DenRus - Q&A

Frequently Asked Questions related to DenRus Custom Tours:
1.) Q: Why should I book an independent Custom Tour in St. Petersburg?
A: It is totally your own decision, if you wish to tour the city in a 45-passenger bus organized by your cruise ship, or independently in the freedom and luxury of your own privately arranged car or van. Both are options available to you. In the past our passengers have told us that that since the ship’s excursions prices are so expensive, and they have a family of four persons, or a small private party or a group of friends and relatives, they calculated that they’d save money by booking with DenRus an independent VIP-type tour. Some people do not like big crowds, some prefer visiting the Hermitage Museum on their own pace and seeing some special exhibitions, some request tailor-made tours (e.g. Synagogue visit, Russian home visits, specialty shopping, meetings with modern artists, a local nightclub experience, etc…) which are not available through the ship. What ever the reason, all our guests have been extremely pleased with the leisurely VIP experience, independence and surprisingly low prices compared with the ship’s standard tour programs and overly inflated group prices.


2.) Q: I cannot decide, should I book a DenRus 2-day Custom Tour, or a Value Tour called “Complete St. Petersburg”. What do you recommend?
A: It all depends on a) what St. Petersburg sites do you wish to see; b) do you want to travel only with your own family and friends; c) would you mind being a member in a small group of maximum 30, but quite often substantially less people? The difference is that Custom Tour is totally your own individual VIP-type touring opportunity including a program which you have personally created and approved. The “Complete St. Petersburg” is a limited size group tour, created by DenRus experts, which includes all the major sites of St. Petersburg (you do not need to think nor worry about what to include). It has a preset itinerary and you cannot request any additions nor modifications to it. For you to compare these two different tours, please, click “Compare a-B-C.”


3.) Q: Do I need a Russian visa in order to participate in your Custom Tour?
A: No, you DO NOT need a Russian visa, provided you are a cruise ship passenger, and all you wish to do is to see, visit and tour the city under the guidance of DenRus licensed local guide. If you wish disembark and see the city alone – without our guide – then you need a visa.


4.) Q: Do the DenRus Custom Tours qualify as visa-free tours permitting cruise passengers to participate without visas?
A: Absolutely. – Please, see question # 1.


5.) Q: When is the Russian visa needed?
A: You should obtain a proper Russian visa, if you wish to visit the city or the country without any prearranged tours or excursions, if you want to go alone without a guide (for instance go to the home of your friend independently), if you want to spend overnight in another place than your ship’s cabin, and for some other reasons like these.


6.) Q: Is it true that the ships do not allow those passengers, who do not participate in the ship’s shore excursion programs, to disembark?
A: Some of our guests during the earlier years have reported that the ships have tried to complicate the things for those passengers who have decided to arrange their own private tours. We have heard stories that the ship’s shore excursion staff has tried to scare these passengers incorrectly, that they will not be allowed to go ashore by the Russian immigration officers, and thus they will not be allowed to participate on their independent tours, or they will lose their monies since the Russian companies are not reliable, etc. Neither we at DenRus, nor our arriving cruise guests, have ever experienced any of the above problems, only heard stories about this scare tactics. It must be remembered that the cruise ships do not operate their shore excursions, they are operated by other Russian companies just like DenRus. Any cruise passenger has a total freedom A) to chose his/her own Russian shore excursions company, and B) a right to disembark and go ashore any time, after the ships has been officially cleared, together with all the other passengers, and the ships cannot hold them back.


7.) Q: If we travel visa-free, is it true that we can only visit the official tourist sites and locations like museums, palaces, etc?
A: This is not true. - If you travel visa-free, and you’ll work with DenRus rather than participating on the ship’s prearranged excursions, the name of the game is that you have a possibility to create your own program. Normally this is developed and honed through a correspondence months before the arrival of our passengers, where we try to fulfill all the expectations of our valued customers. It all depends on you, and how detailed you yourself wish to control the creation of your program. In the past we have received requests for home visits, hospital visits, school visits, city tour with a horse and carriage, tours outside St. Petersburg (e.g. the Krondstadt naval base, the cities of Vyborg, Novgorod, Moscow, Pskov…), special shopping (Russian furs, jewelry, delicacies, furniture…), visits to special museums (the home museums of Rimsky-Korsakov, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Ballet Museum, …), nightclub tours, special professional counterpart meetings, arrangements for family Birthday Parties in local restaurants, Wedding Anniversaries with entertainment, etc… The list is endless. Please, tell us what you wish to do, and DenRus will be happy to make your wish come true.


