The ship will dock in St Petersburg from 08.00 am till midnight.

The 2007 brochure gives only a brief description of a 9-hour tour highlights & visit to a museum.

Are there any other tours provided by Costa and what is the price for them in Euros ? ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

costacruises.co.uk lists 12 tours for your particular cruise with prices in Euros.

If I was there for one day I'd do the 'PETRODVORETS AND THE HERMITAGE' 9 hour excursion (114 Euros). Both are 'must Sees'. You may also be able to do the evening 'Ballet' too (56 Euros) which tends to be a 'popular' Ballet, such as Swan Lake (or similar) in a beautiful theatre. (Although I recall the seats were hard in my case).

All of the excursions tend to be quite expensive. I've see passengers obtain a visa in advance of the cruise and do there own St. Petersburgtours, by hiring a Taxi for a day at the dock side, for a fraction of the cost.

All the other Baltic ports are easy to tour on foot, by bus/tram or cab cheaply, so the excursions are not so essential.

[ 07-08-2007: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]

Malcolm, we did find the list late last night and have studied it.
We don't know yet if we would make a 9 hour excursion or stock with a 1/2 day excursion.

There are two 3 1/2 hour excursions which are very interesting.
1. The Yusupov Palace and returning to St Petersburg by boat.
2. Tour of St Petersburg, visiting (seeing) the Winterpalace, Cathedral of the Resurrection and Peter-Paul Fortress.

On Marco Polo we heard stories about the excursions visiting the Hermitage in a rush and that is just what we don't like in a museum.

On Costa's website we found one can book an excursion up till 5 days prior to sailingdate.

This Baltic cruise is now # 1 on our list for next year. The other cruises we considere are Century sailing around Scotland and England and MSC Armonia to the Northcape.
These two ships are bigger than Costa Marina and as long as it it possible we would like to sail those smaller ships.

quote:

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Originally posted by Willem:
On Marco Polo we heard stories about the excursions visiting the Hermitage in a rush and that is just what we don't like in a museum.

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The Museum is so big with so many works of art, all tours of it are 'rushed'. The museum itself is a work of art.

The Hermitage is a "must", and in a way best with a tour, as this way you can jump queues(at least we did) and there are long queues. As for rushing, there is so much to seeyou will see only the highlights(depending on the guide) but surely it will be the Rembrandt paintings and the impressionists. Apart from this, the Hermitage is a palace.

Try to look for a tour, with a tour of the city itself, so you can see at least the outside of many famous building, or one with some time to wander around;

quote:

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Originally posted by Johan:

As for rushing, there is so much to seeyou will see only the highlights(depending on the guide) but surely it will be the Rembrandt paintings and the impressionists. Apart from this, the Hermitage is a palace.

J

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Oh dear, if they will only show us the paintings of Rembrandt and the impressionists, than we will skip the Hermitage ;-( for we are not interested in paintings (except some maritime paintings).

I guess it will be tour nr 2 which I mentioned before.

Anyway, it is not sure yet, as the cruiseprice jumped up with Euro 70,-- in one day :-(( And that is just on the cheapest category.

Thanks all for the advices.

Mail me privetaly. Your wanadoo-address is bouncing.

quote:

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Originally posted by HendrikusOM:
Hoi Willem,
sorry, I forgot to update my email-address.
Works allright now !!
Hendrikus

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Tried to send it again to your wanadoo-address

Look in your mailbox.

Willem

[ 07-20-2007: Message edited by: Willem ]