The cruises compared here
The two tickets cost almost the same, which is what makes the choice confusing. One is a pass that lets you get on and off for 24 or 72 hours. The other is a single loop that brings you back to the pier.
The pass sounds like more for your money. It can be, on the right kind of day. On the wrong kind you spend it waiting on a quay.
1What the pass covers
The boat makes eight stops: Royal Palace, Nybroplan, Vasa Museum, Skeppsholmen, Gröna Lund and ABBA The Museum, the cruise berth S167, Fotografiska and Slussen. A full loop takes about an hour. You can start at any stop, and the ticket runs for 24 or 72 hours from first use.
That list reads like a museum itinerary, and that is the point. Most of the stops sit on Djurgården, Skeppsholmen and the Södermalm waterfront, where getting between sights on foot means long walks around the water.
2The timetable is the catch
Boats leave the Royal Palace pier every hour from 10 am, and the last departure is at 4 pm. One boat an hour means that if you come out of a museum five minutes late, you wait most of an hour for the next.
It also means the service is over by late afternoon. There is no evening sailing, and a 24-hour ticket first used at 3 pm gives you very little that day. In winter the cruise berth stop does not operate, so the loop has seven stops.
3Commentary on each
Both use recorded audio. The listing for the hop-on hop-off boat promises English, and Red Sightseeing advertises 14 languages for it. Headphones are single-use, and the listing suggests bringing your own.
The Royal Canal ride also has an audio guide in English. The difference is that a loop tells one story from start to finish, while on the pass you hear it in pieces between stops. For a live guide you need the archipelago ride from €35.
4When the pass pays off
It works on a museum day planned around the timetable. For example: start at the Royal Palace on the 10 am boat, get off at the Vasa Museum, pick up a later boat to Gröna Lund and ABBA The Museum, and ride on to Fotografiska in the afternoon. Each hop replaces a walk or a tram, and you see the harbour between visits.
The 72-hour ticket makes sense only if you are staying near one of the stops and will use the boat on several days.
5When a tour is the better buy
If you plan to stay on board for the whole loop, you are paying from €20 for an hour that the Royal Canal ride sells from €18, with two boarding points and free cancellation on the same terms.
The reviews point the same way. The hop-on hop-off boat scores 7.6 from 119 reviews, the lowest of the five boats we compared. Both tickets are listed as not wheelchair accessible.