we are going on constellation 26 aug 2006 from dover and want to use denrus for our tours but if there is a group that might like to join us for a smaller group, please contact us,we want to visit the synagogue even for a short while which most trips dont cover plus everything else and we would get denrus to organise this ,i have been in contact them and they will individualise this for a group

I have difficulties to get answers and quotes from Denrus and other companies in SP, do not you?

quote:

Originally posted by Normandie-BCN:
I have difficulties to get answers and quotes from Denrus and other companies in SP, do not you?

Denrus had a fire in the building next door. All phone lines etc. were knocked out. Should be up and running now.

Yes, the fiber optic lines for the building were burned on Jan 6th but all is repaired now and all the staff is back from the traditional 2 week New Years Holiday off period. It took two weeks to resolve because everybody, even emergency repair techs were off work for a couple weeks. That would explain why other companies were also not easy to get ahold of.

its sandyruth again ,are there no other cruisers for this date? 26th august 2006 from dover,please reply if you are joining us and want to use denrus for a 2 day tour

i have emailed denrus but they havent replied ,as i also emailed red october and they replied straight away i think i will use them,denrus dont want the business obviously.we need a group of 10 to make it most economical ,so please contact me if you want to join us, 26 august 2006 constellation

quote:

Originally posted by sandyruth:
i have emailed denrus but they havent replied ,as i also emailed red october and they replied straight away i think i will use them,denrus dont want the business obviously.we need a group of 10 to make it most economical ,so please contact me if you want to join us, 26 august 2006 constellation

Hello Sandyruth
When did you send an email? And which address because there is a whole staff doing nothing but answering emails everyday. I suspect the message may have not been delivered, as often happens due to the .RU TLD. I can't even get messages to my parents from Russian because they are on AOL and AOL does not like getting messages or forwarding them to many places.
Contact Olga T at OlgaT@denrus.ru to get directly to the office manager or denrus@denrus.ru for the normal address. I assure you, no one was ignoring your letter if it arrived or if they replied you did not get it. Many Spam filters at ISP, like AOL and HOTMAIL swallow a lot of emails, about 1/3 according to recent industry technical experts. When trying to kill spam, the legitimate mail often gets tossed by ISPs now.
DenRus even has a Florida phone mumber that is digitally transfered to St Petersburg for direct access without calling Russia. It is 1-561-459-5534, but note that there is a 8 hour time difference between St Petersburg and the East Coast of the US.
It would be a shame to miss out on a better program due to a missing email.

1st time trying out one of these chat rooms, so here goes.. have been reading posts re Den Rus. Will be arriving via Star Princess June 8 and June 9.
Seriously considering the 2-day with lunches included thru Den Rus for the wife and me @ $265 each instead of going direct thru the ship @ $332 each.
Have been on 10+ cruises, so know the drill on exursions. One of the reasons for going thru the ship is gaurantee that the ship does not leave without me (and the wife too I suppose ).
Though I am sure St Petersburg (can I call it St Pete for short?) is a lovely place to stay for awhile, esp. in the Summer, I am quite concerned about not making the ship before it set sails down to Estonia. Then there's always the caos that ensues when every one goes ashore at the same time. Where's my tour company among the masses gathering here? I assume tenders are not required; not like over in Nynasham (pay $72 for a bus ride to Stockholm vs. about $15 USD for a train after waiting on tours to leave the ship 1st- what a racket- but that's a story for another chat room).
Has anyone out there gone thru Den Rus on this 2-day package deal instead of a ship's tour? Is there any less mass confusion, crowds and long lines at the "must see sites" by going thru Den Rus instead of the ship's tour?
How's getting back to the ship on the 2nd day? What's traffic like on a Friday pm in June? Any stories of passengers not making it back to the ship?
Suppose would have to be a mean captain to leave knowing that a bus full of passengers who booked thru a separate tour company than the ship's are not back yet.
Would hate to be the one running down the pier as the ship is pulling away while everyone on board is cheering me on to jump.
Please tell me I am just being plain old too paranoid about this.
So, can someone such as StanJ here talk me into going with Den Rus instead of the ship's tour company and save about $135, which is just enough to cover the bar bill on the day at sea.
jp.yeager@gmail.com

Hi Fla Fan,
I too have worried about getting back to the ship. People who do not go on the ships tour of St. Pete will get off the ship after everyone else. I had a reply fron Den Rus and my understanding is you will need to get a Visa, or a letter from them, which is not a problem but added to the cost of the tour. For a US citizen it is $120 + $265 =$385. I am very confused at this time what to do! Wish you were going before me! My tour on Princess leaves May 15, 2006.

