It's cheaper to buy bus and boat tickets than booze!? What kind of taxes do you guys have over there!?
It's 4 sprong thing:
1: Difference in alcohol tax between Finland and Estonia.
2: Difference in vages (and thus price of things) between Finland and Estonia.
3: Real competition between bus companies.
4: Boat companies making most of the money on additional (but not mandatory) things like Estonia tax booze sales and food, and keep cruise prices super low to actract people on basic cruises.
Let me give explanation:
1 and 2: 0.5 liter bottle of vodka in Finland 16 Euros, same bottle in Estonia 10 Euros. = 4 bottles save 24 Euros.
3: Bus ticket can be as low as 3 Euros per trip + 1 Euro for reservation fee. = 2-way ticket + reservation is 7 Euros. Add to that inter Helsinki bus tickets 3.2 Euros per way from city center to boat tarminal and back and we're still at 13.4 Euros.
4: Cruise tickets start from 8 Euros with mini cabin.
True that the whole trip for me takes 40 hours versus less than 1 hour using local alco shop.
But take suitcase with wheels for more booze and savings are great, easily in hundreds if not thousands if you buy better whisky or cognag.
Of course one could bring more than needed and illegally sell the surplus... I won't, I'll just bring what I need for next 6 months, them do the cruise again as it's very enjoyable experience.
Or live in Helsinki from where you can make the trip in 12 hours using express boats.
