Wooden sailing ship cruise review
Read this first: no seat is guaranteed. Boarding is open, the advice is to arrive early, and on a full sailing some people stand. My verdict: 4.5 from about 6,150 reviews is the second-largest file on this water, and a two-hour trip on a traditional wooden ship is a genuinely different thing from two hours in a glass saloon. It leaves from Rådhusbrygge 3, there is a heated deck, blankets and a bar, and a Bygdøy ferry ticket comes with it. If the fjord ices over the sailing is cancelled and refunded.
Nobody is holding a seat for you
This is the fact that changes the trip and it is the one people skim. Boarding is open. There is no seat number on your booking and none is promised. The operator’s own advice is to arrive early, and on a busy sailing in July that advice is the whole difference between two hours at a table by a window and two hours propped against a rail.
Turn up twenty minutes before the departure and this is a non-issue. Turn up at the advertised time with a pushchair and two tired children and it is the only thing you will remember. There is no mechanism here that protects a late arrival, because the boat is not built with one.
The wind comes across the deck the moment you clear Akershus, and everybody who chose the open side finds out at once. The blankets are there for a reason and they go fast. If you are sailing outside July and August, take the layer you think you will not need — what to wear on the water is a genuinely different question from what to wear in the city.
About 6,150 reviews on a wooden boat
Second only to the Langkaia cruise, and by a small margin. That is a lot of people to have sailed a wooden ship around the same harbour, and it means the 4.5 is close to immovable. Open boarding, exposure to weather and a bar full of people are three things that generate strong opinions in both directions, and the average has already swallowed all of them.
Two boats on this site read 4.5 on samples of about 6,690 and about 6,150. Two more read 4.5 on samples of 597 and 158. Those are the same number describing four completely different amounts of evidence, which is exactly why this site will not build a league table out of them.
What the reviewers keep saying
The file is about the boat and about the angle it gives you on the city, rather than about anybody talking.
- Jacqueline, Netherlands — you pass the well-known sights, but you also get a piece of the natural beauty
- Zuzana, Czech Republic — the trip on the wooden boat was a fantastic experience
- Katarzyna, Poland — you see the city from a different angle, and how tied to the water it is
Katarzyna’s point is the honest case for this trip over the glass boats. Oslo is a city built along a waterline and you cannot see that from inside it. Two hours out on a wooden deck, with Akershus rising on one side and the Bygdøy shore closing on the other, is a better explanation of the place than any amount of walking. The route, landmark by landmark.
The Bygdøy ferry ticket in the box
The listing includes a ticket for the Bygdøy ferry. That is a real inclusion and not a rounding error: Bygdøy is the wooded peninsula opposite the City Hall quays with the museums on it, and the ferry is how most people get there without a bus. Whether it is worth anything to you depends entirely on whether you were going to Bygdøy anyway, which only you can answer. Bygdøy from the water, and what is on it.
The reason somebody gives this four stars
Seating and weather, in that order, and both of them are in the listing before you book. A person who boarded last onto a full sailing and stood for two hours in a wind off Akershus has had a worse afternoon than the person at the window table, on the same boat, on the same water, for the same reason: they arrived later.
There is also the ice. The wooden ships run year-round, but a sailing is cancelled and refunded if the fjord freezes over. Getting your money back is the correct outcome and it is still a cancelled plan on a short trip. What the winter sailings are actually like.
On access I am not going to guess. Three of the six boats on this site are wheelchair accessible and one of those has a lift; this is not one of the three, and a wooden ship with open boarding is not a vessel to assume anything about. What each boat states, and what to ask before you book.
What works
- 4.5 from about 6,150 reviews — the second-largest file on this water
- A traditional wooden ship, which is a different trip from a glass saloon
- Heated deck, blankets and a bar
- A Bygdøy ferry ticket is included
- Two hours, long enough to get properly out among the near islands
- English over the speakers plus a companion app in thirteen languages
- Cancelled and refunded if the fjord ices over, rather than sailed regardless
Worth knowing
- No seat is guaranteed. Open boarding, and you are advised to arrive early
- You are exposed to the weather in a way the electric boats do not expose you
- Not one of the three boats here that state wheelchair access
- No live guide — the English is a speaker, not a person
- The bar is part of the atmosphere, which not everybody wants for two hours
- Rådhusbrygge 3, so if you booked Langkaia by mistake you are at the wrong end
What the listing commits to
- Two hours on a traditional wooden sailing ship
- A heated deck, blankets and a bar on board
- Commentary in English over the speakers
- A companion app with thirteen languages
- A Bygdøy ferry ticket
- A full refund if the fjord ices over and the sailing is cancelled
What it does not
- A seat — boarding is open and none is promised
- A live guide standing in front of you
- Any landing; the Bygdøy ferry is a separate journey on a separate day
- Stated step-free access of the kind three other boats here publish
Who should book it, and who should not
Book it if the boat is the point. A wooden ship under a grey Norwegian sky with a blanket over your knees is a specific pleasure and no electric catamaran delivers it. Book it if you want two hours rather than ninety minutes. Book it if the Bygdøy ferry ticket is something you would have bought.
Do not book it if standing for two hours is a problem, unless you are certain you will be early. Do not book it if you need stated step-free access, which the boat with a lift has and this one does not publish. Do not book it if you want a person answering questions — that is the silent boat, in English only. And do not book it in February assuming it will definitely sail.
The alternatives
The fifty-minute boat below is the same operator from the same quay. The electric cruise is the one with a lift.
Shortest on the waterOslo: Fjord Mini Cruise by Wooden Sailing Ship
Step-free, with a liftOslo: 2-Hour Electric Oslofjord Sightseeing with Audio Guide
The only live guideOslo: Guided Sightseeing Fjord Cruise on Premium Silent Boat
Frequently asked questions
Do you get a seat on the wooden sailing ship cruise?
Not guaranteed. Boarding is open, no seat is assigned, and the advice is to arrive early. On a full summer sailing some people stand for the two hours. It is the most consequential detail on the listing. What boarding is actually like.
What happens if the Oslofjord freezes?
The sailing is cancelled and you are refunded. The wooden ships run through the winter otherwise, but ice stops them. Cruising here in the dark half of the year.
Is the Bygdøy ferry really included?
Yes, a Bygdøy ferry ticket comes with this listing. Bygdøy is the wooded museum peninsula opposite the City Hall quays. Whether that is worth anything to you depends on whether you were going there. What is on Bygdøy.
Is the wooden sailing ship wheelchair accessible?
This site will not claim it is. Three of the six boats here state wheelchair access and one of those has a lift on board; this listing is not among them, and open boarding onto a wooden ship is not something to assume about. The access page.