The Berlin Pass or Berlin WelcomeCard? Are they worth it?

Short answer: I believe this is a pretty emphatic "Don't do it."

There's a separate transit pass you can buy on a day-by-day basis, so that can easily be obtained separately if you decide it will pay off for you.

The Berlin Pass costs 93 euros without the transit component. It's good for three days, but you'd only have an opportunity to use it for half that time. I cannot imagine that it would pay. Maybe if you chose the very most expensive covered sights--irrespective of your interest in them--and did nothing else for 36 hours. But are you really going to Berlin to see a wax museum? And I assume you do plan to eat lunch.

In 2015 I spent 6 days in Berlin and purchased a 3-day Berlin Welcome Card. I chose the option of including the Museuminseln Islands (major strategic error on my part). That product isn't really comparable to the card without the Museuminselm component, so the fact that I probably just about broke even isn't useful information for you.

For people marketing an officially-sponsored card, the Welcome Card folks don't make it easy to figure out exactly what is covered. In case you haven't found the details, the 2017 flyer is online. How many of the things you want to do are on the list, and what will you actually save with the card? Keep in mind that:

• With 1-1/2 days in Berlin you'll be buying 1/2 day more than you can make use of. These things are not priced to be give-aways, so being short half a day is a major negative.

• For most attractions the Welcome Card just confers a 25% discount.

• I believe the Museuminseln museums--among Berlin's top sights for anyone, and especially for those who don't want to overdose on World War II/Cold War sites--are only included if you buy the enhanced version of the 3-day card, which you don't have time to utilize fully. Furthermore, you can easily spend more than 4 hours in each one of those museums if the subject matter really interests you, which would make the card much less likely to pay off. Without the MI-augmented card, will you feel you cannot spend time going to the fabulous Pergamon Museum?

• Berlin's sights are spread out. When you figure out what you want to see, check the locations on a map. How much of your time is going to be spent walking or U-Bahning/S-Bahning between sights? That's dead time as far as pass-usage is concerned.

• You cannot necessarily count on avoiding lines with the Welcome Card. You can try Googling for info on specific sights (there might be threads on this forum or on TripAdvisor that address the issue), but I can say for certain that in 2015 I had to stand in hour-long lines on Museuminseln, holding my Welcome Card in my grubby little hand. And even then, one of the museums was showing a special exhibition and insisted that I had to pay the full regular+special admission charge, not just the special-exhibition component of the entry fee.

So I say: You're going to be under enough stress trying to cram all that Berlin has to offer into 36 hours. Do yourself a favor by not having to worry about using a tourist card whose value for you is highly doubtful. Focus on developing an efficient sightseeing plan based on geography and what you most want to see, not on how much you'll save at each sight by having the card.

On the other hand, the Berlin Museum Pass, which gives access to a very large number of museums in Berlin including the Island ones over a three day period for 24 euros, is genuinely good value for money and worth buying. You can get it online but it's simpler to just buy it at one of the participating museums.

Thanks, Philip. I'll remember that one for next time (I hope). Somehow I didn't know it existed as a stand-alone option.

I note that the online info mentions the possibility of timed-entry reservations for the Pergamon, which goes back to my warning about time being eaten up, standing in line on Museuminseln.

Anyone planning a museum-intensive visit to Berlin should look at the Museum Pass covered-sights list.

Thanks so much for the info everyone!