East West-toursReviews of east-west-tours.com

I really enjoyed my trip! The guide and the hotel in St. Petersburg were awesome. The places we visited in St. Petersburg were amazing as well. I also enjoyed the time on the boat. The food was great. Moreover, I enjoyed the time in Helsinki and Tallin. I only had a few hours in these cities, but with good planning it is possible to make the most of these hours. I also liked the fact the tour was starting in Stockholm in the evening and ending in Stockholm in the morning. That gave me some time to visit Stockholm.

I recently toured St. Petersburg with East West tours. While there were a few problems at the outset with setting up our trip, our guide while we were there was amazing. Masha had a wealth of information and history. She was welcoming, warm and couldn't have done more to make our tour better. If you were planning a trip with East West I would absolutely recommend that you request Masha as your guide.

Now that I'm back home where I can use a real computer I'd like to thank you for the upgrade on my St. Petersburg tour. It made so many things easier and/or more comfortable, including a larger cabin and complimentary meals onboard as well as priority disembarkation. I also appreciate that you and/or your contacts in the city knew that I would clear Russian passport control in St. Petersburg way before the rest of the group because of my "commodore" status and had a private car and guide waiting for me for the first morning. The hotel in St. Petersburg, which was very nice to begin with, upgraded my room to a suite, so things were very luxurious there.They sent a lovely tray with cake, tea and a birthday card for my birthday on June 22 - a sad day in the city's history. I will never have trouble remembering when the siege of Leningrad began in the Second World War. I do think that the tour operator should have given more consideration to the horrendous traffic in the city and the enormous number of tourists there in high season when scheduling.

Yes the trip was very successful! I can't wait to go back. The only negative for the trip was the wait for the overnight train. Our tours during the day ended around 5pm but the train wasn't till about 11pm. There wasn't much to do close by to the hotel so we had dinner and then just sat in the lobby of the hotel for a few hours. Would have been better if we had more activities to do/been told about things we could do in the evening perhaps. Our guide in Moscow was Olga. She was extremely knowledgeable, but she walked really really slow! I felt like we might have been able to see a bit more if we walked faster haha Also at times we would walk along in silence because Olga felt like we wouldn't have been able to take in so much information. But I think I would have preferred to listen to a few facts as we walked around (especially since we walked so slow so had a lot of time). We had Masha and another lady whose name I've forgotten in St Petetsburg who were both wonderful. We definitely felt as though Masha was going out of her way to make sure we experienced as much of St Petetsburg as possible. We appreciated that she suggested and offered to help us to buy tickets to extra activities we could do in the evenings like boat tours or shows. She also suggested a number of restaurants which we tried and were all very good! The driver we had on the day we went out to Pushkin etc was really lovely. All of our car transfers went quite smoothly and made the travel aspect of the trip hassle free.

I've had great experience working with Alex. He has helped me get a Russian visa multiple times, letting me know which documents are important and which ones to leave out. For those of you born in the former Soviet Union, this process got way more complicated in the last several years but they will guide you through the process with whatever documents you do have. I've booked several flights with Alex. Prices are better than other online sites, especially when you have multiple connections and/or stops along the way. Great service and communication, flexible when it comes to short notice trips, and very helpful.

We had a wonderful time in St Petersburg - it is such a great place, but best to see with a guide. Our guides were great but particularly Tatyana really made extra efforts to help us with things. The hotel was fantastic and well located. The folk show was very enjoyable and the palaces were amazing. The only negative was that it would have been good to know that the boat cost extra for everything, except the breakfast and that in St Petersburg it seemed only Rubles were accepted (and not Euros). It also would have been good to know other options of things to do ie. like the theatre but Tatyana helped us get tickets for the ballet which was really good. Having said that St Petersburg was the highlight of our trip (we went to 5 other countries). Wendy B.

I found this company on the internet and decided to give them a try on the basis of some testimonials on their website. They didn't disappoint! Although a little slow to reply to queries they were organised and thorough, they even picked up that Aeroflot had changed our flight details and not told us. When we got to St Petersburg, absolutely everything was organised and ran smoothly. The Hotel they picked was superb and our guide was excellent, in fact in six weeks of touring Europe she was the best tour guide that we encountered. I would have no hesitation in recommending East West Tours to anyone.