Normally when you embark on a cruise you’ll have to fill in lots of paperwork, you’ll go through security, you’ll drop off your bags and it can easily take an hour or more.
When I embarked on my last cruise, though, the check-in process took at most 15 seconds. We scanned a QR code, printed a paper ticket, and walked onto the ship.
We were boarding the Silja Symphony, a ferry that holds 2800 passengers. Over 3 million guests take cruises on these ferries every year, and even though I’ve been cruising on cruise ships since I was a child, I have always avoided ferries.
My experience with ferries in the past has not been good. I get seasick, I find them boring, and I’ve always thought that ferries were something to be endured but definitely not enjoyed.
That was until I started seeing photos. I could not believe that this was a ferry. I found tickets for €22 per person per night, so I decided to give it a try.
The cruise went from Stockholm in Sweden to Helsinki in Finland and back. I had no idea how I would get on during the cruise, speaking only English.
I definitely thought that I might be bored onboard. I didn’t think that a ferry would have much entertainment, and I worried that I might be hungry too since the cruise didn’t include any food.
When I initially booked the cruise, I made a big mistake. Instead of booking Stockholm to Helsinki and back, I booked the route in the opposite direction.
I’d already booked my flights and hotel, so I couldn’t change my plans. Amazingly, I emailed Tallink explaining that I’d booked the wrong route, and they said, “Sure, no problem. We will just change that for you.”
There was no cost to change, no drama, nothing, they just did it.
I then got Covid and had to postpone and they gave me a voucher so that I could rebook, again it was no problem.
Big cruise lines could learn a lot when it comes to customer service from Tallink. Tallink are the company that runs the Silja ferries.
When I first saw the ship I had no idea what she would be like inside. She was built in 1991 so older than most the ships I sail on and I really didn’t want to get seasick – I had packed lots of seasickness medication in case though.
We walked straight onto the ship and straight into this amazing central street. This central street area was actually the inspiration for the Royal Caribbean cruise ships that we know and love.
It isn’t unusual now to see cruise ships with long streets like this, but back in the 1990s, it was unheard of. Royal Caribbean used these ferries as inspiration for new cruise ships.
Find out more about that here:
The central street is lined with restaurants, bars and shops. The reception desk is here – everything is here.
Looking at the prices of the food on the menus, I could tell that I wouldn’t be eating out much onboard – but that wasn’t the point of the cruise.
After a very quick look around the promenade, we headed straight to our cabin to drop off our bags.
We decided to keep this trip as cheap as possible so we didn’t pay for luggage on our flights. If we both brought a suitcase, it would have cost us almost as much as our entire ferry fare again.
Because we had a day in Stockholm before and after the cruise we didn’t want to be carrying around much. I bought a little bag for three days and had everything I needed.
We took the Arlanda Express from the airport to central Stockholm, and then later in the day, we walked from central Stockholm to the cruise port. This took us around 45 minutes.
It was a nice, sunny day, and we enjoyed it, but it wouldn’t have been much fun with suitcases.
I really didn’t need anything else though, theres no formal nights to worry about on a ferry. If we did realise we definitely needed something, there were clothes shops onboard or we could buy something in port.
They actually did sell socks in a can on this cruise, and socks shaped like cheese – you name it they had it – all the things you didn’t know you needed…
I ended up booking a promenade cabin, which cost us €44 per person per night.
I originally booked a cheaper inside room at €22 per person per night. When I got Covid and rebooked, I felt so sorry for myself I decided to treat myself to a window!
I’m glad I did because I spent a lot of time here people-watching.
Our beds were comfortable, and the room was clean and functional. There isn’t any storage in the normal sense, no drawers or cupboards, but there is an area to hang clothes. We just put the rest of our things on shelves above the bed.
There was a little table, a footrest, and a TV. Amazingly, we had six plug sockets – two above the table and four between the beds.
I noticed that we only had one towel in the bathroom, so we went down to reception to ask for another one, which arrived later in the day.
It turns out that the second towel was with my bedding on my bed, which was folded up. I didn’t think to look for a towel in my bedding, but I suppose that works.
The bathroom was fairly small but not too different from those on cruise ships. It was very pink, but I’ve had bathrooms on cruise ships that are a similar colour, like P&O’s Aurora.
Find out about my sparkly pink bathroom on Aurora, P&O’s oldest ship here:
There are lots of cabin types onboard from inside cabins with bunk beds to large suites.
They even have cabins for ‘allergic people,’ as their website says, meaning they use special bedding and materials in those cabins.
I’ve not seen that on a cruise ship before, but I’m sure that’s appreciated by the people who need the cabins.
They have cabins where you can bring your pets. You can’t bring your pets into the bars or lounges onboard, but they do have a doggy exercise area and a toilet area on the top deck.
You can’t take your pets on normal cruise ships. Find out more about that here:
Can You Take a Dog or a Cat on a Cruise?
