How To: VW Autostadt Visit

The Autostadt has been on my radar for 15 years. Tante Bettina said she takes her family from the US here to visit. When Tante Bettina says something is cool, I make a mental note. I figured this Autostadt would be a nice place to hang out because Uncle Tyler could check out the cars while the little people and I would find something to do. Also, the one-hour high speed train is something amazing for US visitors.

View from the main station train platform.

This is the part of the blog where I should say something about the history of the UW Autostadt and what they do there. Going into the trip, I knew that Wolfsburg is a planned city and I only needed to walk across a bridge from the train station to get to the Autostadt.

You know you're heading to a car museum when there are people movers on the bridge.

I learned from a lady in the elevator that VW started building around 1999. But, I know very, very little other information because check out these play structures:

Close-up on these huge bean bags:

I thought about seeing if I could convince the kids to nap up there, but it was just too exciting. 

We went this route a couple hours later:

With her napping, the boys moved onto the indoor play structures:

Not pictured: the track with a bunch of cool wheeled vehicles the kids could test out and ride around.

They also worked on their driving skills:

The real show stoppers were the slides:

It was possible to rent paddle boats here to the left too, but too little time.

German engineering at its finest. Definitely fun, definitely still a little scary.

We ordered an expensive light lunch while the kids did laps on the slides. (Question for next time - is self-catering an option?) After lunch we figured we should probably go check out some museums but then, wha? Awesome fountains?

Before I knew it, Carmen handed me all of her clothes and then ran off. Hugo followed suit.

We then figured we should finally get that family photo with the cousins.

So much for the matching ensembles we planned. A very friendly VW employee then came to politely let us know that our kids needed to put their clothes back on.  Wolfsburg = not Berlin

In summary, Autostadt is a great adventure when you have a combination of small kids and adults or teens who like cars. I looked into using our 9 Euro train pass to get there but it would take three hours. Thus, we sprung for the high speed tickets. I don't know how busy the Autostadt gets on the weekend, but it was not too full on a Friday. 

Is Wolfsburg really a day trip? This photo says:

No.

The train ride back was a bit of an s%$t show. But, the on-site Ritz Carleton was just a little out of our budget as were the adjoining luxury store outlets. 

I think a good trip would be an overnight trip to Wolfsburg with one day dedicated to the Autostadt and the other to the really cool science museum next to the train station. The Wolfsburg city itself was a bit rough around the edges, but a follow-up visit when their Christmas market is up and running might be in our future.