Really I think Den Rus is very professional and they will get you back to the ship on time! They cannot run the risk of ANYONE being left off the ship. Just make sure you have ALL the correct papers prior to leaving! If i was traveling with a man I would definitely take the Den Rus, but we are two women and I think it is better for us to take the ship tours.
I am open for suggestions!

Hello Cruisers
I know there is confusion and concern about chaos and getting back. The very first thing is to Relax. Independent tour companies and the ship tour company are the same companies. There are 4 which have the permissions and authorizations to pick cruisers up at their ship and to provide tours without visas. The ship can not do this so they contract with one of these tour companies. It varies between ships but about 80% of those going ashore do so on the ship sold tours and the rest go on what is refered to as independent company tours. All the companies who do provide tours are unrelated to the ship so even the ship tours are conducted by these same "independent" companies. You can image the potential chaos in forming 2000 or mor e people into their proper groups and loaded onto buses, 40-80 47 passenger buses all at once. Since it takes the ship a long time to organize it, this delay creates the perfect time for independent tours to start up to 1.5 hours before the ship tours. You as an independent tour member do not have to wait for the ship, as soon as the Russian customs officials "clear" the ship at about 7:00-7:30 a.m., just walk off with your tour ticket, passport and photocopy of your passport information page. That is it. You will not only avoid the chaos of the other 2,000 passengers trying to all get through passport control and loaded on the correct bus or unload and get on the Really correct bus, but you also get 1.5 more hours of touring and activities in the city.
So besides costing less, having smaller private groups, with more personal experiences, you get to see a lot more on the independent tours. They are also much more flexible. If you are having fun in a galllery and want to stay a little longer or need to find that special gift for back home, you can, it is your tour, your guide and your driver.
The tour companies have back up plans in place for the unexpected which could cause delays in getting back to the ship. At DenRus there are extra vehicles and dirvers stationed in strategic locations to be able to replace a vehicle with a flat tire or dead battery, or in a museum if there is one person who become ill, the tour does not need to stop, the affected person is taken care of by a liason person from the agency who is in radio contact with the guides and one of the spare vehicles is used to transport the person to the ship or hospital as needed.
I've asked some of the old timers here how often a person has missed their ship departure and I was told none have missed in the last 10 years from organized tours but occassionally someone with an individual visa gets carried away with exploring on their own and forgets the time. Even in that case, the tardy person is taken by private car to the next port to wait for the ship to arrive. All that is missed is a ship's dinner but more time is permitted for a local dinner which likely would be more interesting anyway. I've been here 3 years and never even heard of one of those types of ship misses from any of the main tour companies. If anything, the ship tours are much more liable to be delayed solely due to the fact that the buses can get stuck in traffic much easier with fewer alternative routes to bypass traffic. A van with a professional driver can find a path around any congestion where a bus could not.
The question of visas:
As a cruise ship passenger arriving on an international cruise ship, staying in port less than 72 hours, holding a valid passport and being hosted by an authorized tour company, NO VISA is required. To explore on your own without a guide you do need a visa. The ship crew needs a visa but the passengers do not. Book a tour with an authorized tour company and have their Tour Ticket to show to passport control and you are free to go. That is it. The tour company will provide a list of those who are booked with them to passport control in advance to the whole process takes 5-10 seconds. If you did have a visa it would take much longer, as it does in airports.
Whew...I am tired of typing....any questions? ;>

Thanks for the prompt and very informative reply, Stan.
The NO VISA required + a "fast pass" at arrival puts Den Rus clearly in the lead.
I have sent an email to Olga T. to ask a few ?'s before booking.
So, anyone know of someone as helpful as Stan who can comment on the pros & cons of touring on your own vs. ship tours vs. independent tours at other ports on the Baltic? I can start the ball rolling by putting in my 2 cents in the forum for Helsinki, if there is one, because I was there for 3 weeks about 5 yrs ago.

