Advice for Overnight Copenhagen Layovers

I would get a hotel next to the airport. The Clarion Hotel Copenhagen Airport is just across from the street from the airport and right next to the train into Copenhagen center. If you book in the city you'll waste time. There's the hassle of lugging around your bags and the cost of paying for a taxicab as well.

You can use the DSB app to buy single tickets into the city. It's maybe a 15-minute ride. The trains run regularly, every 10-15 minutes. Two adults and your two children would be 90 DKK one way. The center city is very walkable. Tivoli is right next to Copenhagen Central Station.

"CPH Lufthavn" is the airport stop and "København H" is Copenhagen Central Station. (That is what shows on my English version: dsb.dk/en.)

Restaurant suggestion: Maple Casual Dining, 300 m west of Central Station on Vesterbrogade 24. It's popular so you'll need a reservation. Casual attire. It just has very good food so it's popular. (Be advised that tap water costs 20DKK a bottle/pitcher.)

Watch out for pickpockets.

Enjoy your stay.

With an early departure I would stay at the airport for first layover, then there is no need to have margin for transport problems and you can sleep a little longer, you will be fine by reaching check-in at 7:00 too. Both Comfort hotel and Clarion hotel are very close.

For the second layover the city is better as you already have realized. 11:30 sounds fine, you need to go through passport control even if lines usually are short, boarding starts earlier for US flights and you might be selected for an extra security check at the gate.

Thank your for such quick advice!

The Comfort hotel looks very convenient and reasonably priced. I like that idea for the first layover. Short walk to hotel from T3 (correct?), drop bags, then walk back to T3 for metro (correct again?).

I would like to stay in the city at least once, so if we do that on the second layover, can someone recommend a good area that puts us very close to a metro station, but also walking distance to a nice morning stroll around some sights or a charming neighborhood? Time will be precious that morning.

Where to stay is in the end a matter of personal preference. But for an early morning departure staying at the airport certainly has its advantages. Although it is very easy to travel between central Copenhagen and the airport.

As for a place to stay in central Copenhagen, as long as you are close to a metro station on the M2 line you are in a good location. Around Kongens Nytorv maybe? But you can also consider Christianshavn or Nørreport.

The hotels and the metro are all north of the road outside T3. To get from T3 to the hotel you can either cross the road at the pedestrian crossing or by the indoor footbridge that also leads to the metro station, might be better to use the footbridge since you then know how to find the metro afterwards.

I've booked our first layover at the CPH Comfort. Thank you for that tip!

For the second layover, before I blow ~$300 on a hotel where we'll only spend ~9 hours (ouch!), should we consider other areas (or even towns) that are near the airport and would make for a nice Monday morning stroll before our flight? For example, when we did overnight layovers via Heathrow, we had similar time constraints and spent the final "layover morning" in Windsor instead of London.

If we do spend both layovers in central Copenhagen, then I'll think about which activities / sites we can "save" for the second layover (i.e., more conducive to a quick Monday morning visit versus a Saturday afternoon/evening the first time).

You can have a look at the other side of Öresund and spend a night in Lund instead. A bit further away, but there are good connections to the airport by frequent trains. And it might be a bit cheaper than Copenhagen.

Thanks, assuming we stay in Copenhagen for the second layover, I am looking at two hotels: Hotel Osterport, and ProfilHotels Richmond. The latter has bigger rooms available (for a similar price), but I think the former might be a better location, given our circumstances. During our first layover, I'd like to see the major sights (incl. canal tour) and Tivoli at night, so I assume we'll have already walked that end of town. Whereas the Osterport area might be "unexplored" after our first layover, and therefore a more strategic location to maximize those ~3 hours on a Monday morning. As usual, I'm probably overthinking this?