Testimonials

Wayne and Danna Wood, USA

Dear Alisa,

We are writing to thank you and Optima Tours for providing us with a wonderful touring experience in St. Petersburg. Our three days in your city could not have been better. We are very pleased with the time we spent with Roumi Issaeva, our tour guide. We have encouraged our friends to visit St, Petersburg in the future and we will recommend your company to them as they do their planning.

Thanks again for all your help and your patience with our schedule adjustments as we planned our visit to Russia. It was a pleasure to meet you and your staff during our time is St. Petersburg. We hope to return again some day to enjoy more of your beautiful city.

Sincerely,

Wayne and Danna Wood

Leily Da Silva

Dear Alica Gurvich,

I am writing to tell you how much my friend Ann and I enjoyed our 3 day Optima Tour of St Petersburg (25-27 June).

Roumia and Sergei were the perfect team to show us this wonderful place. I am amazed at how much we were able to see in just 3 days. Roumia is very knowledgeable about the history, architecture and art of St Petersburg. Her English skills are very good and she is a very helpful, pleasant and elegant lady who was always able to answer our questions and to ensure that our stay was worry free.

I would certainly recommend this tour to my friends- especially with Roumia as the guide.

With best wishes

Leily Da Silva

Rodrigo Rivera

Hi Tatiana,

How are you, hope your doing ok, we are back from our trip and I just wanted to thank you for planing what was a great way to see St. Petersburg and Moscow, I wanted to let you know that both Isabel and Natasha, were more that great, they were patient with me and my urge to take photographs and they were very nice to all of us, I could´t ask for better tour guides...and also the drivers were great and patient, We all love both cities, and I think we were the envy of the cruise because we were the only one's with visas and the only one´s that got the opportunity to see both cities in so less time. Both train were very good, in the first nobody speak English or spanish but we had sign language and that way we manege, it was an adventure and trip I know we will never forget, that is why I wanted to thank you for the great work you did for my family, the only thing that would to have it was more time, but that is the best thing because know that we got the general Idea I have to plan in a couple of years a tour or 5 or 6 days to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Again Thank you for doing a great job, and planing a great trip for us,

Sincerely,

Rodrigo Rivera

Esther, Dallas, Texas, USA

Greetings from Dallas, Texas.

Alisa, we had a great trip and everything went well (except for departing the airport on May 28). Once again, many thanks for all the work on my itinerary by Optima (Polina and then you). I would definitely use you again. Alex was a great guide, and we had a lot of fun as well as learned a lot about our trip.

That was my second trip, and definitely a memorable one.

All the best to you,

Esther

Carole Green, UK

Dear Alisa

We returned from St Petersburg after a very good Easter weekend.

Just a few minutes walk away from the Hermitage as it suggested but also very closThe hotel was excellent value for money and its location was superb!e to Nevsky Prospekt and only 25 mins walk from Peter and Paul fortress.

For the small price that we paid it could not have been better and we think you should recommend it. Anyone who finds fault is not used to travelling and expects a 4 star hotel for a one star price which is impossible.

We were well pleased and we shall tell our friends how good it was.

The business of the visas did make us very nervous as we only got them at the last minute after a great deal of stress.

We think that many more English people would come to St Petersburg and spend money if the visa was not so hard to get.

best wishes and thank you for your help

Carole Green

André

Just a word to thank you for the help you gave us preparing our trip to Russia! Apart from the tragic terrorist attacks, everything went very well. Hotels, transfers and city tours were really nice! Once again, thank you for everything!

Regards

André

Albert & Madeleine Gmuer, Switzerland

Dear Polina, Nadya and the other nice Ladies from OPTIMA TOURS,

We arrived in St. Petesburg via Lufthansa on Jun 23rd. You had reserved our Hotel Helvetia as well as our Transportation from the Airport to the Hotel and then from the Hotel to the Viking ship "Kirov".

We would like to thank you as everything worked out perfectly. We would definitely recommend that Hotel to other people as well as OPTIMA TOURS.

Best regards to all of you and we hope that you have a prosperous season.

Ian Caughey, UK

Good afternoon Nadya.

This is just a quick e-mail to thank you for all your help in booking my hotel and airport transfers for my recent visit to St. Petersburg plus the extremely useful visa support service. I love beautiful architecture, palaces, parks, bridges, monuments etc, so St. Petersburg didn t disappoint in any way. I thought the city was just beautiful, though it was bigger than I had expected. My favourite places were the Church on the Spilled Blood, Peter & Paul Fortress (especially the SS Peter & Paul Cathedral, interior just fabulous), Peterhof, Catherine Palace, Pavlovsk, Anickhov and Lion Bridges, and Yelagin Island. I had sunshine and blue skies the first 3? days of my visit, and sunny / partly sunny afternoons on the other 3 days. Thankfully bad weather never ruined my trip, it was never cold, and I found the city much safer than I had expected. All in all, it was one of the very best city breaks I ve ever had I probably could have spent another few days and still had lots of things to see - and photograph! St. Petersburg and the surrounding area with all the palaces is a photographer s paradise.

Thanks again for all your invaluable help. It was very much appreciated.

Kindest regards, and God bless.

Ian Caughey

Ewa and Marek Prost, Warsaw, Poland

Dear Mr Ermolinsky,

Thank You for Your interest and care even after finishing Your obligations. We have enjoyed very much our stay in Your city. The arrival and departure transports from and to the airport were on time and we have found the drivers without any problems. In the hotels the rooms were waiting for us immediately. The rooms were of good standart clean and all equipment was acting properly. The hotels belong to the french Accor hotel company and the standard of rooms and service was the same as in other hotels of this company elsewhere. The only problem for us it was too much of air-condition in both hotels - we do not like air-condition - and in Novotel You can not open windows. But of course it was only one small thing and hotel guests probably enjoy air-conditioning.

We have enjoyed our trips to Peterhof, Pushkin, Pavlovsk and Gatchina very much. The cars were always on time and we were accompanied by the very nice guide Olga. It was nice that she was with us during all three trips. She is very nice woman, very operational, helpful and with good knowledge of the sightseeings in St. Petersburg. If You will meet her please say to her our best regards and thanks.

Our stay was very interesting but very laborious. We have never came back to the hotels before 10 p.m. although we have spend in St. Petersburg nearly 8 days. Even in holiday time there is always something interesting to see in Your town. Because my wife is dance fan we have seen six ballets in the evenings. It was nice that in St. Petersburg there is such a big offer of different entertainments that You will always find something interesting for You.

I was in St. Petersburg once 35 years ago. I have found this time different city - renovated with big offer of entertainments and tasty and pleasant restaurants and bars (we have enjoyed "Yolki-Palki" restaurants). I have to say that today You can be proud of Your city because it is worth of it.

Dear Mr Ermolinsky, we would like to thank You very, very much for Your help in organising for us our stay in Your lovely city. Our stay was really perfectly organised and very, very interesting. Thank You once more very much for Your help

Sincerely Yours

Ewa and Marek Prost, Warsaw, Poland

Jacqueline Phare, United Kingdom

Dear Polina,

I was working on my photographs from our recent trip to St. Petersburg and was remembering what a wonderful time we had.

That was due very much to the tours you arranged and I wanted you to know how much we enjoyed the company of Roumia and the information she was able to give us. It made the tours so interesting and enjoyable. She is a very kind, interesting and humorous person who I am sure makes tours unforgettable for many of your customers.

Thank you too for your excellent arrangements, we really enjoyed our trip to St. Petersburg.

With all best wishes

Jacqueline Phare and Christopher Bevan