SL card/app is it worth it?
 

Hello and thanks in advance for the help. We are a family of 4 (one under 20) who will be visiting Stockholm in June 2025 for 8 days. It looks like 7 day passes for the four of us would cost about $160 (3 full fares and one discounted). We are staying in Södermalm and are planning to do most of the popular tourist sights, including just exploring the city. Do you think it's worth it to buy the 7 day pass over individual tickets? To me, it's not a bad price and I figure it's worth a little extra instead of trying to calculate the savings of buying trip by trip. Also, the SL app has gotten some fairly negative reviews in the App store. Can anyone with recent firsthand knowledge give me their thoughts? If the app is a pain I figure we can each buy the SL card and use it instead. I appreciate the help.
~Robert

I delayed in answering your question because I was hoping someone who had traveled recently would chime in. I know you read my trip report and are aware that I had the heebie-jeebies about the SL app reviews and so I didn't use it to purchase our 7-day passes. If I were leaving tomorrow, I think I WOULD use it this time. I'd download the app, create an account, and then buy the pass once on the ground. Some of the reported glitches were solved through uninstalling/reinstalling the app on the ground, making sure the NFC settings were right, etc.

As to the 7-day pass, it was fiscally wise for us. We were happy with our two green cards (we also had senior discounts) and our stay was actually less than 5 days. As I put in the report, I was sort of hoping our flight would be cancelled and we would have an excuse to stay.

After the 7th day, you can figure out what you can do with day passes, etc.

Note: You have probably thought of this. Even if you are using the app or individual green cards, I'd make sure you all had separate passes (a card or the app on each phone). You don't want to be the pain-in-the-butt tourist at the metro turnstile swiping four times or having to wait for a gate agent.
Plus, given the ages of your children, they won't want to be in lockstep with you. My girls LOVED hanging with my husband and me (yep, we were lucky) but their memories of ditching us for time with each other will forever be their best bond once we are gone.

I know you would be getting a discount on the almost 18-year-old. I'm curious as to whether or not your 20-yr-old could qualify for a student discount. The website wasn't that clear if the student had to attend a Swedish university, and I think it may be fun to find out.

Living vicariously through your upcoming trip,
AZ

And I forgot to add information I just posted for people who are trying to book rail tix etc in Scandinavia: Attaching your credit card to your account apps can be tricky in Scandinavia. Some of the cc verification systems don't communicate well. While I had good luck attaching MasterCards to most of the transport apps I downloaded, one site just would not accept my card that had worked easily in others. The solution? PayPal! Some of those sites accept Google Pay and Apple Pay too.

AZ - thanks for the reply and sorry for the late response. I tried before but there was an issue with the site I think. Anyway, I think we're going to get the passes (everyone will get their own). This way we'll all be free to explore as much as we like without having to worry about cost after the initial purchase. From my understanding my oldest does not qualify (the way I see it is you need to be in a Swedish university), but I'll look closer as we get closer. Looking forward to seeing and exploring Stockholm!

No problem about the late response. Heck, I just checked in today after four days away. And you are wonderful for crediting a contribution. Most people don't!

You probably had the same "please tell me what I want to know!" reaction to the SL website. There seem to be secret links to some pages that aren't in English and once one translates them via Google, they take on different meanings. And the wording on the Student Discount is quite vague--the ending modifying phrase is what makes one wonder.

No matter what, you've probably figured out as we did, transportation is the CHEAPEST thing going in Stockholm. You've spent how many thousands of dollars just to get there and rent your space, right? If you lose a few SEK with a "wrong" decision, it's not that big of a deal.

I'm dripping with envy you get to spend your time there with your kids. Don't get me wrong--we've had a gazillion adventures with ours, even after they got married (the sons-in-law actually like us, too). But I would have loved to do the trip we did last year with them and their children. My oldest went to NYU, lived in the Lower East Side in a cute DR neighborhood, and walked across the Williamsburg Bridge all the time to Brooklyn. There's some of the same feel in Stockholm (with a lower crime rate) that I know she'd love.

AZ - thanks again for the contribution. We are thinking this may be the last 'Big Trip" with just the four of us. Our oldest actually told us (before we set our sights on Stockholm) that she might try and get a job or internship this summer, so not to count on her for a family trip. Once we mentioned Stockholm, she was in and it seems the internship and job idea was put on hold. I'm glad as I know time is limited since we're not rich!
I think I saw you visited Skansen for Midsummer. I've done a little research and it seems it's a family and friends holiday. I'm guessing the event at Skansen was mainly for tourists, and from your tr you enjoyed it. Would you recommend that for others? Thanks again for the help.

Laughing here, rmoore, about your "last family trip." I personally thought my life was over the day I dropped my oldest off at college. Mark my words, you'll get another one or two trip innings in even with the endless internships your two will experience. It will work out.

So, about Midsummer. As I put in the report, I totally blanked out that our stay would coincide with Midsummer. I had originally envisioned spending our days having fika and doing a few walking tours tracing the steps of some of my Nordic Noir authors. And not only did I terribly want to visit the downtown IKEA, I had also sketched out the 33-minute mass transport to the huge suburban IKEA Kungens Kurva. Why? I am an unabashed IKEA junkie who just LOVED building all the furniture for my two girl's off-campus dorms. It would be like heading to The Mothership for me.

I digress...

Once I realized my boo-boo, I did a deep-dive search on all things Midsummer. Like you, I had assumed we'd have no luck doing anything because it's very much a "friends and family" holiday, bigger than Christmas. The key to understanding it all is that Midsummer's EVE is the bigger holiday. Everything shuts down that day; some from noon on, some from the night before. My IKEA? CLOSED (sniff!). Some places close for the next few months, and some museums you might otherwise visit could be shut down or have limited hours.

As to the celebration itself, various forums said, "Just go to Skansen." Ok, I'd use that as the goal post for our stay.

I made an Excel spreadsheet of everything from decent restaurants that might be open during our stay, to museums' adjusted hours, special reservations/ticketing requirements, etc and came up with a flexible game plan. Overall, we'd only buy the SL 7-day pass for our less than 5-day stay, we'd pre-buy our Skansen tickets, make a few key restaurant reservations and wing it. We would for sure skip the City Go Pass.

As suggested here and elsewhere, we arrived at Skansen on Midsummer's Eve early. Note: Skansen also replays the entire thing on Midsummer's Day. The pre-purchase line was extra-long and I worried I had goofed by buying ahead. But before opening time, our line whooshed through. We headed up the escalator and immediately to the staging area (you can ask along the way where to go). We plopped down outside the roped off area (no, unlike others, we did not have a blanket to sit on or a supply of water bottles and perhaps we should have). There were places to make wreaths around us, but we stayed plopped. Eventually, they made everyone get up and pull up their blankets, but we were able to hold our "post position" (hey, we were always very good at maintaining our "front" during New Orleans Mardi Gras parades :) ).

If I had to do anything differently, I'd get the heck out of Skansen right after the Små grodorna. There is SO much to see on Djurgarden and you can then get inside places like the ABBA museum or The Viking Museum before they get overrun.