We had a fun time exploring Hamburg and found some great family activities. The following represents the activities we did and which ones we would be open to repeating.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: A Birthday at the German Christmas Market
• Review: The Thompson Central Park NYC
• Exploring New York City with Kids
• Review: American Express Centurion Lounge – JFK
• Review: Singapore Airlines A380 Business Class JFK-FRA
• Taking the Train in Germany with Kids
• Review: Park Hyatt Hamburg
• Exploring Hamburg with a Family (this post)
• Enjoying the Hamburg Christmas Market
• Review: Radisson Blu Hotel Hamburg Airport
• Review: British Airways A320 Club Europe Business Class
• Review: British Airways Galleries North
• Review: British Airways 777-300 Club World Business Class
• Bonus: Video Review

Below are the activities we did on our four-night visit to Hamburg, Germany. Hopefully this provides some inspiration for you if you decide to take a visit to this beautiful city.

ATG Alster-Touristik Cruise

I thought it would be a smart move to begin our trip to Hamburg with a cruise. I find cruises that go around the city to be helpful either at the beginning of a trip (to give an idea of what else to explore) or at the end of a trip (a wrap-up of major sites). I found the cruise could be purchased on many sites but I just booked directly from the operator (45 euro for a family).

The cruise is listed as having audio in English for the time slot I purchased, so I expected an English-speaking tour guide to be onboard. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The live tour guide spoke in German. To listen to the English audio, you have to connect your phone to the boat’s Wi-Fi. You might think that then you can listen to the audio while you do other things on your phone (such as take pictures or let the kids play a game), but you have to stay in the Wi-Fi selection screen the entire time if you want to listen to the audio. The soundtrack loads at certain points along the cruise and if you aren’t on the selection screen, you will miss the audio. I would have preferred a regular headset that played a soundtrack rather than the method they implemented on this cruise.

The German tour guide appeared engaging and made the audience laugh, so I imagine the other customers had a different impression of the cruise, but it honestly felt underwhelming for us non-German speakers. I would pass on this cruise if you don’t speak the native language.

Miniatur Wunderland

Located about a 15 minute walk from the Park Hyatt hotel, Miniatur Wunderland is a great place to bring the family. We booked directly through their website, costing us 54 euro for our family (as children under one meter tall are free).

As the name implies, Miniatur Wunderland is filled with many small-scale models of famous sites around the world. There are also dozens of interactive buttons to make the models come to life. They had cities of Switzerland that seemed carved into cliffs with working trains running through the towns. Roughly every ten minutes, the lights go dark to simulate night time and some of the displays change. Mount Vesuvius erupts at night, sending streams of lava down the mountain.

Many of the displays are of Western Europe, but there are some displays of North and South America. Personally, I found it intriguing what they chose to include for the USA display, as it helps shed some light into what other countries think of us Americans (apparently we like gun fights and aliens).

The kids had a fun time running around here and interacting with the exhibits. Perhaps the most intriguing was the impressive airport they constructed, complete with model airplanes that regularly take off and arrive. Planes would taxi to and from the gate and there was even a functioning departure board showing which planes were next to take off.

Miniatur Wunderland seemed like a place where local schools come to take children on field trips. While we were there, we saw plenty of other kids accompanied by chaperones. While it might sound like it was crowded here, I would say it wasn’t too bad if you were at other exhibits. The school children appeared to crowd around the buttons, especially by the airport, but there were plenty of other exhibits to explore.

Thankfully there was also a small café onsite that offered a decent selection of meals for both adults and children. The kids were happy with pasta while the adults enjoyed some bratwurst (unsurprisingly, that’s a common meal to find in Germany). Pricing seemed pretty reasonable and there wasn’t a noticeable upcharge that I’ve come to expect at all restaurants inside an attraction, even for alcohol. The seating area is designed to make you think you are on a train or airplane and it’s cute they decided to make it a theme.

If one child is done with their meal before the other, there is a small playground found in the back of the restaurant. Some of the options include an interactive train display, a small slide in an outdoor courtyard, and a padded room where kids can jump around a bit more. There are enough toys here to entertain smaller children if they are not yet interested in all the displays of the main exhibits.

And before I forget, there are lockers here to help store your gear. Being it was late Fall with cooler weather outside, it was nice having a place to store our stuff while we were wandering around the attractions.

Overall, we spent a couple of hours here and it felt just a bit rushed, as we were trying to make sure we made it in time for the next appointment. I think Miniatur Wunderland is well done and worth the price of admission. We would absolutely return if we’re in the area again.

