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Well, today is the day we have looked forward to for several months, the pickup day. We woke up and took the U-Bahn to the Olympic Park exit, which the Welt is right outside of. And what an impressive building it is.

Craddock was clearly happy to be there.

Our check in time was 11:00 and we arrived about 10:15 so had some time to browse the displays before we headed to the VIP lounge.

At 11, we headed upstairs and we met with an advisor who went over our paperwork with us and gave us our schedule for the day. An multimedia presentation at 11:45 and then the car delivery at 12:40, and then the factory tour at 1:30. We hung out in the lounge for a bit and had coffee and then went back downstairs for a bit to see the rest of the showroom floor. The Hydrogen powered & series they had on display seemed to be heading in the right direction as far as reducing oil dependence. The multimedia presentation was actually pretty informative and was shown on a neat touch screen table projection system. It covered some BMW history as well as signature BMW style elements such as the kidney grill. We then went through a driving simulation (think Pole Position) to explain some of the safety features built into today’s BMWs. We then headed back up to the lounge and our advisor Christian took BeeWangs European DVD Nav disk and went to prepare the car for us, leaving us anxiously watching the clock. The time finally came and he led us down a staircase towards our destination. As we were about to round the corner, he snapped a pic of us with the BMW headquarters through the window behind us.

As we turned the corner, we saw Craddock’s new car on a rotating platform “The Price is Right” style:

Somebody was happy.

Christian then went over the key features including helping us pair our iPhones to the car to utilize the built in bluetooth. We verified that it was fresh from the factory with 0 miles.

As Christian showed Craddock about the car, I snapped pics of the shiny new car.

We were then ready for our “Victory Lap” where you drive your car off the platform and around the showroom floor where others are picking up their cars before heading down a ramp to exit the building through accordian doors. Here is our journey in video of this unique experience:

Unfortunately our day wasn’t over yet and we still had the go on the factory tour so we immediatly had them park our car in the Welt garage while we went on the tour. We did get them to take a picture of us with our new baby before they parked it.

Here is a pic of where the cars are on the platforms as they wait for their new owners. You can see the ramp that you go down after your victory lap that leads to the exit.

The factory tour was very cool, but no cameras are allowed unfortunately. The factory is 95% automated so think hundreds of robots putting together a car from individual pieces and you aren’t far off. It reminded me of the final scene of Terminator. While folks familiar with robotic factories probably won’t see much new, it was very interesting to us.

After the tour, we were beat and couldn’t wait to get back behind the wheel. Unfortunately, we only had a short drive back to a parking garage next to our hotel (15E a night). We found the most secluded parking spot possible and then headed back to the MarianPlatz to celebrate with more german beer. A fellow from L.A. was nice enough to take a shot of us both that night.

The rest of the night is a bit blurry, but I know we agreed to head to Dachau and NeuSchwanstein via the Romantic Road the next day.

Well, I was a little tardy in getting this blog started since we have been too busy enjoying our trip to this point.  I really haven’t talked too much about this trip on my blog so far but it was one I was planning around the EPT Monte Carlo which I unfortunately didn’t win an entry into.  My wife was also looking for a new car so we decided to do the BMW European Delivery program.  It is a great deal where they discount the car approximately 8% off of MSRP if you pick it up in Munich and you can actually find an even better deal since it can be further discounted off of the “Euro MSRP” down to approximately $1000 or so over the “Euro Invoice” cost.   We ended up saving around 12% off the cost we would have paid in the states which in essence gave us a free trip Europe and then some with the new car purchase (actually a lease in our case).

I do plan on playing some poker while on the trip and hopefully can win enough to pay for some of the trip expenses.  I will of course be blogging about any poker exploits here.

We had very good flights on United which is a partner with Lufthansa Airlines.  BMW offers a 2 for 1 Lufthansa fare where you pay coach fares for one ticket and receive the other ticket for only the cost of the taxes.  This arrangement ended up saving us around $200 off the total compared to buying the cheapest seats on another carrier.  We flew into Munich on April 8th and then fly out of Amsterdam on April 21st.  This first installment will cover Munich, the car delivery process and side trips out of Munich to Dachau and Schloss Neuschwanstein.

We left from Ft. Lauderdale to Washington D.C. and then had a direct flight from D.C. to Munich.  The flight was a quick 7 hours and was a snap compared to our Australia journey.  I will say United doesn’t hold a candle to Quantas as far as pampering goes, but we aren’t too picky about  our flights as long as there isn’t too much turbulence.  We arrived in Munich at 7:45 AM local time and with Europe the best course of action is typically to stay up as late as you can on that first day to try to get over the jet lag quickly. 

We snapped a pic in the Munich Airport next to a big BMW grill that would make engine starting sounds when you stepped near it

 We found a great rate on ratestogo.com for the Hotel Deutsches Theater of $433 for 3 nights.  For all of our hotels on our trip, the location was of paramount importance.  Even though we knew we would have a car, we wanted to be able to part it and walk everywhere in the cities for bars, clubs and restaurants.

After a small amount of confusion trying to figure out the automatic ticket dispensers for the S-Bahn (subway/light rail from the airport to downtown), we were on our way and there is a stop about 1 block from the hotel location.  It took about 20 minutes to get there from the airport.  The hotel room was large for European standards and included a great breakfast each morning that would start our days off well.  They let us check in when we arrived at 9 AM when we arrived which was nice so we put our bags into the room and headed our to find some lunch and some german beer!

It was still a bit early to start drinking according to US standards, but as we would soon find out, the 5:00 rule doesn’t apply to Germans, or for that matter most of Europe. Our hotel was a quick 5 minute walk over to the Marianplatz, which is the main pedestrian shopping plaza in Munich. It reminded us a lot of Lincoln Road mall in South Beach, but with more retail stores and less cafes.

As we wandered down the plaza, we happened to time it perfectly to see the Glockenspiel going off on the hour. We watched as the figurines did their thing and it was pretty impressive when you consider how long ago it was built. The scenery is pretty incredible in Munich with impressive looking buildings and churches around every corner. It is almost like you get numb to it after the first day and only take pictures of the “really cool” buildings. Here is one of the first things we saw (I am still not sure what it is)

Here is a shot of me in front of the first of hundreds of church / clock towers that we saw on our trip.

Since it was approaching lunch, we looked around for a spot to sample some german fare so we followed the crowds to the VirtualMarket. Imagine dozens of vendors selling everything from 30 different varieties of olives to sushi to sausages and schnitzel. And of course beer. And then add 1000 of your closest friends all sitting at picnic tables with food in one hand and a half liter mug of german beer in the other.

So to get in the swing of things we grabbed two bratwurst and two half liters and got to work. Here we found that drinking beer at lunch is par for the course for Germans. maybe moving to Germany isn’t such a bad idea? I had the Radler, which is a mix of beer and lemonade, but tastes better than it sounds. Craddock seemed to be enjoying her Hells as well.

After lunch we decided to do a bit of touring and walked back to the GlockenSpiel. I tried to get an artistic shot or two from the interior courtyard, without much success.

We went up in the tower of the FrankenKirsch and got some nice city shots over Munich.

You can see the BMW corporate tower in the distance. We saw a few more churches and I took this neat shot.

We walked around the city a bit more and then headed towards our final destination for the day, the Hofbrau Haus.

A good time was had by all.

We stumbled home around 9 PM after the comination of the strong german beer and the jet lag kicked in, with dreams of convertibles dancing in our heads.