The Suomenlinna ferry is not a tour
For nine summers I sold tickets at a kiosk thirty metres from that gate, and the single most useful thing I did all day was point. People arrived at the public ferry gate holding a sightseeing ticket. People queued at the sightseeing pier expecting to be taken to the fortress. Separating those two things is the most useful thing this whole website does, so it gets its own page.
Where it leaves from
Market Square — Kauppatori — has water on two sides and several different kinds of boat tied up along it. The HSL ferry berth is on the eastern side, in front of the Presidential Palace. It is the one with a proper gate, a ticket reader and a queue of people who look like they are going to work, because about 350 people do work on Suomenlinna year round and around 900 live there permanently.
The sightseeing boats are along the quay, and one operator’s pier is marked with tall red flags. The RIB tour meets somewhere else entirely, at Café Marina Bay on Kanavaranta. The Tallinn and Stockholm ships leave from harbours on the other side of the centre. Every one of those is laid out on the page about where the boats leave from.
The ticket
An HSL AB ticket, valid 90 minutes, covers the crossing. It is the ordinary city ticket. If you have already bought one for the tram and it is still inside its 90 minutes, you have already paid for the ferry. If you have a day ticket or a travel card for the zones, the same applies. Nobody sells a special ferry ticket at the gate and you do not need one. Buying and validating is the same process as anywhere else on the network: how to pay for a ferry here.
The timetable
Every day of the year, from early morning until late at night. In summer the intervals are short — several sailings an hour, with published figures of every 15 to 30 minutes. In winter it thins out to at least hourly, with figures of every 40 to 60 minutes. It runs in ice. It runs on Christmas Day. It is the one boat in Helsinki you never have to check the season for.
What is at the other end
Suomenlinna is a sea fortress spread over eight islands, six of them fortified. Construction began in 1748 under Swedish rule, when it was called Sveaborg — Viapori in Finnish — and it was renamed Suomenlinna, “the fortress of Finland”, on 12 May 1918. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1991. The Finnish submarine Vesikko, the last surviving Finnish submarine, sits on the island along with several museums. In 2009 a record 713,000 people visited, most of them between May and September.
It is also a place where people live. Walk quietly past the front doors. What Suomenlinna actually is goes into more detail.
So why would you pay for a boat tour at all?
Because the ferry and a sightseeing boat do completely different jobs, and the ferry is not trying to do the sightseeing one. The ferry takes the direct line, at working speed, with no commentary, no sundeck bar and no explanation of anything you pass. A sightseeing boat goes out through the channels between the small islands, past the villas and boathouses on the inner shore, and shows you the city front from the angle the city was built to be seen from — with an audio guide in 28 languages telling you what you are looking at. Ninety minutes, and back to the same quay.
They are both good. They are not substitutes. The mistake is paying for one while expecting the other, and the second mistake is assuming that because you have done the ferry, you have seen the archipelago — there are about 330 islands out there and the ferry crosses to one of them in a straight line.
What works
- It runs every day of the year, which nothing else on the water here does
- An ordinary city ticket covers it, valid 90 minutes, same as the tram
- Fifteen minutes, which is short enough that a bad crossing is never long
- It lands you on a UNESCO World Heritage Site with museums and cafes
- It leaves from the most central point in the city
Worth knowing
- No commentary, no guide, no explanation of anything you pass
- The queue for the last ferry back on a July Sunday is genuinely long
- It goes to one island in a straight line, not out among the archipelago
- Deck space is limited and in winter you will want to be inside
- Nothing on Suomenlinna itself is included — museums are separate
On a July Sunday, come back an hour before you think you need to, or accept that you will stand in a long queue on the quay at Suomenlinna with everybody else who had the same idea about sunset. The other move is to go out in the morning and come back at three, against the traffic. And in November, when the sightseeing fleet has been laid up for weeks, this ferry is still running — a 15-minute crossing in the near-dark of a six-hour day is its own kind of good.
If you want the tour as well
Take both. Cross on the ferry in the morning, walk the fortress, come back, and take the ninety-minute loop in the afternoon to see the other 329 islands from the water. That is the full day I would recommend to anyone, and it is written out on the one-day page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to book the Suomenlinna ferry?
No. It is public transport. You buy an ordinary HSL AB ticket, valid 90 minutes, the same as for the tram: how to pay.
Where does the ferry leave from?
The eastern side of Market Square, directly in front of the Presidential Palace. The sightseeing boats are along the same quay but at different piers: which pier is which.
How long does the crossing take?
Fifteen minutes, several times an hour in summer and at least hourly in winter, every day of the year.
Does the ferry run in winter?
Yes, every day of the year, early morning until late at night. The sightseeing boats do not: boats in winter.
Is a sightseeing cruise better than the ferry?
They do different jobs. The ferry lands you on the fortress; the cruise shows you the archipelago and the city front with commentary, and does not land: the sightseeing loop.