Six Worst Things about Copenhagen Denmark

I very much enjoyed my time in Copenhagen and fully realize that I was only there for about four days, so my opinions are very superficial and are only based on what I experienced during my time there. That said, below is a list of six things I didn’t like about Copenhagen Denmark.

1. Cost of Food: To me, the food was crazy expensive. $5 for a small bottle of water, $5 for a generic cup of coffee, $11 for cold cereal breakfast at Generator Hostel, $11 for smallest combo Big Mac deal at McDonalds. $7 for single scoop of ice cream on the street. Basic sit down cheap dinner is about $40.
2. Public Bike Availability: I thought it was a fantastic idea to offer bikes to the public for 20 DK (about $4) with a full refund when you bring the bike back. However, because they have no time limit or penalty, it seems 90% of the bikes are in garages of city residences. I rarely saw the bikes being used and it was only at 11pm my last night there that I managed to actually use one. I’m told other countries have a similar system that starts billing your credit card huge fees after several hours. In that system the bikes are returned.
3. Bank Fees: I got dinged $5 to $10 for every ATM transaction and cost to exchange cash isn’t much better.
4. Danish Credit Cards: I found only one or two locations that took non-Danish credit cards, and even those wanted MasterCard and wouldn’t take Visa. Bummer!
5. Shhhsshhing Guards: I have no idea what this guard wanted, but I went to one of the castles right in the middle of Copenhagen. There are a number of guards in their silent mode just standing there. Occasionally this one guard would step forward out of his trance and look right at me, and make a loud Shsh noise. Note that I had not said a word since arriving and I was super quiet so it couldn’t have been that I was making noise. I took off my hat, but he still kept making the noises. I tried to make the gesture, “what?” to figure out what he wanted, but he kept going back into guard trance mode. I ended up just walking away because I had no idea what he wanted. *shrug*
6. Little Mermaid: I’m sure many will disagree, but I found the long trip out the Little Mermaid statue really disappointing given this is the top of the list of things to see in Copenhagen. I would have thought a better presentation for such a big attraction would be more fitting. I’m guessing others might agree.