DenRus - You have arrived in St. Petersburg

You have arrived in St. Petersburg, you are aboard your ship,
and ready for your DenRus St. Petersburg tour ....now what?

The night before your arrival the ship staff with give you a small paper form to fill out to give to Russian Immigration officials when you disembark. This form is called the "Migration Card" Click here for instructions on filling out the card.

On the day of your arrival in our city we strongly advise that you would have an early wakeup call and breakfast. As soon as you hear the Russian Navy Brass Band melodies through your cabin window, you know your ship has arrived. If you look out at the pier you would immediately see our representatives and our mobile office.

1) For Custom Tour participants

If your documents say that your tour starts “As soon as your ship has been cleared”, it means normally about 20-30 minutes after the official scheduled arrival time of your ship in St. Petersburg. If you have requested this kind of an early morning departure, as most of our guests do, it is our strong recommendation that you would gather all the members of your private party inside the ship, ready to go, and then disembark together immediately the moment your ship has been cleared. In order to maximize the touring time, and minimize the queuing time, during the years we are used to the fact that our passengers are the very first ones out, through the Immigration, and on their way to their tour destinations. Some cruise lines may officially announce through their PA-system when the ships has been cleared, but do not wait for that since many of them do not. Go the gangway and exit areas and be ready to go out as soon as you see that it is allowed.

If you have requested your Custom Tour to start at 09:00 AM, or 10:00 AM, in other words at any specific starting time different from the “As soon as your ship has been cleared”, then you could have it more relaxed, since all the ship’s touring passengers have normally started their tours by 9:00 AM. At that time the lines, as well as the waiting time for the processing substantially shorter. Based on our years of experience, if your starting time is 9 AM we would recommend that you’d disembark at 8:45 AM.

Some of our passengers have told us that some ships systematically and totally artificially try to inconvenience those passengers who did not purchase their shore excursions from the ship. They try to delay the disembarkation of these passengers with some rules or regimentation, but there is no justification for that. The Russian Immigration officials just do not care on whose tour you are participating, when you go through their checkpoint. The ships have no right to hold anybody aboard against the person’s will, nor is it the ship’s responsibility to decide in what order the Russian Immigration is willing to receive the passengers. All passengers are equal. The fact that you have made private arrangements for touring in St. Petersburg with another licensed operator is no valid reason for you to be mustered into some aft corner bar or library in order to be forced to disembark last. Every passenger is allowed to enter Russia when ever they are ready to present their documents to Immigration officer at the pier. - The first morning is always the slowest.

Note: If you delay your disembarkation for any reason, and you do not go out among the very first ones, you will automatically run into a congestion, which will then slow down the Immigration clearance in your case by about 30-40 minutes. You will understand what we mean, when you’ll see the endless winding lines of passengers on the pier, and you’ll go the end of it. This means that your touring time will be proportionately shorter.
Since most of the ships arrive in St. Petersburg between 06:30-07:30 these instructions refer to these times. However, they apply identically to a ship with any later arrival time, too.

Now, Custom Tour members can skip to the section below titled; " 3) You Must Present the Following Documents at the Immigration "

2) For “Complete St. Petersburg” tour participants

“Complete St. Petersburg” is a group tour which has an official starting time of 1 hour and 30 minutes (= 90 minutes) after the scheduled arrival time of your ship. However, the experience has shown, during the past years, that normally our tour buses depart within 30 minutes, or even earlier, after the ship has been cleared and all the participants have checked in.

As soon as your ship has been officially cleared by the Port of Authority for St. Petersburg we advise all the participants to disembark immediately among the very first passengers out from the ship. This will guarantee an early departure of the tour as well as an extended touring time for you. Do not wait for any official announcement for the clearance, since many ships just do not make the announcements. Go to the gangway and exit area of the ship and depart immediately when it is allowed.

Some of our passengers have told us that some ships systematically and totally artificially try to inconvenience those passengers who did not purchase their shore excursions from the ship. They try to delay the disembarkation of these passengers with some rules or regimentation, but there is no justification for that. The Russian Immigration officials just do not care on whose tour you are participating, when you go through their checkpoint. The ships have no right to hold anybody aboard against the person’s will, nor is it the ship’s responsibility to decide in what order the Russian Immigration is willing to receive the passengers. All passengers are equal. The fact that you have made private arrangements for touring in St. Petersburg with another licensed operator is no valid reason for you to be mustered into some aft corner bar or library in order to be forced to disembark last. Every passenger is allowed to enter Russia when ever he/she is ready to present their valid documents to Immigration officer at the pier. - The first morning is always the slowest.


3) You Are Expected to Present the Following Documents at the Immigration

It is strongly recommended that each person, husband and wife separately, and all others as well, should carry and present their own documents independently and separately. It is not accepted by the Russian Immigration that one leader of the family or party throws at the counter a bundle of documents for the officer to sort out. Holding and presenting your own documents also speeds up the processing.

