Hamburg Munich Berlin City Cards

We were in Munich last month and got the 3 day group ticket from MVV, There were 2 adults and 2 kids in our group. Worked great for our Ubahn and S Bahn needs. I would also recommend the MVV app-it was great for planning the night before or finding out options on the fly. Here is the link about the group tickets: https://www.mvv-muenchen.de/en/tickets-and-fares/tickets-daytickets/group-day-ticket/index.html

The cards that include museum discounts are specific tourist deals and if you poke around more on the city transport authority (NOT the tourist office) website you will see prices for transport-only tickets. You will need to do some careful calculation to see if the tourist discount card ones are actually worthwhile.

One of the reasons we buy the card is because you can usually skip the purchasing ticket line and just straight to the security line. This worked well for us in Amsterdam. We will probably purchase the card for Kraków this July. Just a note though, even with the card you should make timed reservations at the sights you want to see, for example Anne Frank house and Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I will reserve at Schindler's Factory and the Salt Mine during the next week or so. If we don't use it enough, we just figure it is a donation to the city.

I don't buy any public transport pass for my visit in Hamburg. In Hamburg as in the other two cities listed are hotels that offer free to the guest a CombiTicket valid on buses, the S and U-Bahn. The hotel I usually stay at in Hamburg offers the free transport pass. This only covers public transport, no museum entrances.

Dang. I hadn’t come across that tidbit. Maybe helpful in Munich but in both Berlin and Hamburg we will be in an Airbnb.

A lot of tidbids out there pertaining to Austria and Germany. That's another reason why I don't stay in an AirB&B. What is offerred by a CombiTicket is that all public transport within the city is covered by the Ticket.

I don't think you will find any of these Combi-Tickets for staying in hotels in Berlin or Munich, but day and multi-day transport passes are pretty cheap.

I'm changing hotels today and don't have a lot of time, so this will not be the usual encyclopedia-length post about Berlin cards.

There's a Museumsinseln card thaat might be worthwhile for you if you're interested in those museums and are quick emough in museums to make it pay. They are quite large, and a person might spend a full day in each one--in which case the card makes no sense. However, the ticket lines can be very long (in excess of an hour), and I have read that you can take that card to the Group Tour desk and go right in. There is no free transport with that card, but it's easy to buy day passes (probably also multi-day passes) at an S-Bahn or U-Bahn station. You can use a vending machine.

The Berlin Welcome Card is a different product. It comes in a plain variety and with a Museumsinseln add-on. I do not recommend the latter, based on my 2015 experience. It did not let me skip the lines on Museumsinseln, and when there was a special exhibition at one of those museums, I had to pay the full entrance fee (regular plus the extra charge). I was not happy. The plain Welcome Card might pay off for you, again depending to a considerable degree on how much time you spend at each site. I tend to be all-in at the museums and histprical sites I visit, taking the time to read all the material posted in English, so many ordinary-size places take me 3 to 4 hours.

I think there's yet another card that's considerably more expensive and probably not a good deal for anyone.

Another thing to remember is that Berlin is very spread out and the major sights widely scattered. That makes a transit pass useful. But all that time you spend moving from place to place is time you are not spending in pay-to-enter sights. You may just mot get to as many sights as you hope and expect to see. There's also the issue that, it you buy a pass that covers less than your full time in the city, you will naturally try to pack the most costly covered sights into your pass days. But that is not fhe most efficient approach in sight-rich Berlin. You'd see more by organizing your sightseeing geographically.

@ MommaBear....My compliments on the eloquent name, reminds me of what I heard in an early 1960s TV series, if I recall correctly. Both in Munich and in Berlin likewise with Hamburg, Hannover, Augsburg, Magdeburg, etc, etc) are hotel chains where the free CombiTicket is available to the guest. I like staying in my spartan Berliner Milieur Pension too much but a woman friend of mine got a free CombiTicket in Berlin from her hotel...very handy and convenient.