We were very lucky with the weather this day so we decided to head up and outside. I did joke that there would be a usual cruise ship pool deck, but with lots of cars parked around it. (Luckily there wasn’t!)
The ship does hold 450 cars but they’re lower down on the car deck and it costs around €100 to bring your car on the journey.
On the top deck there was a small seating area on both sides of the ship where you could buy a drink and also the glass roof where you could look down into the promenade.
I bought a Coke Zero here, and it cost me €3.50. At this point, I thought I might have to ration my soda intake because that could get very expensive very fast, but I did find a cheaper way to buy soda onboard as the cruise went on.
Sitting down and having a drink, I began to notice who else was on the cruise. For obvious reasons, it was mostly people from nearby countries, but I also heard a few American accents.
We didn’t find any other Brits onboard, but there might have been some.
There were lots of children and quite a few adult groups on things like stag do’s, there definitely was a lot of alcohol consumed by a lot of people on this cruise – but nobody ever felt intimidating or was too embarrassingly drunk.
I think people from Sweden and Finland might be some of the politest, nicest people in the world, and even when they’ve had a lot to drink, they were just having a good time, not causing any trouble. For the most part, anyway…
We did have a couple of people being a bit annoying, but that wasn’t until later in the cruise.
As we sailed away from Stockholm we found a spot on the promenade deck to stand, and I wondered why we hadn’t done a safety drill of any sort.
On cruises you have to do what is called a Muster Drill before you depart or immediately on departure. It’s a legal requirement by SOLAS, safety of life at sea, and cruise ships get in big big trouble if any guests miss the drill.
Find out more about Muster Drills on cruise ships here:
It must just be because our cruise was too short for it to be a requirement.
Technically, we booked two one-night cruises. Lots of people were just doing the trip out, some just coming back, and some staying longer than we did.
We decided to eat dinner in a place called “Mundo.” This was right outside our window, and it was kind of like a fast-food cafe. It was the cheapest place to eat onboard, but a veggie burger and fries still cost €18.
The vegetarian and vegan options onboard were brilliant, which I found in Sweden and Finland too.
Around 10% of Swedish people are vegetarians or vegans, so it makes sense that they’d have vegetarian versions of everything.
There was also a buffet onboard where you could eat, which was possibly the most popular choice.
You could either pay just for one meal, or they have meal packages. Two dinners and two breakfasts cost €109 per adult – or if you wanted to just pay for one dinner, it would have been €45.
The buffet included alcohol and other drinks, though. For € 45, I wouldn’t get my money’s worth, but I’m sure a lot of people did. For kids, it was around half price.
There were lots of other restaurants onboard, too, like a steak restaurant, seafood restaurant and Italian.
There was also a pub onboard where they would have live music, and the ship even had a pretty big casino. I’ve definitely seen smaller casinos on regular cruise ships.
It was strange to be onboard because some areas very much felt like modern cruise ships, but some areas, like the stairs, definitely felt more like a ferry.
I can’t really describe it but I’m sure you’ll see what I mean in the video below:
Unlike a regular cruise, our cruise card wasn’t linked in any way to a payment method, so onboard, you buy things the same way that you would on land, either with cash or on your card.
On this first night, we had a drink in the Starlight Lounge and watched a Bubble Show. I don’t really know how else to describe it. It was a show where a man blew bubbles...
He created very, very clever, intricate bubbles – some with smoke in them – and he also put audience members into bubbles. It was the kind of entertainment that people could enjoy regardless of language.
It was busy in the lounge, but it was a very big space and there were lots of places to sit. This was the biggest lounge onboard, and theres another area towards the front where you can see out to sea.
We did worry that we would feel as though we always had to buy a drink to take part in the entertainment, but we really didn’t.
They had a couple of bars in here and waiters walking around but not everybody in the lounge had a drink and that wasn’t a problem.
Sometimes, we would buy a drink here, or if we were wandering around the ship with a can of drink, we could sit here with that too, without any issue.
The next day, we docked in Helsinki around 10 a.m.
Helsinki’s time is an hour ahead of Stockholm’s – so things did get a little confusing. Both times were displayed around the ship though – and in the entertainment schedule
The ship’s crew would make announcements about entertainment, and when we were due to dock, in the morning, they would say to us, ‘We will be docking in an hour,’ ‘We will be docking in half an hour,’ ‘We are here.’
The announcements were made in multiple languages, but English was always one of them.
The crew all spoke English, and most of the signs/menus were also in English. The crew onboard were great and always very friendly and welcoming.
They were constantly cleaning the ship and clearing the tables, which did feel like a never-ending task, but they kept on top of it very well.
Tallink have an app, and although it’s basic, it did work better than a lot of cruise lines apps.
The app showed the entertainment schedule and some information about when things were open. The ship actually had free WiFi, which was pretty cool.
It wasn’t always the best, but I’m used to that from normal cruise ships. Cruise WiFi is rarely consistently good, but at least it was free on this cruise.
