(no subject)

[embers.livejournal.com]

Has anyone had a good experience with any visa agency in particular?

I kind of need a visa to travel in Pete for a day in early July & figured I might as well hire someone to get our visas rather than mess it up myself.




(Also, I'm not kidding about the just a day bit. I'm going on a cruise & just want to be by myself in Pete without feeling like a huge tourist or being shuffled through lines for things about which I don't really care. I'm looking for something inexpensive as it seems silly to pay so much for a one day pass to walk around).

Comments

[happy-accidents.livejournal.com]

www.GotoRussia.com isn't so bad.

[embers.livejournal.com]

Well, that was a glowing recommendation if I ever did hear one.

[greenkira.livejournal.com]

I just had a really bad experience with them. Ended up spending a week and a half longer in Tallinn, when I went to renew my visa, than I expected - because of incorrect information from them. Namely, their invitation arrived 6 days after they said it would, and I would have been sleeping in parks the last two days if an Estonian friend hadn't talked her family into letting me couch surf. They offered NOTHING to compensate for this, since, after all, they had my passport hostage.

[maisondetranger.livejournal.com]

I used www.visatorussia.com several times and they were fine.
The only thing is that I used their services to go to Moscow, not St-Petersburg

[belacane.livejournal.com]

was it a longer term stay or a short one?

[maisondetranger.livejournal.com]

if I remember well (the last one was about three years ago), I used them for both.. of course longer (business visa) is a lot more expensive.

[litchick.livejournal.com]

http://russerv.com/ (http://russerv.com/)

Disclosure: I used to work for them and the woman who owns the agency was my Russian professor this past year at UNLV.

I feel I can whole-heartedly recommend them because they are very thorough, and she helped a lot of my classmates with visas etc. and they were very happy with the service.

Maybe

[thebigcooke.livejournal.com]

If I am not mistaken if you come here as part of a cruise, then once the boat docks you are allowed to be in the city. The cruise ship should give you some sort of pass in case you are stopped by the militsia. You may want to inquire about this.

Re: Maybe

[embers.livejournal.com]

It doesn't work that way, apparently. I have to arrange my own visa if I am not going on one of their pre-approved (& exceedingly cheesy) excursions.

Re: Maybe

[dammital.livejournal.com]

You don't have to use the cruise ship's tour packages. You can also contract with an independent tour operator. We used Denrus just last week during a two-day stopover in St. Petersburg. There were only 8 people in our tour group compared to the big buses that were hired by the cruise ship. Had a great time -- but only saw typical tourist things (Hermitage, Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, others).

You only have a day to spend? That's not enough time to orient yourself, much less see anything! And how are you going to get off the port? I don't think they allow taxis in there -- it's a restricted area.