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Choosing among the various passes

Posted by (Denver, CO, USA) on

Trying to figure out the best pass or combination of passes for us. Husband and I will be in Berlin for probably 8 nights in November. We will probably want to go to several museums, but not all on Museum island -- probably the Pergamon and then some of the more contemporary ones. I'm considering the 7-day Transit pass plus the 3-day Museum pass, which seems like it would cost more than the basic Welcome Card but considerably less than the all-inclusive Welcome Card., and be more useful than the basic one because museums would be free. (The other basic Welcome Card discounts seem like they would not add up to much for us -- we're more likely to find an inexpensive restaurant wherever we happen to be than to go hunting for one that offers a 25% discount.) Does that make sense?

Thanks to all of you who patiently answer similar questions whenever they come up!

Posted by
28120 posts

I was not happy with the Welcome Card with Museumsinseln add-on in 2015. What you're considering may be a better option. My experience was that the WC+MI didn't allow me to skip ticket lines at the Pergamon, etc., and those lines were often over an hour long. I was very upset to discover that when one of the other MI museums raised its entry fee because of a major special exhibition, I had to pay the full augmented entry charge, getting no benefit whatsoever from the WC+MI pass. All in all, a very poor bargain.

In deciding whether the other arrangement will work well for you, keep in mind that the MI museums--and some others like the German History Museum--are very large and can swallow up many hours of your time. How many will you really have time for? And the city is very large, so you can spend considerable time just traveling between sights.

A final complication is that some of the things you want to do may be free or not covered by the pass. If you try to optimize pass usage by grouping non-covered attractions on non-pass days and covered attractions on pass days, your sightseeing schedule may have you hopscotching all over the city rather than following the most geographically logical plan of attack. Time is often more valuable than money on a vacation.

I tend to spend a lot more time than average at most sights. When I return to Berlin, I won't buy a sightseeing pass.

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