For most of the cruise, we were close enough to land that I could use 5G on my phone.
There is an area onboard called the “Sunflower Oasis” which is the ship’s equivalent of a spa. It’s basically three big jacuzzis, and you can pay to spend some time here. I didn’t, but it seemed very popular.
Before the cruise, I was unsure how our day in Helsinki would work. I knew that we were docked from 10 a.m. until around 4 p.m., but I had no idea if we could board again during the day.
The guests embarking in Helsinki for the first time couldn’t board until around 3 pm, but I hoped that because we were already cruise guests, that wouldn’t apply to us.
Luckily, it didn’t, and we could come and go as we wanted. All we had to do was scan our cruise card to get onto the ship.
It was a very rainy day when we visited Helsinki, but we had a nice walk around. I picked up some sweets and a drink from Lidl for our walk, as well as some other food that we bought back onto the ship.
I don’t know if you are really allowed to bring food onto the ship, but if you have some snacks in your bag it isn’t a problem.
Theres no security when you board the ship and unless you were actually eating a kebab or something, nobody would mind.
We got drenched, but we were glad it rained that day because we were just able to go back to the ship and get changed.
Because we packed so light, we didn’t bring any other shoes. I ended up drying my shoes with the hairdryer in the cabin, it worked surprisingly well.
My cruise card did get quite wet because I was soaked through my coat, jumper, and T-shirt, but it still worked, so I didn’t bother to get a new one from reception.
It was around now that we discovered the duty-free shops onboard. I’m used to cruise ships having little shops, but this shop was HUGE. You could buy alcohol, cigarettes, perfume, snacks, and, most importantly for me, soft drinks!
In the duty-free shop, you could buy six cans of Coke Zero for €6.90, which is pretty good considering they are normally at least €3 in the bars.
They were the exact same cans that you’d buy at places like Mundo or in the vending machines around the ship for €3.
I don’t know why I’ve not mentioned Moomin until this point, but Moomin is EVERYWHERE on the ship…
Moomin is a cartoon character. Onboard the Silja Symphony, there are Moomin cabins and Moomin shops. Moomin even comes onboard to give hugs and high-fives to the children.
Some of the Moomin cabins fit three passengers, and some up to 6.
You usually pay for the cabin as a whole, so taking kids and fitting them in the bunk beds usually doesn’t cost much, if anything extra.
Apparently, the Moomins are a family of trolls, but they look more like hippos to me!
There were quite a few children on our cruise, and there was a big kids’ club area and activities for them to do, too. The place where the kids hang out is called Siljaland, and it’s full of ball pits, slides, and all kinds of things.
They also have a huge conference area onboard, which I didn’t realise was so big until I looked at the deck plans. I was the only member of Emma Cruises, so I didn’t have a conference with myself.
On top of the Silja Symphony is a lounge and bar called the New York Club. It is an amazing big space with huge windows, but during our cruise, it was only open from 9 p.m., which seemed like a massive shame.
I understand the bar maybe not being open in the day but I’m sure people would like to come here to sit and look out over the ship.
This area definitely felt like a cruise ship and up here you could feel the movement of the ship a little more than the rest of the ship.
I was worried about feeling movement more on the ferry than I would on a cruise ship, and I suppose in a way I did – but not in a bad way. I didn’t feel seasick at all.
I didn’t feel seasick at all during this cruise, and it didn’t feel like the ship was moving side to side, but it did feel slightly more vibrate-y than a usual cruise ship.
I would be lying in bed and could kind of hear the vibrations. It wasn’t a problem, but it was just something I noticed. It may just be because of the age of the ship; older cruise ships, I’ve found, tend to vibrate more.
We didn’t sleep amazingly well on the cruise but that was because we would hear people running up and down the corridors at night.
A couple of times, we heard laughing and other people banging on the doors as they ran past, which was annoying, but that is to be expected from a weekend party cruise on a ferry.
The New York Club area was where they had karaoke in the evenings. We went to karaoke here and I was amazed by how it seemed as though everybody onboard was an incredible singer. Not just able to hold a tune, but really amazing.
Most of the songs that people sung were in English but occasionally a song in another language would be played and I’d be there happily wiggling away singing the words in my head, not having a clue what the song meant.
We did have a group of guys on our cruise who, I assume, were on a stag do because the main guy was dressed as Snow White!
Even he and his friends were amazing at singing, it was so much fun to watch.
I had a really interesting and enjoyable time onboard the Silja Symphony.
To find out about another state-of-the-art ferry that I enjoyed sailing on in Norway, watch this video next:
Before You Go
Find out why ships are painted red below the waterline here:
Why Are Ships Red Below The Waterline? – I Went Under One to Find Out!
Find out why ships are usually referred to as “she” in the article below:
The Real Reason Ships Are Called “She” – Language, History, and Myth
Free Insiders Cruise Line Guide
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Whenever I take a cruise I order a print of my trip. It uses the real satellite data from the cruise and is always a great conversation starter!
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