It will ship from Bremerhaven and it can take a week for it to get to the port and then on a boat (mine took 10 days). The WW site will allow you to put in the VIN and see if its been loaded, and then track the voyage to the port where its going (this varies depending on where your dealer is. My dealer is in New York, and the ship docked in New York(actually Port Newark) 10-11 days after it left Germany and 4 days later the car was at the dealer. The BMWOC site, I found, is usually a day or two behind what shows up on the WW site.

jshod said:

Since the X3 is built in Austria what port does it ship from? Does the X3 ship on the Wallenius Wilhelmsen lines( www.2global.com ) or are they shipped on another shipping company? According to the BMW OC tracking site our new silver/gray X3 has been awaiting transport for over a week now. Does anyone have any info about this??

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My X3 was about 10 days from "Awaiting Transport" to "En Route." The WW site didn't have any info for my VIN#, and I read that X3s going to the west coast are shipped with NYK lines. The date that my status updated to "En Route" coincided with the date that a NYK ship left Bremerhaven, so I think my X3 is on that one. I also read that you can call the BMWNA 800 number and get updated status, maybe even ship name & shipper info? Some people were getting that info from their dealer. I think once it's on a ship, there are no more updates until it gets to a processing center.

If you do a search, all forums, "shipping status", there are a lot of posts with links and good info. One guy even did has a photo essay on his website of the whole process from his BMW arriving at dock, through the processing center, then picking it up at his local dealer.

I finally called BMWNA and they told me my X3 shipped on 4/14 on NYK line and it should take 12-14 days. They could not or would not tell what ship it was on. Is there a way to look on NYK line web site to track your cars?? I have been unable to find a way to do that. I live in Southern Indiana. Does anyone know what port my X3 will be unloaded at?

It turns out my original guess as to which ship my X3 was on was wrong. The NYK website for their car carriers is:
http://www.nykroro.com not the general nyk.com one.
My contact at the BMW dealership was able to tell me which ship and voyage number and that it has an ETA of around the first of May. I don't know how he got the information, but frankly, it hasn't done me any good. The NYK website really sucks. Their schedules page is "under construction" and the email address they have for inquiries just bounces (domain not found error).

jshod said:

I finally called BMWNA and they told me my X3 shipped on 4/14 on NYK line and it should take 12-14 days. They could not or would not tell what ship it was on. Is there a way to look on NYK line web site to track your cars?? I have been unable to find a way to do that. I live in Southern Indiana. Does anyone know what port my X3 will be unloaded at?

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The NYK Roro website has a tiny bit of route info, can't give you a direct link because it's all framed. Also, it won't work with Mozilla Firefox, you have to use IE. But go here: http://www.nykroro.com/2ndTier.htm
then click on "Trade Lanes", then "Americas to Europe" then "Service Details." Since your travel time is only 12-14 days, it sounds like yours is getting dropped off on the east coast. Looks like the port choices are either New York/Newark or Baltimore. It's a bummer that NYK doesn't have the tracking options that the W&W website has. I guess it's just another darned lesson in patience!

When I got my 2004 330cic it came over on WW and I was able to track it very easily. NYK should upgrade their web site so we can track cars more easily. Thank you for your input. I will patiently wait on my wifes X3 to get here next month. WOW I can't believe we will have 2 BMW's in our garage!!

Found some more good links for the obsessive in this thread:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1166959#post1166959

A long thread, but the second and fourth pages have some good stuff. There's a link to a German website that has some shipping schedules, but you need to know your arrival port. As I noted in my post, its arrival time is a few days off. There's also the http://www.aislive.com website. You can register for free (until May 3) and track a ship by its name. There's also a website which keeps track of ships that call in with a voluntary weather report. http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/ You also need the ship's name for that one. I'd call or email your salesperson and ask them for ship's name and estimated arrival date & port info. Maybe they will be more helpful. Or try calling BMWNA again. That information is definitely available.