Anyone thinking of taking a ship's tour while in St. Petersburg, Russia, should rethink it. Instead of taking a more expensive, less inclusive ship tour, consider one of the Russian tour companies such as Alla Tours, DenRus Ltd, or Red October.
Don't let the cruise ship play on your fears of dealing with a Russian company over the Internet. Ship's will imply terrible thngs can happen if you don't take their tour. Our tour, "Complete St. Petersburg", with Alla Tours was about as positive as it can get. Dealing with them over the Internet (I also looked into DenRus and Red October who I've read are also excellent, but decided to go with Alla) couldn't have been simpler. Once you sign up (easy process), tour tickets are sent immediately. Any questions you might have are answered promptly and fully. All you need is your passport, a copy of your passport, a tour tickets to get into the country. No problems at customs. Zipped right through.
These three tour companies are licensed by the government. Tour guides go through rigorous trainning and it showed. Our tour guide gave explanations that were deep and personal. another nice thing, at least with Alla, is that there is no money up front and you pay (Visa, Mastercharge, cash) on the second day of the tour. To get into Russia you nneed a visa, but if you're there under 72 hours on a recognized tour such as these three you don't need one.
Our tour cost $300/person for two days. If we had to paste together all the sights we saw with ship tours it would have cost a lot more and we would have traveled with a lot more people. Alla tours travel in vans of not more than 20 people. You can also get personal tours that deal with you own agenda. These companies also provide tours in other Baltic countries.
If you're taking a Baltic Sea Cruise do yourself a favor and put any fears aside and look into these tour companies.