delivery day itinerary

i've been obsessing over my itinerary for a good 3 weeks at least, is this excessive?

i'll post the full itinerary for soliciting comments in the near future but right now i'm having trouble trying to fit everything, so trying to post a few specific questions first. so here's the first of many i'm sure:

i plan on arriving in munich hopefully two days before taking delivery, just to get over the worst jetlag (although it usually hits me hardest on the second/third days ). how much is realistic to get done on the first day? my delivery appointment is at 9am (8am checkin). from what i've read, some spend the better part of a day at the welt.

i would like to do the factory tour which starts at 11:30 and finishes at 14:00, so it seems unlikely to get on the road before 14:30. the current plan is just to make it to fussen and have a look at the castles (from the outside) in the late afternoon / early evening light and spend the night in the area. the second day we will drive to berchtesgaden and stay for 2 nights spending time around there and salzburg before continuing on to verona or venice via grossglockner.

i figured keep the driving minimal for the first day, hopefully make sure the car is good while nearby munich etc but with the itinerary i worked out i really need an extra day. i was wondering if it's feasible to see neuschwanstein & hohenschwangau after delivery and continue on to berchtesgaden (via 305) on day 1, thus gaining a day?

This what I suggest. Your flight will arrive in the morning of Day1. Take public transportation to your hotel and check in. Grab a bite to eat and then sleep until 6:30 pm. Then go out and take nice walk and then have dinner and beers at a beer garden. I like Zum Augustiner in the historic center of Munich. We retire about 10 am. We get up at 6:30 AM on Day 2 and pick up the car at the Welt at 9:00 am. We like to take our time in welt and have lunch there. Then we do the museum and then we take off for our destination. With that time proven approach jet lag has not been an issue.

You are missing a lot by viewing the castles from the exterior and not doing the tours. The tours are awesome and insightful.

My schedule and ED delivery time is identical to yours. Arrive early AM in Munich and will go to the hotel and sleep until ? Since this is my second ED, on the second day I will do the museum, having already done the factory tour.
Take delivery 3rd day at 9AM and then off to Salzburg, hopefully by 10AM.
You can speed up the actual ED by just having your host cover the features in the car you are unfamiliar with.

I am unclear as to whether you have been to Munich before. If not, your plan is reasonable. If you have been to the city before and seen the key attractions, I'd move the schedule up a little by going on the factory tour the first day. (Just stop in at the Welt or email ahead and they will arrange this for you.) Then you can get started out of the city by late morning after the pick-up and have lunch on the road. (Or if you are cheap like me, you can have an early lunch at the Welt and then head off.)

thank you all for the ideas. naively i did not realize one could do the factory tour earlier than the vehicle delivery, that's a great idea!

the west coast flights arrives late afternoon (17:15 in my case, direct from SFO).

so, the itinerary for the first few days would look like:

• sept 2 friday: leave SFO (21:05) (could potentially leave saturday, see a bit less around munich)
• sept 3 saturday: arrive MUC (17:15)
  • check into hotel, bit of sightseeing, dinner
• sept 4 sunday: see munich sites
• sept 5 monday: do factory tour at the welt, see more munich sites
• sept 6 tuesday: scheduled delivery at 9am
  • get on the road by 10:30am - 11am
  • see castles and have lunch near fussen (will have to forgo tour this time)
  • continue on to berchtesgaden, following this very ambitious route: http://*******/nMIGW
  • as a backup plan, if we're too tired or get a late start, could just go directly to berchtesgaden and save fussen for a future trip.

UPDATE: ok the more i think about this route, it's just too optimistic, it would put us in berchtesgaden well past 19:00 (perhaps even later with risk of traffic around innsbruck), which i understand is not good form or advisable when staying at a gasthof.

Originally Posted by Nefilim

thank you all for the ideas. naively i did not realize one could do the factory tour earlier than the vehicle delivery, that's a great idea!

the west coast flights arrives late afternoon (17:15 in my case, direct from SFO).

so, the itinerary for the first few days would look like:

• sept 2 friday: leave SFO (21:05) (could potentially leave saturday, see a bit less around munich)
• sept 3 saturday: arrive MUC (17:15)
  • check into hotel, bit of sightseeing, dinner
• sept 4 sunday: see munich sites
• sept 5 monday: do factory tour at the welt, see more munich sites
• sept 6 tuesday: scheduled delivery at 9am
  • get on the road by 10:30am - 11am
  • see castles and have lunch near fussen (will have to forgo tour this time)
  • continue on to berchtesgaden, following this very ambitious route: http://*******/nMIGW
  • as a backup plan, if we're too tired or get a late start, could just go directly to berchtesgaden and save fussen for a future trip.

UPDATE: ok the more i think about this route, it's just too optimistic, it would put us in berchtesgaden well past 19:00 (perhaps even later with risk of traffic around innsbruck), which i understand is not good form or advisable when staying at a gasthof.

No, it's not excessive to obsess over your itinerary for only three weeks, I planned ours for three months!

This is probably the same flight that we were on (UA 459/Lufthansa 8882?).

Have you already seen the Welt in detail or seen the Museum? If not, they are not to be missed. When we were there a couple of weeks ago the BMW Art Cars were on special exhibition, so even if you've seen the Museum, you probably haven't seen those.