Hi FlaFan
The Baltics ports are generally very easy to navigate on your own due to how much English is spoken, how westernized everything is and no visa requirement so few larger organized tour companies have catered to the cruisers. There are independent tours operators in most ports but they are "casuals" meaning they can be booked at the time by just getting on their bus/van and going. Because there is so little regulation, immigration processing and venues to have required contracts with, the tours are cheap, even in expensive cities such as Helsinki or Stockholm. The biggest problem are those ports where the ship needs to tender the passengers. On those, the ship has complete control and often restricts people from leaving witha booked tour with them.
Ships are not quite as greedy as they seem, the are just making up for advertizing a cabin for cost or below, knowing that is what we customers look for in buying anything more expensive than a hamburger. They sell cabins cheaper than equivalent hotels costs so make it up on the Shipboard account and shore excursions. In this case St Petersburg is a gold mine for them because they get 60-80% of the selling price as commission for their programs. Several lines have 8 passenger vans, a guide and driver they offer in their catalogs for $2400 or more..for 8 hours!, or $4800 for two days. Of that $4000 of more is commission. That makes up for the bargain cabin price several times over and accounts for the $Billion new ships being built if multiplied by the hundreds of destinations ports and millions of cruisers visiting them.
So you can get a bargain cabin, hold off on the spa treatments and extra drinks, find good private deals on excursions and make the whole cruise one of the best vacations deals around.
Have fun, time for me to go home, it is 10pm in St Petersburg and I still have not had lunch ;>(

Stanj: I am new to CruiseChat and have appreciated your knowledge of Saint Petersburg.
I have been communicating by email with Natalie at Denrus. My last email seems to be taking a while to get a response. How long does it usually take? She has been very helpful and I want to be sure she received my last post.

Hello bjsmom
I asked Natalia how back up she was and she indicated about one day. If you did not get a reply in a day there is a good chance the last message was either no received in Russia or more likely there was a response but overly aggressive spam filters used by your ISP may have blocked it. That happens a lot now that most traffic on the web is Spam, and most aggressive filters error on the false positive side. Try sending your message again, I am sure she is not ignoring messages. Or address it to denrus@denus.ru and it will be responded to by the first person who is free. There are 5 who primarily customize tours via email conversations with visitors, any will be happy to answer your questions or fine tune the tour you have in mind.
If you have a question for me, my personal email is fit@denrus.ru or stan@nevanet.net
Unfortunately I do not know from your screen name how to look up your information or program.

HAPPY EASTER & HAPPY SPRING STAN

Hope all is well.
I am sure that you are gearing up for the warmer weather just as I am.
Still telling everyone of my fabulous time in SP.
Now in countdown for my July Greek Isles cruise.
Sorry I have not been in touch for some time.

Take Care,

Cathy

Hi Stan,

Can you advise on the temperature for SP and the Baltics in July? Not really sure on how to pack? Warm days? Cool nights, bring a light coat?

Thanks for your advise.
Daphna

Stan, Love to read yr message and loads of information about Russia. We have a group of 2 couples will be in Rotterdam IV from June 10 to June 22 to Baltic Sea. We would like to join the independent excusions in order to cut down the cost. Pls adv. how we could meet with other passengers and if possible to join them.

This is such a great thread! We contacted DenRus and got a response the next morning. We would like to set up a nearly private tour with the 4 of us and are looking for a couple of other people to join us - Anybody interested??

We arrive in St. Petersburg July 20 on the Holland America Rotterdam. We're arranging a 2 day tour of some highlights and would like to find a compatible person/couple to join us on tour. That will bring the price to around $360 per person. You can email me at nancywebb1@aol.com if you are interested.

Thanks,
Nancy

I just want to say that if you are planning to take a private tour, ask your tour operator to take you to DK(Dom kul’turi) Krupskoj to purchase all of your souvenirs. I am originally from St Petersburg, Russia, although now live in United States. Whenever I go back, that’s where I purchase all of the souvenirs. It’s like going to a huge bazaar with lots of vendors. You can find everything there and it’s not that far away from the center, so you really wouldn’t spend too much time and will save lots of money.

I also noted that not one person mentioned actually taking a subway. Subway is beautiful, full of marble and granite, it’s like going into the museum, also very clean and safe. Even if you are taking a private tour, ask them to take you around and show you some of the best known subway stations, they are amazing.

Enjoy! St Petersburg is a beautiful city and you will have the best time.