Copenhagen - Is it expensive?

[Disapointednelly]

Hi all, I'm looking to book a long weekend in Copenhagen for my birthday in April but there's a lot of online discussion about how expensive it is...

Flights and hotel would be around £300 per person for Fri-Mon (getting full days on both). But when you're actually there do you end up spending a lot of money?

We have a recent obsession with Vikings so would love to do museums and travel to some smaller towns outside CPH

Has anyone been recently and can talk about costs? With how expensive everything is in the UK (and I'm up North!) I'm wondering if it won't feel like such of a hit when comparing.

We went earlier this year. I didn’t find it much more expensive than home but we live in Edinburgh which isn’t the cheapest anyway. And we don’t drink alcohol!

Tivoli Gardens was so much fun, had an amazing day there feeling like a kid again. We also got personalised LEGO minifigures at the LEGO shop.

We hired bikes as well which was a fun way to explore the city.

We went to Stockholm as part of the same trip and found it nowhere near as nice as Copenhagen.

Thanks all! This has been very useful!

@Whatwaswrongwiththatusername thank you for this - I think we would prefer to be in a hotel as opposed to an airbnb just to have breakfast included 😊

I went last year, same the uk now.

Go - it's brilliant. Yes expensive but you can get a main course in a lovely low key restaurant for under £20. The tube is fab and fairly cheap I think? Similar to London.

We had to go over to Malmö during our stay, as well! Well, we didn't have to, but couldn't not, not whilst we had the opportunity to do so! But we drove, as driving over The Bridge was another thing (as was Copenhagen and Christiania) from my list that most definitely had to be done and couldn't be dropped 😃 I've no idea how much the train was, but the toll both ways, for cars, was around €63(ish) so over £100 by car. Unfortunately we had very limited time in Malmö due to our schedule so may do a proper visit one day :)

Yeah, I don't blame you tbh, having just a long weekend - so less time to explore a city and fit everything in - having breakfast and staying in a hotel is probably better time wise than fully self catering in an airbnb/similar! We also stayed in hotels either side of our week there (one night one way, two different hotels/cities the other side), and so for shorter stays hotels can often help maximise your time somewhere.
We also went for a birthday, as it happened, so I hope you enjoy it and I hope you come back next year to update how it went 😄

Yep agree with others saying it's on the pricey side, but not vastly more expensive than London for meals and drinks.
It's a fantastic place.

And we actually live in the north, snd it wasn't that much more expensive than some of the bars/restaurants etc in our town!

It’s a hell of a lot more expensive than London, I’m a bit bemused by those claiming otherwise?

We’re looking at Copenhagen but for my family. Is it child friendly? Child being 12!

Can anyone recommend a hotel? ☺️

We just got back from Toronto so I’m still unsure of the costs of things and what is normal in the UK. Finding it difficult to compare

Is Copenhagen as expensive as Toronto? 😂 such a wild question and I don’t really expect an answer.

I'm just back and have steeled myself to look at my credit card bill.

Hotel - WakeUp Borgegade (no frills but central) - £444 for five nights (breakfast not included) - booked through Booking.com
Copenhagen card - £134 for 5 days. All public transport, museums, galleries etc.
Coffee and croissant at Central station kiosk - £4.97
Lunch with wine for three - mid price restaurant - £98.60
Dinner at an indian restaurant (for three) - £114.57
Coffee and cake x 3 - £20

We could have had cheaper eats but chose not to. I think it is pretty comparable to London.

It’s the same as a lot of uk cities.

No not expensive. All essentials like food, drink, travel are all very reasonably priced and cheaper than London. More luxury non-essentials and things like hotels more expensive.

It's really not. Hotels are more expensive, food and drink are cheaper.

You want expensive, go to Switzerland. The smallest amount of money you can withdraw from a cash machine there is £100. Standard recommended amount is £500.

We spent a week in Copenhagen and yes it's expensive but there are ways around it. Our hotel had an amazing breakfast so we made the most of that and then got hotdogs from street vendors for lunch most days. We got a Copenhagen card as it worked out well for what we wanted to do, and then we squeezed in as much more as possible to really get the value from it. We drank beer rather than wine or cocktails. We didn't go shopping or splash on souvenirs. We did have two amazing spendy meals while we were there but we'd planned for that.

Ps.. where we live is approaching London prices (we are £6/£7 for a pint in a town centre bar and anywhere north of £9 for a large glass of wine).

We didn't find Copenhagen to be shockingly expensive in comparison. Switzerland is, and Iceland is.

Just skimming back and saw your post about the weather OP; we were there in November and ahead of going it was forecast to rain every day. It only rained a bit on our last day and we were knackered by then so we went to the cinema to escape it

It's so funny people have such varying opinions. It's like we visited some different Copenhagen. Mum, DD and me visited in July.

It's far more expensive than London. 'Food is cheaper' - couldn't disagree more. Food is just ridiculously expensive there. We were very thirsty upon landing in Kastrup, so bought 3 tiny bottles of plain water at the airport. It was 13 quid. Yea, I know, it's the airport. But 13 quid for a liter of water (3 bottles together).

We loved it (I prefer Stockholm, though), but it's certainly not cheap, no. We did have Copenhagen cards which were great value (depending on the number of attractions you plan to visit), unlimited public transport + a canal tour included. I'd recommend those, if you're planning seeing museums/galleries/castles, etc

Admittedly, I'm not wealthy, so Copenhagen prices seemed very steep to me. Don't regret going, though. Someone upthread compared the prices with those in Birmingham/Manchester. That's absolutely ridiculous.

I haven't been to Switzerland, so cannot compare.

I live in London and in laws live in Copenhagen so we go a lot. It is more expensive than London. I’m not the biggest fan of the city except in the summer but I prefer going to hot places for a contrast to London so appreciate that doesn’t apply to everyone.

We’ve just come back from Copenhagen (to London).
I beg to differ.

I suppose asking if it's expensive is very subjective! It's definitely a destination we know to save up a good amount for.
I am typically a "it is what it is" person and am happy to just buy what I need and not think twice about it so long as I have money - others would penny pinch in that situation (such as my DP!)

I appreciate the discussion all!

I think that your attitude closely matched ours, tbh. You just do what ya gotta do! Definitely agree with that. Going away anywhere is/can be stupidly expensive or surprisingly cheap, or anything in between, but just by going away you're already going to be spending the money and to that degree you then just make the most of it. If a budget is very small then I don't think you'd choose somewhere like Copenhagen anyway, as it would likely already be over budget.
Go! Enjoy! If money is massively tight then you'd go somewhere else anyway, so once in Copenhagen you may as well just accept it. Like I said, there are many non-touristy areas where you can get a cheaper (and better) meal, pay a bit less for a drink etc. I think as far as alcohol is concerned (and admittedly Im no longer able to drink much but still noticed some of the prices), it really did vary from one bar/area to another. I remember just once commenting something about the price of something we were drinking (and comparing it to my - also - expensive hometown), and I think the rest of the time I was aware that it wasn't cheap, but once you get there you just accept it's not going to be cheap. If that makes sense?

Please can you drop your hotel and Air B&B recommendations in here? Flights booked for next month but will be sleeping on the street at this rate!

Two adults + one child (13).

I'm finding a lot of hotels class over 12 as 'adult' which is proving tricky in terms of cost and space.

Thank you

Definitely going to get the card from looking at this thread.

I agree! I liked the city but found the holiday disappointing as we lacked the spontaneity we usually have due to the cost of everything.