Miniatur Wunderland

If you're wondering if you should go, the answer is yes.

I am a fully grown adult that went solo and I had a blast. There are whole worlds built in miniature form that are interactive (a Biergarten, an airport, the Elbphilharmonie, ski slopes, etc). You could easily spend the whole day in this establishment, examining the literal minutia but I started feeling overwhelmed by the amount of detail around hour 3. Lots of work went into constructing these masterpieces and you can even catch a glimpse of engineers at work. One thing I thought was fun was that every few minutes, they cycle through "daylight"and "nighttime", and many of the exhibits change slightly at "night".

Again, absolutely worth the visit. Try to go early if you can to avoid crowds.

Great place to enjoy miniatures & kids will love it. Save a few hours to enjoy the extraordinary craftsmanship & engineering. Buy tickets early. I think they sell out the regular tickets to your groups first because there were none available so I had to buy my tickets that required an add on tour. I choose the behind the scenes tour & accidentally bought the German language tour. Unfortunately, the website was difficult to navigate & I wasn't able to return or exchange the tickets. The purchasing process wasn't user friendly nor well designed and intuitive. Do buy your tickets early when the window opens for purchase.

Also, side note, if you do take a side tour, the one I took led us behind the stage and we saw the engineering behind. The catch is, the spaces are very narrow & there are points that you gave to haunch to pass through. If you're "larger" sized person in width, you'll find this your very uncomfortable. Walking space behind the walls are less than 24" and more narrow.

Lastly, when entering the building, climb up several flights of stairs to what seems like the top floor. I recall 6~ flights. There was also an elevator but I'm
Not sure how fast it is since it's shoulder to shoulder inside. They pack this museum.

Should be called giant train world or something cause it's loads of model trains in various cities & nature throughout the world. Wife loves model trains so a perfect way to spend an hour or two. Not always the most accurate, but that's ok as had a lot of fun. The switching of day & night was cool. Plenty of interactive things to play with including a chocolate factory that spits out real candy. A must do if in Hamburg.

I was not a fan. I guess if you have kids to bring, maybe. I felt it was over-priced and over-crowded. Might be fun to take the kids or grandkids. I found the displays to be an odd mish mash of styles. But, in fairness, it was a Friday night and PACKED. Some displays cool, but overall it is a giant tourist trap.

Hot, crowded, and few people wearing masks (October 2022)
There were a few cool ones, like the airport.

I would put this on one of the things to see before you die. It's like your taking a trip around the world and taking in all the major sites. There are no words that can accurately define this place or give it justice. The airport model alone is worth the price of admission.

This is one of the greatest accomplishments in the existence of human creation. If you're going to be in Hamburg, there are only 2 things you must do:

1) Get a delicious hamburger
2) Go to Miniatur Wunderland

You will be 1000% amazed with your senses overloaded. I think the best model is the airport. I could sit there for an hour just watching it operate. Do not miss watching the Millennium Falcon take off.

One activity I wish I did was the challenge where you find certain objects/people and solve a puzzle. I was just too amazed when I walked in that I didn't even know the welcome brochure had the puzzle in it. I will definitely be back here in the future and will undergo said challenge.

You can spend forever here so plan accordingly. While my daughter loved it a lot, she got tired after a while of awing at the miniature greatness in front of us.

Just wow!

Holy cow, this place is amazing! You could spend days coming back and finding cool details. Unlike a lot of places that don't permit photos or videos, they encourage it! There was even a Twitch live streamer we ran into. Don't forgot your binoculars! Trust me, they will be very useful.

I've had the Miniatur Wunderland as a bookmark for close to ten years. I made the specific trip to Hamburg to visit it today. And it was totally worth it. Absolutely incredible, it exceeded my expectations.

Picture a table-top miniature train set. Now expand it to the size of a warehouse. On two floors. And add hundreds of trains, thousands of vehicles, millions of little people. Everywhere you look, there's some interesting little detail. I spotted a dozen monks working on repairing the Popemobile. A guy operating a jackhammer that would bounce around. Two people hiding on a roof that were fighting.

The cars stop at lights. They even have their turn signals blinking before the light turns green and they head off on whatever mission they're programmed for.

The airport? Absolutely beyond anything you can imagine. The planes take off and land. They taxi up to gates. The mini jetbridge pops out! The ground crew vehicles all follow the proper procedures for driving around the airport. They even have a fire brigade that leaves the firehouse to follow inbound trains.

Tips: Get there as early as you can because it does get crowded. Make sure your phone is charged as you're going to want to take a million pictures and a ton of video. They do have a free wifi.

This was one of the highlights of my week-long trip to Europe.

[Review 12057 overall, 1840 of 2019.]

Simple put, If you visit Hamburg and missed to add this to your list of things to see you made bad plans :)

Miniatur Wunderland started out as a model train collection but now has exploded into one of the most extensive collections of small-scale, detailed recreations of scenes from Germany, Austria, Italy, Brazil, America, and Scandinavia (complete with moving model trains and vehicles). You could spend hours marveling at all the displays here, but my favorites included the Knuffingen Airport (which featured model planes taking off and landing) and the special exhibitions on Berlin (the divided city), industrial agriculture (showing the different conditions of various pig farms), and the history of human civilization (showing the same scene starting from prehistory through the Middle Ages to the 20th century). You could spend hours marveling at the details and playing with the interactive buttons (the Lindt chocolate factory in Switzerland dispenses freshly wrapped chocolates!). The lighting in the exhibit even shifts to mimic day and night, so you can get the full experience of seeing the displays at different times of day. The collection is ever-expanding, and new models are being built out (including Monaco, the South American rainforest, and Machu Picchu). Going along with the theme of the museum, the cafeteria even features seats and tables taken from an actual train, so you can feel like you're traveling through one of the many displays! I rarely write reviews on attractions, but Miniatur Wunderland was so impressive and is a must-visit destination in Hamburg!