Planning my Berlin trip in August — Please help!
 

Days 1 (Thursday) and 2 (Friday) will be Berlin days/nights. On Day 3 (Saturday) I will be going to Leipzig but will return by 7pm. Day 4 (Sunday) is a Berlin Day. Monday I will be leaving early taking the ICE to Frankfurt.

Which welcome card and museum card (if any) should I get?

I want to visit the Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Checkpoint Charlie (museum), Berlin Wall, Pergamon Museum, Bodemuseum, Berliner Dom, and Alte Nationalgalerie.

I have a 12:00pm reservation to visit the Reichstag on Friday thrown in to this mix.

There are various choices with the Welcome Card and the Museum Cards. My going to Leipzig on Saturday ruins the 3 day Museum card as I assume those 3 days are consecutive.

So which Welcome Card should I buy? Should I get a Museum Card for the Museum Island or a Kulturforum museum card?

I know Thursday evenings from 6pm-10pm, the museums I'm interested in are free. Which museums do you recommend I choose for Thursday night? I'll grab a bite to eat in the museums.

Are there individual day cards for museums?

Whatever your recommendations, must I buy them online or can I buy them when I arrive in Berlin?

There are so many options but I don't want to make choices in which I don't get the most from these savings cards. Please advise! Thank you.

I don't recommend the welcome card, when I looked into it in the past I remember it not being worth it. OTOH that was a few years ago, perhaps the price difference has changed. You can buy it at the airport afaik. Other Museum passes can be bought at the participating museums.

I also recommend dropping the Berliner Dom, it's ugly enough on the outside :P

On average, I spent spent at least 2 hours in each of the museums you've mentioned; not sure how much you'll see between 18-22 on Thursday.

Since your question seems to be more about logistics, why not go to a tourist office (http://www.visitberlin.de/en/article...-tourist-infos) and tell them your itinerary and interests and see what they recommend? They certainly know more about the specifics of each card than most of us here. You can, of course, buy the card there once you've decided which one is best for you.

Actually I'd like to figure this out before I leave for Germany. One reason is that I won't be in jet lag.

In Flyertalk's NYC forum, those visiting New York City for the first time start threads requesting advice from the locals. They list the things they want to do and ask logistical questions before they travel to New York just like I've done above about Berlin. This is why I started this thread; I wanted to ask the same from those of you who know Berlin the best.

I certainly understand your point. However, what you are asking is not so simple as it is not only for people who know Berlin. I think you are asking people to compare the two cards given your schedule. I know Berlin, but I've never used either card so I can't help you at all with that. People who live in Berlin, probably would not use these cards either.

Would it be a solution if you went to the tourist office the next day?

I definitely understand what you want to accomplish prior to your trip. I have posted questions (yesterday) requesting advice on another country's forum and haven't received any responses yet. It involves another large city and my questions are much "simpler" than yours. I hope that the old adage of "Patience is a virtue." works for both of us.

Those of us who have participated on FT for many years know how FT can work and, in turn, have given/received great advice. I'm sure that someone who has the answers to your questions will come along and offer some useful advice. Unfortunately, I haven't been to Berlin, although it's on my list. I look forward to the answers to your questions.

I would wager almost nobody who lives in Berlin would have the slightest clue about either of those tourist cards and which one is good, as it would serve them no purpose since they are quite expensive and likely recommend that any visitor's they have just get normal tickets.

People who go there often likely won't know either, because they will go with the travel tickets that are much cheaper (day or week tickets) then end up paying for any museums they want to go to, because they won't be going to them all at once.

You'll probably have to do some research yourself, as I too, doubt there is anyone outside of a tourist office will be able to help without having to do a lot of research themselves.

You could perhaps start by making a list of which museums you want to go to, then cross-referencing which ones are included in which ticket. There are passes that include public transportation and others that I believe don't I'm not sure how many private museums (Checkpoint Charlie Museum, for example) Are included in any of those tickets. Then compare the price differences between day tickets + museum entrance separately with cost of the pass + museum entrance not included with either particular pass.

Indeed patience will have to be a virtue.

In the NYC forum, we're asked about tourist attraction cards quite often and, of course, the locals don't buy them because we live here. So I understand that point of view. Still, we can help FTers visiting NYC figure out if it's worth it to buy these tourist attraction cards based on what their desired attractions are.

In several situation, the attractions listed as being part of an attraction card aren't worth spending the money for these attraction cards because the entrance fees at these locales are SUGGESTED. We locals know this. The Metropolitan Museum, for example, has a suggested admissions fee of $25. But it's a suggestion. You can pay $1 or $0.50 if you want to visit the museum. The American Museum of Natural History has a suggested admission of $22. Likewise, you can pay whatever you like. So if someone says they want to buy some sort of attractions card to save money on admissions but then says her focus will be on the Met or Natural History Musuem, we advise them NOT to buy the attractions card. It would be a waste of money. There are other NYC museums whose entrance fees are whatever the visitor wants to pay. Again, locals know this.

I was hoping for similar insider advice in this forum. So, like you said, I'll wait. :)

If you get the chance I would recommend a visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Very moving.

I have been to Berlin countless times. I have never used any of the tourist cards. IIRC, they come in a 48hr and a 72hr offering. You might try visiting the Berlin transport website bvg.de, since they are the issuers of the travel cards and other transport passes.

Until you see some group of school kids on a class trip using it to play hide and seek or similar. -.- But should be late enough in the year to avoid that.

DON'T use info from the TIs there. They are not helpful IMO.
From my experience:
-- I'm not normally a hop on bus tour guy but it worked well in this city, where the sites are pretty spread out. If I were you, I'd do that the first day and use a three-day welcome card for days 2-4. If you really want to see the wall, go to the East Side Gallery on your own or via hop-on bus (some of them go there). and go on Sunday to Mauerpark, where there is a section of the wall splitting the park -- and there's a very cool flea market/karaoke concert deal going on. great local flavor.
As for museum cards, that one that includes all museums is probably better for you. The one combined with the welcome card only counts the museum island ones (pergamon, nues). (the TIs do not explain this). You can buy a one day for musuem island ones too but you won't need that if you get all museums pass (though even that does not cover some of them, such as the overcrowded DDR Museum).

You don't really need to go to the Checkpoint Charlie museum. There are free murals to look at near the site that are really a museum in itself. Checkpoint Charlie itself is a joke -- fake guards pose for pictures there and there's a McDonalds right behind it.

If you're going to go the hop-on hop-off bus route, consider city buses #100 or #200 -- they take you past all the same sights (albeit without commentary) for the price of a normal transit ticket.

There's a lot more to it than the garden sculpture.

I was referring to the memorial near the Brandenburg gate, not the Garden of Exile at the Jewish Museum. I believe that is what CubsFanJohn was referring to as well.