Friday, January 11th. The big day. My check-in time was scheduled for 10:50am. Even though, everyone has told me before to be there 90 min prior my check-in time, I woke up kinda late, so I was able to get there around 10:10am. To my surprise, the check-in time was just a check-in time, and my delivery was actually scheduled at 11:30am.
But let me go back for a second. I stayed in Munich City Nord, so the BMW Welt is fairly close. There are a few options to get there: U-Bahn or a cab. The U-Bahn would have been a cheaper ride, but since I was running late, I decided to take the taxi. There were exactly 3km so I made it there in less than 10min. Ride cost: 9 Euros. Not too bad.
BMW Welt First Impression
WOW!!! The Welt is just amazing, I was really impressed by it, even though I have seen tons of pictures and videos before. The construction looks even more amazing than in any pictures. BMW has really built a “center for the world”. The architecture isÂ
futuristic, it definitely reminded me of a Star Trek ship. I like the way BMW combined the numerous windows, glass and steel pieces. I guess the 500 million euros were well spent.
Check-in process
I like the way BMW managed to organize things and their staff. There were a couple of BMW Welt employees at the main entrance. As soon as I approach them, they greeted me and walk me to the elevators that will take me to the Premier Lounge, the check-in desk for customer deliveries.
As soon as I walked in, another BMW employee approached me: Thomas. After the formalities, we sat down and started the check-in process. The only thing you would only need is was your passport. Like I said before, the delivery process will actually start about 40-50min after the scheduled check-in time.
If you have anyone traveling with you, or just friends that would like to be part of the delivery process, now it’s the time to mention it because they have to print some plastic cards with your name on it with your schedule for that day. In the same time, I was asked if I want to take a Production Tour after my delivery is done. Of course, I was all in for it. I heard some great stories about the Production factory tour, so I wasn’t going to miss this.
The check-in process took about 10 min, I had to sign a few papers, including: the registration card, the insurance papers, the cold weather release form and a couple of more documents, less important. As I said before, my delivery process was scheduled for 11:30am, so I had about an hour to kill. This is how it works: you go into the lounge where there are many monitors installed. Each monitor is numbered: B1, B2 or B3.
Each LCD displays the name of the customer, the delivery time and the name of the place where you purchased your car, in my case, Motor Werks BMW in Barrington, IL. My name was displayed on the B3 monitor so that was the place where my BMW delivery specialist would pick me up from, at the specified time.
I was walked in to the premier lounge where everyone that picks up their cars can serve breakfast.
Looks yummy, isn’t it? I have to admit, I probably tried all of them :) The lounge was fairly empty at that time, only about 10 people, but it got a little busier around my delivery time. Another detail: if you have children with you, there is a small kids room within the lounge where your children can play around.
In case you want to kill time you can also surf the web, there are also two computers available for the customers.
I am going to stop now and I will be back with another article on my delivery process and pictures with my new car.
