concerned cruiser - Page 2 - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

TerilynnS · 02-06-2006, 11:37 AM

HI Tom: DH and I are using ship sponsored excursions for the ports with the excpetion of St. Petersburg and Oslo. We're doing Oslo on our own and St. Petersburg with a private tour group.....

Sorry we will miss you, we'll be getting off the ship right when you are waiting to board! Promise we will leave her in good condition!

JodiBB · 02-06-2006, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jill_B

All the companies have full refund policies(except R.O. which uses a sales agent in the US who takes the non-refundable deposit as his commission) so there is no worry about cancellations.

this is not entirely true...if you book through the US site, this might be the case, but you can book through the Russia office directly and not pay a dime until the conclusion of your tour (on the 2nd day)...My guess is that Jill dealt with the US office, which is the reasons for her negative experience. We dealt with Olga (othe owner of the company) with all of our questions, changes in itineraries, etc. and didn't have a single negative experience throughout the whole research process with her.

Had our questions and concerns not been dealt with appropriately, we also would've probably gone with another company, but Olga was SO professional, that all our concerns and questions were dealt with accordingly...

Jill_B · 02-07-2006, 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JodiBB

this is not entirely true...if you book through the US site, this might be the case, but you can book through the Russia office directly and not pay a dime until the conclusion of your tour (on the 2nd day)...My guess is that Jill dealt with the US office, which is the reasons for her negative experience. We dealt with Olga (othe owner of the company) with all of our questions, changes in itineraries, etc. and didn't have a single negative experience throughout the whole research process with her.

Had our questions and concerns not been dealt with appropriately, we also would've probably gone with another company, but Olga was SO professional, that all our concerns and questions were dealt with accordingly...

I am not sure why you are saying it was not true, the posted address to the R.O. on this forum is the US agent so it is expected that that is the access to the company. But I discovered quite quickly that my questions could not be answered by "Mike" so I did communicate with the office in Russia and that is where the false claims came from. Just a few examples: I asked for specific highly recommended restaurants be included in our tour and was told directly that all restaurants in St Petersburg are dangerous except for a few on their special list so we could only go there. I later learned from others that they were told the same thing and the reason why all the quality restaurants, including one in the Europe hotel, was "dangerous" is because R.O. gets a kickback from their short list of restaurants for each group they bring. obviously they were less interested in my tour than their income. They ignored that I found that all restaurants pass stringent health inspections on a monthly basis and it is one of the safest places in Europe to eat out. They knew that but told me a lie.
Another example was a high priority was the canal cruise and I was told all the boats are unsafe except their own boat company and only 20 or more passengers booking at a time can go. This is a total lie, all the boat I found out are certified as seaworthy every month or they are not allowed to accept passengers. I had to agree to paying for 20 passengers or no canal cruise. That was also a lie, maybe that one boat operator gives them a kickback on 20 passengers but there are lots of modern well run boats on the canals and we had a great cruise with one of them through DenRus who did not lie to us.
I wanted to shop for Lomonosov china and asked about shopping stops in nice shops and was told that it was not safe to shop anywhere but their own Red October store that every tour member has to go to. Comparing notes with others who did go there, and waste a lot of extra time going out of their way to visit the unwanted shop, the prices and selection was poor compared to the rest of the city. I saved enough through DenRus to pay for the extra places settings I sought of Blue Cobalt china. If I believed R.O. not only would I have paid more for the tour but also lost out in seeing the things we wanted to most because of their desire to squeeze every penny out of us.
I had great communications with truthful candid answers to my questions from DenRus and Baltic Travel and would have no problem recommending them to anyone.
The list of insincere answers and downright false claims from R.O. St Petersburg office is pretty long but I will not bore the forum with details. You liked your tour, that is fine but those of us who talked to them all had something to compare. There are others I talked with but were less enthusiastic about their responses but they were still better than what R.O. wrote to me. I am going back this summer for a land based tour for longer time and I got loads of valuable information from several travel companies including DenRus when they knew they would not make a cent from me. With R.O. I got the imprression my only exisitance to them was as a dollar sign. I've talked to lots of others who had the same impression.
But as I wrote before, if there is nothing to compare, even those on the big crowded ship tours loved every minute of their time in St Petersburg, I sure did and will return. Whoever you choose, compared to not seeing the city, any tour company will do a fine job.
Jill