Ruotsinlaiva

Ruotsinlaiva (Finnish for "ship to Sweden") is a common name for the large passenger ships providing daily transport from the Finnish cities of Helsinki and Turku to the Swedish city of Stockholm and back.

Two major rival companies, Viking Line and Silja Line, operate on the route. Both companies' ships are mainly coloured white, but Viking Line's trademark colour is red while Silja Line uses blue.

The ships are huge, compared to the distance they travel. They are mostly slightly under 300 metres long and as high as five- or six-story houses. Inside, they offer many restaurants, night clubs and tax free shopping, which is the main attraction for many cruise passengers.

In Finland, the ruotsinlaiva ships are often criticised because the low prices of alcoholic beverages encourage passengers to become drunk and act like idiots. In particular, on cruises holding a GOOM party, drunken university students can be almost intolerable.

When Finland joined the European Union, the traditional route of the ships had to be changed, because it is illegal to offer tax free shopping on intra-EU cruises. To circumvent this, the ships nowadays stop briefly at Åland, which is not part of EU, despite politically belonging to Finland.