8.) Q: If we participate in a Custom Tour of DenRus, do we have to return to the ship for the meals?
A: This is totally your own decision. – Again, this is the beauty of the private touring. You do not need to interrupt your touring, nor waste 1-2 hours for a roundtrip ride to the port, plus the lunch time aboard the ship, when you can enjoy either a quick bite on the road, or an elegant Russian sit down luncheon in a local restaurant between the visits. Just let us know what you’d prefer.


9.) Q: Is it true that there are huge crowds and endless lines in each location?
A: Yes, this is absolutely true. However, there are ways and means, how DenRus services can save your limited time. Even for individual passengers DenRus always prebooks a scheduled entry time to the venues. This does not cost you anything extra, but sometimes the venues cannot honor, what they have confirmed. When this is done, it is highly recommended that the passengers keep up the original schedule as planned, since missing your time slot will move you to the end of the line. Another possibility is to schedule your entry earlier than the official opening hours. This is called “early admission” and the venues always charge an additional moderate fee for this benefit. It must be noted that there are early admission tourists in the museums and palaces every day during the summer season, so you are not alone. However, it is enjoyable to see the exhibitions before the really huge crowds arrive.




10.) Q: Can handicapped tourists participate in your Custom Tours?
A: Absolutely, and let it be made clear, that there is no option for touring for handicapped passengers better than our DenRus Custom Tours. We at DenRus have accumulated a huge collection of thank you letters from our handicapped tourists. We can arrange any kind of a special transportation needed for instance for wheel chairs. Some of the venues have lifts, some do not, some have ramps, some do not, in some places the toilets are too narrow and do not allow wheelchairs to enter, in some places this problem has been corrected. DenRus is the specialist in our city, and we know all these problem areas, and we create the programs accordingly. If you are handicapped and you ask DenRus to create your special program, all these details, related to your final itinerary, are explained, negotiated and decided during the preceding correspondence between our staff and our handicapped passengers.


11.) Q: Can DenRus arrange evening entertainment for Custom Tour participants?
A: Of course. We can arrange all the same evening shows and performances as your cruise ship can offer, normally either ballet or folkloric show, plus much, much more. The cruise ships offer only their own contracted performances in rented theatres, which do not necessarily represent the highest quality and the best talents. For your unique, independent, and once-in-a-lifetime cultural experience in St. Petersburg, DenRus will give you an opportunity to obtain tickets for instance to Mariinski (formerly Kirov) Theatre, St. Petersburg Opera and all the other theatres in the city. If you are interested, we shall inform you about the program as soon as it has been announced. Quite often our passengers also request an evening in town with a dinner and a floor show.


12.) Q: Do you have a minimum order for a Custom Tour in St. Petersburg?
DenRus is always at your service in St. Petersburg, and we do not have a minimum order in dollars or cents. As to the minimum timing, we know that a St. Petersburg city sightseeing tour, with no admission tickets included, would require at least 3 hours. As to the minimum number of participants on a tour, there is no minimum. We often create programs for just one person, who prefers his own company with a private guide. As to the minimum cost of a tour, it wearies hugely, and depends on the number of persons participating, since the total cost is always divided by the number of participants.


13.) Q: Why don’t you publish the actual prices of your Custom Tours?
A: There is no such thing as a standard Custom Tour. Custom Tour is always a tailor-made program created for you only. The experience has shown that when our passengers have the liberty to tailor-make their own tours in St. Petersburg, they also eagerly take advantage of this opportunity. Some require multilingual guides, stretched limousines, some are happy with a Russian Volga-car without an air conditioning, some demand Mercedes, invalid vans, some parties require minivans or minibuses, and quite often we have large parties, clubs, associations, congregations, which request their own full size buses. Understandably all these factors play a decisive role in the pricing, and consequently the Tariff Tables would be too cumbersome to create with all the endless variables and details noted. That is why we provide a separate quotation for each request.


14.) Q: What about tipping on your Custom Tours?
A: As all over the world, it is customary also in Russia to tip your private tour guide and private driver after their work, provided it has been performed to your satisfaction. The recommended amounts should be in line with the western standards.