Copenhagen, Denmark was the first port on MSC Musica Cruise, we had 6 hours to spend in the city. We found Copenhagen to be quite charming and fairly cheap for our time there, but I know as a general rule this is an expensive city. I’ll share how we kept costs down and enjoyed the sites. The city is also home to Hans Christian Andersen and the original Little Mermaid story, so that holds an importance in the city. I’d say this city is certainly worth visiting if you can do it on a cruise which keeps it affordable.

You do not need to use the Cruise shuttle or Hop on Hop Off bus here at the Copenhagen port. Sure you can for some hefty fees BUT it was super easy and cheap to use the public transport! We did this port on a Sunday and the buses run everyday. It’s about a 20 min bus ride to the City Hall area and it’s €4/adult & €2/kids, so we paid €12 each way. With the ticket you can use it for 2 hours and up to 10 bus rides. On Sundays the bus stops at the Oftsten station and then you get on the bus to the city center as it this is the pick up/drop off for the city buses to the terminal ports on the weekend. Also note this bus stop is about a 3 min walk from the Little Mermaid statue. We finished our day there and then hopped back on the bus to the terminal. You CAN buy your tickets on board, or you can get them at a ticket stand (there is one right by the cruise port for your ticket to the city) it’s the same price wherever you buy them. So round trip we paid €24 to get to the cruise port and back, the bus system was super easy to use! The shuttle prices were high like €30/adult & €15/child so that would’ve cost us €90 and we would’ve been herded around like cattle, not how I prefer to travel 😉 The bus terminal is about a 8-10 min walk from where MSC docked.

I HIGHLY recommend getting the Rick Steve’s (RS) Northern Cruise port book for this cruise! It has all the info you need for how to catch the buses, where to eat cheap, walking routes, etc. You can make the DIY travel guides for each port to make them easy to carry as well.

We got off at the city hall stop and then crossed the street to start the RS self guided walking tour which starts in the walkplatz with the Hans Christian Andersen statue. You can see the golden weather girls across the way.

We stopped in the Circle K (just a store not a gas station) and they had some great looking sandwiches and snacks. There is also a bakery with yummy treats on the walk. We also found a hot dog vendor & churro vendor and ate cheaply.

You can climb up on this dapper fellow’s knee to have a photo pop with Hans himself.

The city was nice and not overwhelming, the weather was perfect with a slight breeze to keep us cool when walking. There are also free WC’s throughout the city, if you have the RS book he tells you where they are, we also found some just past the fountain area walking towards the Little Mermaid statue.

You see some interesting architecture here too like this spiral toward made of dragons.

And these golden domes, there was lots of neat things to see!

This church is worth a visit (near the palace) as it caught on fire and was burnt down and had to be rebuilt, there are photos of the building after the fire inside.

The harbor area was super cute and had an amazing ice cream place, it was delicious! Make sure you stop in there, the servings are large as well!

We were going to take a boat ride out to the Little Mermaid statue but the one we were at did not let you off at the statue so we instead decided to walk the 20 mins to the statue. We stopped at a cute grocery store and got some snacks to eat while we walked.

We seen a neat looking church and there is a great fountain area on the way as well, so the walk was worth it.

There were quite a few people at the Little Mermaid statue but it wasn’t hard to make your way to the front to get photos. We did see that from the boat tours you only got to the the statue from the back, that would’ve been disappointing so we’re glad we didn’t do the boat ride.

A 3 min walk led us back down the street to Oftsten where we rode the bus easily back to the cruise port.

Overall we really liked visiting Copenhangen for the day, if you eat cheaply by eating at the hot dog vendors, or stores (grocery, Circle K, etc) and bakeries it’ll keep your costs down. Our only expenses for the day were our bus tickets, food (hot dogs, grocery snacks, and ice cream) we didn’t do any sights that required admission fees so that helped keep costs down as well. We spent maybe €50-60 for the day including the bus costs.