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We booked a private two day tour of St. Petersburg with Dancing Bears Tours for June 2020. Julia, the owner, handled the booking and customized the tour so that we could see every site we wanted to visit. It was going to be considerably less expensive than the tours offered by our cruise ship, and was going to be much more thorough and efficient than traveling around St. Petersburg with 30 other people. Unfortunately Covid 19 got in the way. We had to cancel trip, and our tour of St. Petersburg. At our request, Julia very graciously returned our full deposit. We were so impressed at how willing she was to work with us to design exactly the tour that we wanted, and were even more impressed that she was willing to return our deposit. We will definitely re-book with Dancing Bears when we can finally travel to St. Petersburg.…
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Date of experience: June 2020
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Enjoyed a lot Dancing bear tours are awesome. well guided and able to see the exciting places which we want to.
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Date of experience: September 2019
Helpful
We are a family of four with one teenager and 8 year old. Julia suggested and customised a tour especially for us given the ages of the children and all our preferences. We did a 2 day private tour and it was excellent. Our guide Elena was very knowledgeable, personable and made our 2 days very enjoyable. We had an active tour and covered a great deal of the sites in St Petersburg in the 2 days without feeling the strain. A definite must do with Julia and the Dancing Bears Tours. You will not regret it. Highly recommend them.…
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Date of experience: December 2019
Helpful
Response from Julia I, Owner at Dancing Bear Tours
Responded 8 Jan 2020
Dear SinJP, it was my true pleasure to meet you and your family. Many thanks for your high appreciation of our efforts to make your visit to St Petersburg so memorable. BR ,
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I cannot say enough about my experiences. Julia worked with me while I was still at home to get exactly what we wanted on our tour. Very professional and knowledge. Wonderful driver. Personalized care. Olga was so well versed on both palaces - got us in and out with ease. So personable and kind and a wealth of information. If you need a tour, look no further than dancing bear. Incomparable quality. We will be back in Abt 18 months and are already planning our next dancing bear excursion!! Loved loved loved it. A highlight of our trip.…
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Date of experience: December 2019
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Response from Julia I, Owner at Dancing Bear Tours
Responded 20 Dec 2019
Dear Donna, many thanks for your beautiful review- waiting for your touring with us next year with your little one!
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Our group of two dads and 3 sons was on a 72 hour visa to St. Petersburg. So time was limited but the sites were plentiful. This tour really made our trip! The owner was extremely communicative. Even when we were making several last minute requests they did a great job accommodating us. The tour van picked us up at our hotel. They were even early. The owner showed up to make sure everything went smoothly. The van was large and held our luggage which were carryon bags. This was our last day and after the tour they would drop us at the ship. They had an organized preapproved itinerary. The van itself was nice and the seats very comfortable and adjustable. My back was happy. The tour guide Tatiana was amazing! She was young and energetic and had a wealth of knowledge. She was a certified guide. This is important when you go to locations like Catherine's palace. She gave us a background of the neighborhoods we drove through and how the city developed since it's inception. We hit some sites I would not have picked but were not crowded and added to our tour nicely. We hit the maximum number of sites that time would allow and they fit well with our tour like the cake church Catherine built but is hardly visited. We have unique picture not many tourists have. Our biggest site was Catherine's palace. I could write a book on Tatiana's tour here! Wow. The key is while everyone was waiting to pickup tickets we walked in past the gates into the garden! We had private pictures there while almost everyone was outside the gates. We got 15mins of pictures and then got to the entrance doors. This saved us so much time! In each room Tatiana not only explained everything but gave the staff (in almost every room) confidence she was watching us. This means they felt good letting us get in early or allowing us a private minute to get pictures alone with our group. The pictures are worth a million bucks to us! Stunning and once in a lifetime. Tatiana never complained about taking pictures. She always had a nice smile and good interactive conversation. We had lunch on site to save time. Tatiana answered our questions on life in Russia. The teenage boys were entertained and never spoken down to. They loved her. After more pictures and touring we got back to the car. Water was waiting for us there. We had some extra time so we added chesma church. Tatiana had no issues with this and was also knowledgeable on this location. From there was walked across street to a wonderfully hip coffee shop! She used her phone number to get us on WiFi (you need a code text). This allowed us to upload all our pictures before the boat where we had no internet. We went back to the ship and now the tour was done. After we said goodbye and got our gift book from the tour, Tatiana decided to stay and help us with the ship line. She wanted to see if we had priority entrance to the ship. She waited with us 30min before we told her to go and rest, we were fine. She also text us after the tour several links about information we were curious about. This was one of the best tour companies I have ever used. They are very responsive. They care very much about customer reviews. Russia can be difficult and not very customer service friendly. This tour company is the opposite. They really saved our trip! Oh our driver was good also.…
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Date of experience: August 2019
1 Helpful vote
Helpful
Response from Julia I, Owner at Dancing Bear Tours
Responded 28 Oct 2019
Dear David D., great thanks for so detailed and thoughtful review !
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