Today is June 29th and I apologize that it’s taken me so long to catch up!! Since I’ve been back from vacation it’s been crazy busy – I came down with a cold, my bank account was hacked because I used my debit card in Copenhagen (several times at places I thought were safe), I had three days to pack up and move out of my old place and into my new one and work has been crazy busy!
I wanted to do justice to the ABBA Museum in my report so I needed to wait. It seems like it was so long ago so I’ll do my best! Pulling into Stockholm was one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen. There are so many little islands and there are homes on these tiny islands! Diane went to get a coffee and I bundled up in a blanket to sit on the verandah and she came to join me while we were making our way to Stockholm. If you look at the channel on the tv that shows the location of the ship, you’ll see that there are hundreds of little islands and you’ll appreciate the captain’s skills!
On this day we purchased a Hop on Hop off boat tour in addition to the ABBA Museum tickets. When we got it, we thought we’d take public transportation into town but we were happy to find that in every port (other than St. Petersburg), Disney offered a free shuttle to anyone who may have been doing a port on their own. So we went down to deck 1 and exited the ship, went through the terminal to the shuttles that were waiting for us. They dropped us off in town right next to the Opera House. From there we walked through Old Town which was beautiful.
From Old Town we caught the Hop on Hop off Boat (and we also could have caught it right across the street from where the Disney shuttle dropped us off but we had time to walk around before our noon museum ticket time). We rode around it through several stops and Stockholm was beautiful! We wished that we’d also made plans to stop by the Junibacken Museum (a children’s museum which features works by Astrid Lindgren the creator of Pippi Longstocking) or the Vasa Museum which were one stop before the ABBA Museum. We got off at the stop for the ABBA Museum and there was also an amusement park right there. We easily found the museum and we knew instantly that we must do all of the activities that we came across no matter how silly – and some of these started outside!
We got there just a bit early so we looked around the gift shop so we knew exactly what to buy when we came out!
Then we picked up our audio guides and waited to enter. The museum was fabulous! It was just as fun as I thought it would be! Each member of ABBA got their own informational stop, there were plenty of photo opportunities, videos, and interactive stations.
As for interactive opportunities, there was a recording booth where you could sing along to an ABBA song (which we did even though we are all atrocious singers), a booth where you could make your own ABBA video (which we did), one where you could get up on stage and perform with life size digital images of the group (we did not do this one because it was only one person at a time and we perform better as a group), and one where you sit down and it takes a picture of your face and puts it onto various ABBA outfits (we did this too, please see photo below).
We had a ball and I don’t think we laughed so much during the entire trip! So we didn’t see a whole lot of Stockholm, it wasn’t particularly educational (unless you wanted to learn more about ABBA) but we had FUN!!! And that’s what it’s all about. My 15 year old daughter is very familiar with ABBA because I’ve listened to them since before she was born and I knew it was a successful venture when she said “I hate to admit it, but I’m having so much fun here!!”. When we left we went through the gift shop and Eilee said “You’ll probably let me buy anything I want here because it’s ABBA right?” and I said “Well YES!!”. So she picked out a shirt and a few other souvenirs. I also got a shirt and some trinkets.
After we left, we got on the boat and we got off near the Opera House where the shuttle would bring us back. We decided to take a walk and we found a shopping area and a beautiful park. We also found a Starbuck’s but we didn’t go in! We had a bite to eat, wandered around a bit and then went back to the shuttle. We had some great excursions at the other ports and learned a lot about the countries we visited but this one was purely for entertainment value. We loved it and we’re glad we visited. And someone even saw my Packers jersey in the museum and said “I love Nelson – Go Pack!” and got a kick out of finding a fellow Packers fan in Sweden.