Stockholm Port of Call Advice

[Disneylove2]

Hello! DH, DD's (8,10) and I are excited for our first European cruise! We will be spending a day (@8 hours) in the port of Stockholm. We would love to see Vasa and Skansen. Our cruise ship does not offer Skansen in an excursion, so we are going to attempt a DIY to Djurgarden. Ease of transportation is our first priority as we have very little experience with public transportation and speak only English. Budget would be our second priority. Right now we are debating between the hop on hop off boats and the Stockholm card. We are berthing at S167. Any advice on the matter would be appreciated. Many thanks!

[kitkat343]

We were able to easily tour Stockholm on our own last August with our 3 year old son. From Stadsgarden, you can easily walk to the HOHO boat dock. They helpfully painted a red line directly to the HOHO boats from the cruise ship dock that you can walk along. Stromma offers one stop HOHO boat rides, which were very affordable last year (40 SEK, although you should email them to see what the 2015 rates are and make sure they will still offer the one ride ticket). The HOHO boats travel directly to Vasa from the time your cruise ship docks until 10 am, when they will resume a normal schedule. It is important to arrive at Vasa as soon as possible, since it fills up and once it is full, it will not allow any additional visitors to enter until others have left. The small theater in Vasa shows a movie explaining the sinking and restoration in English with Swedish subtitles (the large theater has the film in Swedish with English subtitles).

 

Skansen is quite large, so you should decide ahead of time which part you would like to focus on. We only visited the aquarium with the lemur exhibit you can walk through. The aquarium is small, but very well laid out and allows children to get very close to the animals. There is one entrance in Skansen that is close to Vasa, but the entrance closest to the aquarium is more easily accessed through public transportation in Stockholm. We visited a lot of museums in Stockholm, so we took a lot of public transportation. We asked the information booth at each museum how to get to the next one before we left, and we were always fine.

 

The Stockholm card was a good option for us since we visited a lot of museums, but you would need to calculate whether or not financially it will work for your family. In 2014, it covered admission to both Vasa, and Skansen (including the aquarium) and all public transportation, so you can calculate whether or not financially it is cheaper to buy a Stockholm card than paying for entrance to whichever attractions you will be visiting. There was a TI booth right outside where the Norwegian Star docked, so it was very easy to purchase a Stockholm card and to ask for directions to the HOHO boat.

Edited March 29, 2015 by kitkat343

[Ultima Thule]

Hello! DH, DD's (8,10) and I are excited for our first European cruise! We will be spending a day (@8 hours) in the port of Stockholm. We would love to see Vasa and Skansen. Our cruise ship does not offer Skansen in an excursion, so we are going to attempt a DIY to Djurgarden. Ease of transportation is our first priority as we have very little experience with public transportation and speak only English. Budget would be our second priority. Right now we are debating between the hop on hop off boats and the Stockholm card. We are berthing at S167. Any advice on the matter would be appreciated. Many thanks!

 

A few comments.

 

The Stockholm card will cost 525 kr for adults and 235 kr for children.

Vasa will cost 115 kr adults and is free for children.

I think Skansen will cost 170 kr/ 60 kr during summer.

Note that the Skansen aquarium mentioned by kitkat343 is run by an independent company so its another 120 Kr/ 60 kr for that one (unless you have the Stockholm card of course).

A one day ticket for public tranportation is 115 kr/70 kr

But note! There are special rules for childeren during weekends: See "Traveling with children" at http://sl.se/en/fares--tickets/

[Disneylove2]

Thank you both!