Every cruise passenger is expected to present these three documents only:
1) Your valid Passport. - You will show it only, and it will be stamped, most often on the last page.
2) A photocopy of the photo and signature page of your passport. This copy will be taken from you, and it is needed only for the first time clearance during your entire stay.
3) DenRus Tour Ticket. – You will show it only as a proof of having prepaid, and pre-purchased a confirmed space in a guided shore excursions program operated by DenRus. Important: Please, if you have printed your tickets on a large page, cut them out and distribute them so that each person has his/her own to hold and to present. It happens too often that the group leader with the tickets goes through the inspection first, and then other members will follow without tickets. It often results in the situation where the group leader, already comfortable sitting in the bus, has been called back to the Immigration to prove that there was a sufficient number of tickets for each member of the family or a party.

Note: Many people ask about their Russian visa. There is no physical visa to be provided to you, but you have earlier provided all your personal data, name, birthday, passport number, etc. and DenRus has combined all that information from all the passengers aboard your ship and provided that in advance for the Immigration officers inspecting your documents at the pier. Your DenRus personal ticket is your proof of that your information has been received and you are free to participate in a DenRus shore excursion. We send you your tickets only after all your information has been received, reported and cleared. So, do not worry about your visa, it is totally our DenRus responsibility.
At the end of the inspection you will receive a small red Immigration Card which is to be kept inside your passport while in town, and you must return it to the passport control at embarkation.

4) Registration and Check-In to your DenRus Tour

As soon as you step out of the inspection building you shall find the port representative team of DenRus holding large size signs, and waiting for you just outside the Immigration building. Quite often our guests already locate our team over the railing, while standing on the deck of the ship and waiting for the clearance to end. They wave to us and we reply.

As soon as you have announced your presence, identified yourself and your entire party to our agent, you will be escorted to your waiting car, introduced to your local guide and driver, and without any further delay your tour shall start. If you have your own Custom Tour, it is recommended that your entire group would check-in and report together to our representative. If you are participating in any of our Value Excursions you may be asked to wait for a few minutes until all the registered members of that tour have checked in.

That’s all there is, and that’s how simple it is. For your late tours either in the afternoon or evening or next day, it will all be routine after the first morning. Remember, all the later times you’ll disembark after the first one, you will need your passport and your DenRus Tour Ticket (showing the right date and tour name), and when you return and re-embark, you must show your passport and the Red Card. If you have a visa your passport and visa are your keys to arrival and departure.

Based on our passengers’ reports, they say that the most frustrating thing is that some cruise ships intentionally announce inaccurate information especially on their arrival in St. Petersburg, where they may try to delay the disembarkation of passengers who booked private land arrangements. The truth is that after the ship has been officially cleared, they cannot hold you aboard against your will, if you have the proper documentation to present to the Russian authorities as we have listed above. Please ignore the misinformation which may be the result of ignorance regarding the Russian circumstances, or it may be intentional for the purpose of a desperate effort to sell the ship’s own tours, and to complicate the matters for those who did not do so.

5) Some Important Points About What to Bring and What to Expect, etc

Clothing & Weather: Any itinerary most likely includes an inside visit to a Russian Orthodox church. A proper respectful clothing is expected as a normal sign of respect towards the holy location and other believers gathered there. Women are recommended to carry a light scarf in their purse to cover their heads when entering and inside the churches. Shorts, any beach type of clothing, or clothing leaving the mid part of a body uncovered are not recommended on the tours. The fact is that Russian weather, even in the middle of the summer, actually never prompts to wear shorts. Any person, seen in the city in shorts, is automatically labeled to be a foreigner by the locals.

Our St. Petersburg weather can be changeable so a light water repellent shell or jacket is useful. Wear comfortable clothing. St Petersburg has gotten more causal in recent years so there is really no specific dress code, except for the churches as mentioned above. Dressing in light layers can address the differences in weather that might be experienced between the early morning departure and your late afternoon return.

Documents & ID’s: For Russia there is no need for any identification or documentation other than those mentioned above in Para 3). Please, note that the plastic ID or on-board charge cards issued by your ship are not needed anywhere in Russia, until you return to the ship and embark.
Your Russian visa: DenRus arranges for each of her guests arriving in St. Petersburg aboard a cruise ship a Visa-Free entry to Russia. During the reservation process each one of you provided us with your full name, passport number, birthday, nationality, etc…. This information was needed especially for this visa purpose and it has been provided to the Immigration officials checking your documents (passport, DenRus ticket…) at the pier.

Water & Snacks: Take into consideration does your tour include a lunch or a snack stop. Many people carry snacks or bottled water from the ship but these should be left in the vehicle when visiting museums or churches. Bottled water and drinks are available almost everywhere along the touring itinerary, so these do not necessarily have to be brought from the ship. Don’t forget, that you must have Russian currency, Roubles, to be able to make purchases.

Russian money: To make purchases in Russia a person must have either Russian cash or a credit card. The shopping on our DenRus tours is made in official quality stores, rather than at the sidewalk vendors, for many reasons: they guarantee the quality of their products, the products can be exchanged or returned if needed, they accept credit cards or cash, some of them may also accept foreign currency or they may have an in-house exchange office, they provide refreshments, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and the use of their restroom facilities free of charge. Please, read the paragraph Restrooms below.