Chocoversum

When I think of Germany, one of the first things I think of is chocolate. That’s what motivated me to look into potential chocolate tours and I found one a short walk from the hotel. Tours are offered both in English and in German, so just make sure you choose the tour with the correct guide. We paid 40 euro for a family ticket.

The 90-minute tour starts by sampling some liquid milk chocolate. They start with something sweet to appeal to everyone before moving on to talking in detail about each stage of the chocolate-making process. There are samples along the way to allow guests to taste each stage and show exactly how little the cocoa bean truly tastes like the chocolate we know. There was some discussion on where cocoa grows

Midway through the tour, we were invited to make our own chocolate bars. We were handed liquid chocolate molds (either milk chocolate or dark chocolate) and could place whichever ingredients we desired into the bars. This was the highlight of the tour for the kids, who added plenty of gummy bears and other candies to their chocolate. Based on the molds everyone took, it seemed like Jenn and I were in the minority for liking dark chocolate over milk chocolate. After crafting our chocolates, we were invited to place them in the freezer as we moved on to the rest of the tour.

We moved on to the next area, where we were able to taste plenty more samples and saw the final stages of the process. There was also some discussion on what makes chocolate different in Germany and other parts of the world (including the UK and USA). We even got to see some chocolate bars getting pressed (and were able to take some home with us).

At the end of the tour, we collected the chocolate bars we crafted and we were on our way. The tour was informative and quite delicious with all of the samples provided. It felt like an excellent use of money and I would absolutely recommend it if you are in the area.

Tierpark Hagenbeck

I ended up choosing to visit the zoo at the end of the trip as I thought the kids would have the most energy at this point to walk around (any lingering jetlag should be more manageable at this point). However, it was a bit of a disappointment with the timing since it ended up raining that day. That made the trip a bit of a challenge at times with the colder outdoor temperatures. We paid 105 euro for a family ticket that included visits to both the zoo and the adjacent aquarium.

The zoo is easily connected to the subway system, making it an easy trip from the Park Hyatt hotel. When we arrived, we were given the option of going to either the zoo or the aquarium. From the limited English of the staff working there, it sounds like we needed to choose which one to go to first and that there wouldn’t be reentry allowed. We ended up choosing the aquarium first, hoping the weather would at least warm up a bit after we were done (it wouldn’t).

The aquarium here was different than what I was used to back in the USA. When we opened the door to the entrance, we were immediately in the path of a family of lemurs jumping around. That was honestly not what I expected when entering an aquarium. The path extended around a small pond, with lots of birds flying around. Eventually we reached a crocodile exhibit that warned us not to get too close to the edge. Safety standards in other parts of the world are different than back in the USA, but I didn’t feel like the kids were in danger.

The path then continued underground and we saw more of what I would consider to be traditional aquarium exhibits. The lights were kept dim and Char ended up feeling a bit concerned with how dark it was, so we didn’t spend too long here. However, there was a large glass display with stadium seating and the kids enjoyed watching the fish at least in this section.

There was a restaurant at the end of the aquarium, but it appeared closed for the morning. That meant it was time to go to the zoo, which meant exiting back to the main entrance where staff would once again scan our tickets to allow us into the other main entrance. There was a constant rain the entire time we were here. Not many other people were here in the zoo given the weather conditions, and the animals also seemed to want to stay out of the rain. The tickets we purchased were good for a full year, but given we weren’t planning on coming back to Hamburg in 2023, that didn’t help us much.

There were a few places where we could escape the rain, such as the elephant enclosure and the arctic exhibit. But most of the zoo is outdoors. We felt like we had most of the zoo completely to ourselves and would go minutes in between seeing someone else.

There appeared to be a fun playground towards the back of the zoo. While our kids would have had a blast playing here, it didn’t surprise us that the area is closed off. If you’re visiting during the summer when the weather is better, I can imagine this place being packed with kids.

There was also a small carnival ride at the front. This was also closed during our visit. It looks like something the kids would force me to buy them a ticket to ride if it were operational.

Overall, I have mixed opinions about Tierpark Hagenbeck. I enjoyed the aquarium far more than the zoo itself, in part due to the weather. But would I recommend it even if the weather cooperated? I’m not so sure. Compared to the other attractions we did in Hamburg, this one is on the expensive end. I know Alex was hoping to find some giraffes since the first thing you see when entering the park is a statue of a giraffe, but there were no giraffes here at the zoo. I would still recommend the aquarium as I feel they did a better job with the decorations and flow of the animal exhibits. Either way, it’s probably worth it to not purchase your tickets here in advance and just buy them at the gate to ensure good weather on the day you want to visit.

Have you been to Hamburg? Where have you gone that you would recommend?