[Jedi_M]

Attractions
BMW Welt (World)
Premium Lounge
BMW Plant tour
BMW Museum
Olympiaturm in Olympiapark (TV Tower)

I allocated the entire day before my scheduled pick-up day to check-in at the Premium Lounge, tour BMW Welt, take the factory tour, visit the Museum and go to the top of Olympiaturm which worked out well.

Roughly 90 per cent of customers picking up their vehicle at BMW Welt come from all over Germany. You actually have to pay $200 for an in-country delivery experience at Welt. Many of them bring their families, collect their new BMW and then drive straight to Italy or Austria for a holiday, before heading for home. They make a vacation out of the experience. One in ten customers makes the journey across the Atlantic from the US or Canada. Approximately 80 to 120 vehicle deliveries take place at Welt every day. Disregarding the European deliveries, BMW Welt in itself is a major tourist attraction in Munich with easy access from Downtown by taking the U3 subway line and getting off at the Olympiazentrum station. This U-Bahn station is located right next to the BMW Welt north entry.

BMW Welt consists of rotating exhibitions of their entire product line of cars, BMWi, SUV and motorcycles. There are also display areas for the Mini and Rolls Royce brands which they own. The BMW merchandise shop on the ground level is where you can use your 10 euro gift voucher, get the engraved keychain and two safety vests. I also purchased BMW Welt and ///M baseball caps. The Premium Lounge is on the 3rd level with the delivery platform on the level directly below it. The lounge is accessed by the glass elevators located directly behind the north information desk. If you need to check in luggage at delivery time, go to the south information desk where they will take them and drop-off your luggage next to your vehicle on the delivery platform for you to load in your vehicle.

As an ED customer, BMW treats you like a premium member with exclusive privileges while you are visiting Welt. Along with the free tours and museum access, you are given unlimited access to the Premium Lounge which includes the following areas:

-Delivery office area where you initially check-in and go through your paperwork
-Use of wardrobe lockers to store personal items while at Welt
-Sign in guest book
-Internet stations for browsing and emailing
-Lounge seating and dining area
-Food and beverage station (Breakfast and Lunch)
-Restrooms
-Overlook balcony located above the grand stairway that you will walk down to the vehicle delivery platform where you will get introduced to your vehicle, load your luggage, do a victory lap and exit.

When you initially check in at the office area, they will confirm all of your tour reservations along with pick-up time and issue you a Welt card which looks like a credit card and has your entire itinerary printed on the back side of it. Once you initially check in at the Premium Lounge, you can come back and visit any time afterward. There are no visit limits. For example, you can arrive at Welt in the morning, have breakfast in the lounge, explore the Welt, take the English Plant tour, have lunch at the lounge and explore the museum afterwards. This access will also be available to family and friends that you bring with you as long as you check everyone in and keep to a reasonable quantity.

The Plant tour starts out with a 20 minute introduction and short video of the history of BMW in a presentation room located behind the BMW merchandise store on the ground level and the tour lasts a total 2 hours. After the introduction, the group walks across the street and enters the Plant. No photos or videos are allowed during the tour so I have no photos. If you are lucky enough to do the tour during Octoberfest, you will be treated to some beer tasting in the paint section. Otherwise, it is just a water break during the rest of the year. In this area, they also had an M3 carbon fiber roof panel and a conventional metal roof next to each other both on movable hinges so that you can compare the weight of the two. 90% of the manufacturing is fully automated with robotics and BMW spends considerable R&D designing, building and maintaining their robotic workforce. The few humans that you see on the assembly line at the end do basic tasks and importantly test every vehicle which go through a battery of automated tests before they are released.

The BMW Museum has a mix of vehicles on display. The general organization, flow and layout seemed disjointed and confusing compared to the Mercedes and Porsche Museums which I visited later on my vacation. I only spent 1.5 hours in the Museum which was enough time for me to go through this relatively small Museum.

The Olympiaturm located in Olympiapark and adjacent to the Welt gives you a bird’s eye view of not only the BMW campus but a 360 degree view of Munich itself. Just cross the pedestrian bridge over the road and take the path to the left to get to it. The tower observation platform is multi-level so the best place to take photos is on the outside platforms on the 2nd and 3rd levels. That way, there is not a layer of glass to obstruct your view and add a tint or reflections to your photos.