If you wish to make purchases, cafes, restaurants, retail stores, gift shops, etc. accept cash payments in Russian Rubles only, or most brands of credit cards. A few street vendors or outdoor markets may exceptionally accept dollars and euros in cash. ATM machines are widely available around the city. As of this writing (January 2008) the exchange rate is 24.5 Rubles to a USA dollar or 35.5 Rubles to a Euro. The cruise ships are also normally known to exchange currencies to and from Rubles.

Carrying items: Bags, oversized purses, backpacks and such are not permitted inside some museums but cloak rooms are available to check them. To use the cloak rooms may, however, require that you must detour far away from the path of the main group to check-in your belongings, or quite often you may be required to stand in line for extended time. We recommend that these items would be left in the vehicle instead of checking them. Your driver will stay with your vehicle when you are away so you can safely and securely leave items in the vehicle.

Restroom stops: DenRus follows strictly the international touring practice that each tour, having a duration of more than 3 hours, must include a scheduled stop for the tourists to use the restrooms. Public restrooms are not widely available in this 300-years old St. Petersburg, and if there are some, they are the plastic “Portable John” type closets, standing in a row on the sidewalk. We do not consider these to be sufficiently private nor hygienic for our valued passengers. Neither is it possible to stop at hotels or restaurants and have all our group members to march in just for one private reason. So we have solved the problem the way that we use the restrooms of the restaurants when we have a lunch, and in other occasions we use the restrooms of the museums and other venues. When we have an extended stretch without a proper facility, we are allowed to use the restrooms of gift shops, where the stop is combined with a refreshment stop. They offer soft drinks and alcoholic samples as much as you wish to taste, plus most importantly the use of their restroom facilities. It should be emphasized that no person is obligated to go inside these shops, if you wish neither to use their facilities, nor do any shopping. We in fact prefer you’d then stay in the bus, so that all the others will return quicker, and we are again on our way to the next touring site..

Other Special Needs: If you need to bring medications, please try to bring the original labeled container in case there is a need to identify it. Generally, Russian officials are not concerned with medications. If you have other special needs, or you need to administer your medication during the touring, please, bring these items to the attention of our guide earlier.
If you become ill or too tired, let your guide know immediately, arrangements will be made to allow you to rest and then catch up to your tour later or to return to the ship while the tour continues. Your health, safety and comfort are prime concerns for us.

Modifications to your program: If you have purchased a Custom Tour, or a type of a tour which we at DenRus have created based on your own wish list, and you are traveling exclusively with your own family or party, then you naturally also have certain rights to request modifications on the spot, since you are not inconveniencing any strangers or outsiders. However, please, keep in mind that DenRus always makes a definite entry time reservation for all the major sites to protect our guests against crowding and to eliminate standing in line. If you request a modification, it may result late arrival in the next location and if you missed your entry time as booked, then you shall be put to the end of the line. This will create a chain reaction where you shall be late for all the rest of the sites on that day. Please, discuss any modification ideas with your guide, and trust his/her judgment since he and your driver know the minimum transit time between the venues, the traffic conditions on the day you are in our city, the time required to perform your modification, etc. Please, trust the judgment and the recommendation of our guides, although the ultimate responsibility to make the decision lies on you, since it is our desire to fulfill each wish of our guests.

If you are a member of our “Complete St. Petersburg” tour, then no modifications are allowed. This is a fixed itinerary group tour, and operated according to the program as announced in our information without any privately requested changes while in progress. To mention a few of the earlier comments: “This gift shop has no fur coats. Can we make a special stop so that I can purchase a mink coat?” “I am supposed to meet with my Russian friend for lunch in XYZ restaurant. Can the bus driver take me there?“ “Can we make a stop at the Synagogue, so that I may spend some time inside?” - None of these requests can be fulfilled, unfortunately. The “Complete St. Petersburg” tour is a set itinerary program, and we at DenRus feel our responsibility to deliver it in its entirety to the entire group, and it is not an individual private tour. Please, click our web menu: “Compare A-B-C”

Photo & Video permits: Most museums and palaces require a special ticket for camera with a different price for still versus video cameras. If you do not intend to take photos in a certain museum, it is best to leave the camera in the vehicle while visiting that museum. Note that the “Complete St Petersburg” Value Excursion includes still camera fees. If you wish to shoot video

Although film and batteries are readily available in the city, we recommend stocking up on what you need for the day before you disembark because hunting for supplies will definitely cut into your effective touring time.

Enjoy Your Russian Experience: The only remaining thing to do is to have fun. We are certain your experience in this city, St. Petersburg, will remain as the highlight of your Baltic voyage, and you can trust that DenRus, with her extensive experience, attention to the quality, comfort, and all details, will also make every effort to ensure that your visit is the best it can be, with memories fondly held the rest of your life. This is simply the secret why people who repeat their cruises return to us, and why others just refer their friends to us. If you have any questions or concerns about anything you wish to know, or you are otherwise curious about something, just write to us ahead of time, or ask your guide during the tour, and we all will be pleased to answer.