The Scandline Ferry is a Great Scandinavian Side-Trip

While there are not many big ferries left in the US, they are still quite popular in Europe. One of my favourites is the Scandline Ferries. These sail to and from Denmark, Sweden, and Germany on a regular basis and are huge multi-tiered ships on which you can bring your car. They are so big; they make me feel as if I've taken a mini-cruise each time I get off one of their ships.

 Part of the reason Scandlines is so popular here is due to the high price of beer and booze in Scandinavia. A popular pastime then is to take the ferry to Germany and buy copious amounts of both items every few months. It is much cheaper down there, and Scandlines even owns a big 4-story building full of the stuff at their German ports. This makes things quite handy in that you can drive onto the ship in Denmark, get off in Germany 45 minutes later and drive around the corner to fill up your Volvo XC90 to the brim; then turn around and drive right back to the ship and go home. They even offer a 200DKK rebate if you re-board within 3 hours of your original departure time.

While that little trip thrills the hell out of my husband, it does not satisfy me so we tend to land in Puttgarden and then drive on down to Luebeck for the night. It is not a long drive at all, and very scenic.

The Scandlines Ferries, like I said, have several decks. After driving onto the ship, you get out of the vehicle and take the stairs to wherever it is you want to go. I hate those stairs. They do have an elevator, I'm told, but I have yet to find it.

We usually head straight up to one of the two restaurants and pig out on delightful Danish pastries or wonderful German schnitzel. The prices are very low onboard these ships and the food is much better than you would expect from a ferry cafeteria type place. They have a wide selection of beer to go with your meal, along with numerous other options.

After having a cigarette in one of the easy-to-find smoking sections, we then head to one of the two Duty Free shops onboard the ship. The big shop has all kinds of stuff like a variety of top-name designer perfumes, cosmetics, purses, candy, toys, Scandlines ball caps, etc. The prices on the ship are indeed way below what you can buy the same items for in Scandinavia.

The smaller shop is full of beer and booze, mostly, but not to the same level of choices as the huge shop at the port. Still, if you wanted to not get off the ship at all you could cruise back and forth (sans car though) and get quite a good deal on quite a lot of things.

The cost to go from Denmark to Germany is around the equivalent of $90 round trip, so you do want to buy enough to make up for that. We have no problem making the cost of the trip worthwhile in beer purchases alone. This last trip they had Carlsberg's Sort Guld on sale for like around $5us per case. You can bet my husband bought enough to fill the car at that price.

They do have an ATM on the ship, too, in case you forgot to grab enough cash. It also gives you a choice of currency. We usually grab our money in Euros, but you can also get Danish Kronor if you sale from this port, or Swedish Kronor if you choose to sale from Trelleborg instead.

After we are full and shopped out, we then go to the front of the ship and sit sipping coffee while looking out over the Baltic Sea. It is a glorious scene. Seeing Germany come into view is breathtaking, as well as the same for Denmark or Sweden on the way back home. Very relaxing, that. If you are planning a trip to Scandinavia, do be sure to make time to enjoy this little side-trip aboard one Scandlines wonderful ferries. Just make sure you have plenty of room to bring back all those treasures...