It seems that all the major agencies come highly recommended both in
this group and over at cruisecritic.
I remember a thread over at cruisecritic asking to compare them, and the
very sensible response that very few people, if any, had used more than
one and could make a comparison. Usually this is a trip only done once.
And, since people seem very happy with the private tour they took, the
chances are, if they went again, they would use the same company. (I'd
actually be torn between Alla and spb-tours. Our wonderful Alla guide,
Viktoria, confided in us that she had successfully gone through all the
Russian bureaucratic hurdles and was opening her own agency for the next
tourist season. I have unsurprisingly read only glowing reviews of her
agency, spb-tours.)
Anyway, this is our story.Our cruise was in 2007, so things may have
changed since then. I e-mailed the three major agencies expressing my
interest and giving them our ship's name and the dates we would be
there. Red October's reply was that they were on vacation try later.
That eliminated them for me. DenRus sent a reply listing all the
attractions and saying you could customize the tour. Alla sent three
sample tours with various price points depending on how many were on the
tour. She also said any of them could be customized.
I did not feel capable of putting a tour package together through
DenRus, not having any idea how to allocate time for any attraction. I
showed the three Alla tours to my wife. She unhesitatingly took the
comfort tour (although it was a little more expensive than the others
She chose it for the early admission to the Hermitage. It was also the
only with the hydrofoil.
I then e-mailed Alla back stating we were interested in the comfort tour
if I could get a group of at least six together. I asked her permission
to post the tour and price points in my ship's roll call. She gave that
permission. In fact, at all points, she was very cooperative, even with
her answer when I e-mailed her what Princess said in their documents
discouraging private tours.
We eventually put together a group of ten. We made two modifications. at
the request of my art teacher wife, we allocated more time at the
Hermitage. One of our group very much wanted a synagogue added to the
tour. The Crystal Synagogue was added at the end of day 1. We ended up
running out of time on day 1, so we ended up seeing it as our first stop
on day 2. And as Diana wrote in another thread, you can also be flexible
during the tour. Viktoria asked if there was anything not on our tour we
might want to see. I mentioned I had read the subways were interesting.
She agreed. We ended up doing a few subway stops with our driver meeting
us afterwards. She laid out the rubles for the fares and let us know
what we should pay her back in dollars.
Anyway, that's our story, I am hoping to hear how others picked out
their tourist agency.
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