We took most of this same route, although it was in the opposite direction. We left the Munich Marriott around 9:00 and drove to Salzburg. We toured Salzburg for about 3-4 hours and left around 14:00 for Berchtesgaden then took the B305, the Alpenstrasse, to Bernau Am Chiemsee and then took the Autobahn to Innsbruck arriving about dinner time. The next day we drove from Innsbruck, stopping in Mittenwald and Garmisch, stopped at Linderhof Castle and arrived in Fussen late afternoon. We still missed possible stops in Reutte, the Swarovski Crystal factory, the Zugspitze, and the Eagles Nest (it opened the next day for the season).

There is no way that you can get on the road at 10:30, drive to Fussen, see the castles, and then drive the Alpenstrasse to Berchtesgaden in one day. Not only is the distance too far, there is far too much to see to just drive past all of it. To properly drive the Alpenstrasse from Fussen to Berchtesgaden, or vice-versa, you need two days at a minimum. The Alpenstrasse was some of our most enjoyable and scenic driving and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Originally Posted by pharding

This what I suggest. Your flight will arrive in the morning of Day1. Take public transportation to your hotel and check in. Grab a bite to eat and then sleep until 6:30 pm.

I've done two ED's and both times I arrived early in the morning. I would suggest staying awake until it gets dark out, you'll get on the time schedule much quicker that way. To help, I'd spend that first day outside in the sun, it will help keep you awake. (This was actually a suggestion in one of Rick Steve's guide books and it works great!)

The second day you'll wake up refreshed and ready to go, and the rest of your stay you'll be on their time schedule. Works every time!

Here's my itinerary, along with some places where I could use some advice:
Fri: JFK > FRA (Not flying direct to MUC 'cuz I want to fly on the A380)

Sat: FRA > MUC; go to hotel, attempt to check in.
>>> What do you suggest as far as seeing Munich?

Sun: Quick visit to Welt and Museum, jet lag recovery

Mon: Plant tour, Welt, delivery at 5:20 PM
>>> I'd like to drive about 60 to 90 minutes SOMEPLACE to have dinner, then return to Munich. Suggestions for destinations? Salzburg? I have no idea where to go!

Tue: AM: Neuschwanstein; PM: Dachau concentration camp

Wed: Drive to Sinsheim; visit Auto & Technik Museum; leave for Nurburgring. (Have reservations that night at Hotel Am-Tiergarten, owned by the Schmitz family. Yes, THAT Schmitz family.)

Thu: Drive to Speyer, visit TechnikMuseum; return to Munich

Fri: PM: Drive to Dingolfing and tour factory
>>> Suggestions for the morning?

Sat: PM: Drop off car
>>> Again, suggestions? Needs to be an early night. Our flight to FRA departs at 7:15, so I assume we need to be at the airport around 5 AM.

Originally Posted by RustySTL

I've done two ED's and both times I arrived early in the morning. I would suggest staying awake until it gets dark out, you'll get on the time schedule much quicker that way. To help, I'd spend that first day outside in the sun, it will help keep you awake. (This was actually a suggestion in one of Rick Steve's guide books and it works great!)

The second day you'll wake up refreshed and ready to go, and the rest of your stay you'll be on their time schedule. Works every time!

Good advice. But note that OP's flight gets in in the afternoon. Still good advice though. The dynamics of traveling from the west coast are different from the east coast; flights that leave at night get in in the afternoon, not the morning. My ideal situation from the west coast is sleeping about five or six hours on the plane, then staying outside and awake after arrival, then trying to immediately get on the local schedule the first night. Ambien can be helpful the first night, if you believe in that sort of thing. I virtually never take medications of any kind, but when I travel long distances, I often take something on the plane and on the first night with great success.

Originally Posted by fishskis

Good advice. But note that OP's flight gets in in the afternoon. Still good advice though. The dynamics of traveling from the west coast are different from the east coast; flights that leave at night get in in the afternoon, not the morning. My ideal situation from the west coast is sleeping about five or six hours on the plane, then staying outside and awake after arrival, then trying to immediately get on the local schedule the first night. Ambien can be helpful the first night, if you believe in that sort of thing. I virtually never take medications of any kind, but when I travel long distances, I often take something on the plane and on the first night with great success.

This is exactly we did and what we experienced. Our flight was at 6:05 PM out of San Diego, connecting in SFO and then direct to Munich. We arrived at 17:15. We took Ambien on the trans-Atlantic flight, but for some reason it didn't work as well as I expected so we didn't sleep as much as we expected. We took the U-Bahn to Marienplatz, had dinner and headed back to the hotel. We went to bed around 11:30, fell asleep immediately, and then we both woke up and it was on only 2:30! We each took an Ambien, found it hard to fall asleep and then woke up at when our alarm went off at 6:30. We were at the Welt before 8:30 even though our check-in time was at 9:00 and delivery was at 10:30.

After delivery and the plant tour at 11:30, we headed back to the premium lounge and the lack of sleep starting catching up with us. We elected to hang out in the lounge and toured the Welt rather than touring the Museum, which we put off until the next morning. We slept well that night and were good after that.