciting, historic, beautiful - and our guide was so good and very funny. After the Metro tour, the guide took us for a short walk in the city, and what a fantastic city! All in all, St. Petersburg is worth visiting 🇷🇺🇷🇺
by patrickconnerly
River/canal cruise was the best. Sooo much fun and great music.
Visited: Jul 01, 2018
by momfalc
The first day we did the included tour of St. Petersburg which was a bus tour. St. Petersburg is absolutely breathtaking in its opulence. The second day we did a tour of Yusupov's Palace. This is the palace where Rasputin was killed. The palace is very beautiful and hard to imagine people actually lived here with all these riches.
Visited: Apr 25, 2019
by greekmba
St. Petersburg, Russia, was the main reason we went on the Baltic cruise, and we enjoyed the palaces and the Hermitage Museum, as well as the input from our Russian guide.
Visited: Jun 16, 2019
by MJGiebels
Our favorite port on the Baltic Cruise! Highly recommend SPB Tours and don't miss out on the "party like a local" excursion night 1 - it was FANTASTIC! Here's a video of our trip: https://youtu.be/xzi585C9V8s
by danlo
Tiring for a 3 days excursions but lots to see.
Visited: Jun 02, 2019
by thomastx
While NCL has improved the process of getting off the ship on Day 1, it still seems exasperatingly mishandled and slow, and designed to punish passengers who have not overpaid by 3x to take an NCL excursion. This is further amplified by the freedom they give you on Day 2, where the process takes 3-5 minutes. NCL sits you in the theater, and slowly let you flow out, while the whole time blaming Russian authorities. But once you escape from NCL's grasp, St. Petersburg has more to see than you can do in two days, or even four. We were letdown slightly in that the city as a whole seems to be never maintained or kept up. Russians keep fresh flowers planted in boxes lining every street, and let every other aspect of the buildings fall into massive disrepair and needing a coat of paint everywhere you look. It seems that nothing is maintained or cleaned (except for the exquisite Metro stations and The Hermitage). The trek to Pushkin to see Catherine's Palace did not seem worth the long drive. It is also in major disrepair, and we would have more enjoyed staying in town and seeing more of the Hermitage. Church on Spilled Blood is an amazing sight, and quickly seen in 30 minutes. However there is an overall feeling in the city of being oppressed, poor, and our guide had to remind us every 15 minutes to guard our pockets. Even so, we never felt unsafe or saw any signs of pickpockets or similar activity. If you don't have your own Russian visa, you have to take a paid excursion. We used Best Guides, and we were completely pleased with them. We paid $210 each for two days and hit all of the big highlights including lunch, and had 10 people in the group transported in a new, clean Mercedes van. Our driver pretty much parked at the front door everywhere we went, and we had early entry in Hermitage, Catherine's Palace, Peterhof, Spilled Blood Cathedral, etc. We never waited for more than 5 minutes to get in anywhere, and beat the crowds. At some sights where we walked right in, we saw literally 400 people or more in line to get in who we skipped right past. NCL excursions were 3-4x more costly, and you were on a big bus with 50-60 other people.
Visited: Jul 23, 2018
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