For disembarkation procedures, This is what the Patter said:
- Passengers on a Princess Organized Tour: please meet at the time and location on your ticket.
- Independent Passengers (either with independent tour or in possession of a valid visa): From 6:45am, when you and your complete party are ready to go ashore, please proceed to the Michelangelo Dining Room Deck 5. Immigration will be conducted shoreside and will take several minutes for each person. Please remain in the comfort of the Michelangelo Dining Room in order to prevent lines and waiting times at the immigration booths as well as congestion at the gangways.
So, if your independent tour is scheduled to start at 7:30am, please don't go down at 7:20am and expect to make it. And for Princess organized tours, if you can't be at the scheduled time and location on your ticket, then you have other problems. Also, some people seem to fail to understand the phrase "complete party are ready to go ashore". I've heard a couple of people go down to deck 5 and when asked if their complete party is ready, they reply "they're coming" and get upset at the crew member for not giving them a number. Well, if they're coming, it means they're not here, and if they're not here, then your complete party is not ready, and if your complete party is not ready, then you don't get a number.
I've also heard in some quarters that people seem to think that Princess holds passengers on independent tours to accommodate those that are on Princess tours. That is simply not true. Passengers on independent tours start disembarking at 6:45am. They're just grouped in batches to prevent long lines at immigration. Honestly, I can't think of a better system to solve a difficult situation. Maybe the only thing that Princess can add is a warning in the Patter that waiting times may exceed half-hour or so.
For ourselves, we booked the two-day standard group excursion with TJ Travel. Price is $250 per adult and $215 per child. Our excursion was scheduled to start at 8am. Went down to Michelangelo Dining room on deck 5 around 7:20am and was assigned group #13. At 7:20am, they were calling group #7. Waited about 30 minutes before our group got called. Waited another 20 minutes in line at immigration and passport control. Finally got to our tour bus around 8:10am and we were the last to arrive in our group of 11 people.
8:30am - 10am: Drove around the city and stopped at a couple of places: Saint Isaac's Square and St. Nicholas Maritime Cathedral
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| St. Isaac's Square |
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| St. Nicholas Maritime Cathedral |
10:30am - 12pm: Peterhof Upper Gardens and Lower Fountain park
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| If Russian cops look like these, I probably wouldn't mind getting arrested. |
1pm - 2pm: Drive to Pushkin city
2pm - 3pm: Inside tour of Catherine Palace and the Amber Room. Sorry, no photos of the amber room as picture taking is not allowed in this room. The palace itself was magnificent.
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| You need to wear these slippers to get inside the palace |
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| Catherine Palace. About 200m long |
3pm - 4pm: Drive back to St. Petersburg; subway ride. Our origin station looked a little outdated but the destination looked very nice with marble columns and walls.
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| Took the subway from this station |
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| Subway turnstiles |
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| Inside the subway station |
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| Got off on this station. Admiralty square |
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| In case you went all the way to St. Petersburg to get a Big Mac, you'd be happy to know the golden arches are not in Cyrillic and easily recognizable. |
5pm: Back at ship. Long line to enter cruise terminal. About 30 minutes wait.
We opted not to go on any of the evening excursions offered by the tour company. It has been a long day with a lot of walking. We watched instead the Russion folk show aboard the ship which was actually pretty good.
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