Country: Germany
Language: German
Currency: Euro
Warning: I really liked Hamburg but do feel like I need to warn autistic travellers about some things. Hamburg is the only city in Europe I’ve felt unsafe in during the day. There are parts of the city that are absolute no go areas for women. Within the red light district there is a street full of brothels and if women go in there you will be verbally abused and even assaulted. The police will not help you if this happens. They consider this to be a part of the history of the city and rather than protecting women, they’ve just put up signs saying women aren’t allowed in. One entrance has it in English and the other in German so you may be unlucky (as I was) to approach the side with a sign written in a language you don’t speak.
My recommendation for autistic women and autistic men is to travel around Hamburg as part of an organised tour. For women, it is easy to stumble into an area that’s unsafe for you without realising it and you won’t have any protection from the German authorities. For autistic men I would be careful that you don’t end up in a situation you didn’t plan for or want as I understand from male travellers on the same trip as me that some sex workers tried to pressure them into taking money out of ATMs and buying their services.
Disembarking: I left the ship a couple of hours after docking to take an excursion and it was really straight forward. I scanned my cruise card on the ship and then just left the ship. The cruise terminal is quite big and there was a queue as I left of people getting onto the ship but no queue to actually leave the terminal. The music felt quite loud.
The terminal is about a 40 minute walk from the centre of Hamburg.
Public Transport:
I didn’t use public transport while I was there but there were buses available. We were docked overnight and some people in my group took trains to other cities, including Berlin, and said they were really reliable and efficient.
Things to do: There is lots to see and do in Hamburg. Personally I love old churches and there were quite a few to see in Hamburg. I didn’t know much about Hamburg before my trip so I took a bus tour and it was brilliant. Hamburg is a really beautiful city and has so much history to learn about. I would definitely recommend taking a tour and looking around some of the historic buildings.
A warning for those planning to take an excursion through the cruise lines: I sailed with NCL and they offered an excursion called Hamburg on your own where they basically pick you up in a bus and take you into the centre of Hamburg, leave you there for a couple of hours and then pick you up. They charged about $70. These excursions can be good when you are docked in other cities but the centre Hamburg is only a 40 minute walk and there are taxis available for much less.
Embarking:
Going back through the terminal there were scanners and earlier in the day I’d seen people going through full airport style security but when I got back to the ship there scanners weren’t being used and I just had to show my cruise card to get onto the ship. All security was done on the ship.
Autistic friendly?
At the start of the day I really thought this was an autistic friendly city. It seemed incredibly clean and everything felt organised and well run. There was just an order to the city that felt very comfortable. However, after being verbally abused and threatened for daring to walk down a publicly owned street because I was a woman, I was left feeling like Hamburg is too unpredictable to be autistic friendly.
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