A weekend in Hamburg, Germany with Kids - Technical Details

Hotel: 

1. Holiday Inn Express Hamburg City Center
   
   • Pros: you can sleep 2 adults and 2 children in one room; very close to the subway station;literally across the road from two grocery stores; restaurants nearby; free wi-fi and free breakfast. 
   • Cons: the beds are not comfy and once the sofa bed is down there is not much space to move.
   • Overall: A great location and price for a family of four.
2. Suite Novotel Hamburg City Hotel
   • Pros: you can sleep 2 adults and 2 children in one room; very close to the subway station; rooms are large with a screen to divide it into two sections.
   • Cons: books up really quickly.
   • Overall: better than the holiday inn if you can get a room. Not sure how the prices compare. Stayed here when our kids were really small and really loved it.

Transport: 

• Car: We drove into Hamburg. The hotel has it's own garage which costs 10 Euro a day but we found free street parking pretty easily down a side road on the same block. On the main street you have to pay for parking but most of the side roads seemed to have unrestricted parking. 
• Subway: While in Hamburg we almost exclusively used the subway. We bought a group day pass for 5 people and this worked out great. The subway can take you close enough to most places. 
• Scooter: My friend from Geneva suggested the scooters to us and they worked out perfectly. We took the kids scooters and they were happy to scoot along. I think for the first time there was no whining about how far they had to walk. Beware, at the fish market it is really difficult to ride the scooters because of the cobble stones. Otherwise we had no trouble. All the places we visited where we could not take the scooters in held them for us either at the coat check or at the gate. 
• Train: We didn't use the train but our friends did and they said that the trip from the airport to downtown Hamburg was a piece of cake. So getting the train is also not a problem. Almost all the subway lines run past the main train station. 

Itinerary will follow shortly (and maybe some pictures)!