Skibladner Schedules 2026

D/S Skibladner is the oldest paddle steamer in the world still running to a timetable. Not preserved in a museum, not chartered for occasions — scheduled, ticketed, calling at quays around Lake Mjøsa the way she has since the reign of Oscar I.

Launched 2 August 1856

She was built at the Motala shipyard in Sweden between 1854 and 1856, shipped in pieces and assembled at Minnesund near Eidsvoll, and made her maiden voyage on 2 August 1856. In 1888 she was rebuilt and lengthened to her present 165 feet, and the vessel is now a protected monument restored to that 1888 appearance. She carries up to 230 passengers, makes 14 knots, and is driven by a triple-expansion steam engine of over 600 horsepower.

She was built to carry goods, not tourists

The original job was an express passenger and goods service on Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake, at a time when the water was a faster road than the road. The route has not moved: Eidsvoll, Hamar, Gjøvik, Lillehammer and the smaller quays between them — Moelv, Kapp, Brumunddal, Nes, Atlungstad, Evjua — are the same calls she has always made.

Never on a Monday

The operator sails every day except Mondays, and our schedule data shows exactly how that is arranged: departures run on paired days — some Tuesday and Friday, some Wednesday and Saturday, some Thursday and Sunday — and not one sailing in our data falls on a Monday. One ship cannot be at both ends of a long lake on the same day, so the schedule alternates rather than repeating.

A short season, and it ends in mid-August

The timetabled season is brief. The departures we hold are dated to 16 August 2026 and no further. Cruises with music, dinners and themed evenings continue past that date — a jazz sailing on 20 August, a jubilee dinner on the 21st, an aquavit cruise on the 29th — but those are events rather than the scheduled service. If you want the timetable, you want June to mid-August.

Half a day from one end of the lake to the other

The longest single leg in our data is Evjua to Eidsvoll at 140 minutes, with the reverse at 125. Gjøvik to Brumunddal runs 100 to 105 minutes, and Lillehammer to Moelv takes 90. Chain them and a day on Mjøsa is exactly that: a day.

You can still buy a ticket at the quay

Tickets can be booked and paid for online or by telephone, but the company also sells at the piers before departure. For a vessel that has been selling passages on this lake since 1856, being able to turn up and pay at the gangway is a reasonable thing to have kept.