Back in February 2005, I started to consider an ED with my 5 and 2 y/o kids (http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...+delivery+kids). I received great advice from a lot of people in here, particularly from yam, Scott, and Pterous. I just came back from my trip yesterday and I hereby report on my experience, hoping that it would be of help to anyone else considering ED with small children and, as a disclaimer, not boring to those for whom this thread does not apply and would view this as a Fred Flinstone shoving Pebbles home movies down everybody's throat kind of a thread. Therefore, I won’t write about my driving experiences in the Autobahn, which would probably result repetitive in here.

We took off on 6/19 from Charlotte, NC to Munich, arrived at 8am 6/20. Yam commented about benadryl having a stimulant effect. My 5 y/o slept through the flight, but my 2 y/o was wired out of control for the first 3-4 hours of our flight, so I guess the conclusion is that benadryl has a stimulant effect on kids about 50% of the time. The little one did sleep for the last 4 hours of the flight and we also did for a little while. We arrived early to our hotel and the room was not ready, so we headed down to the Marienplatz to walk around. The excitement at this point took care of any jet lag. The first night, we went to the Englischer Garten, where there was a beer stand right next to a playground full of kids, or what I would call, paradise. We let the kids play with other kids. My 5 y/o found it interesting to see other kids talking in German and got along with them fine. We met a few interesting people and let the children play until I had drank enough beer that my wife could not safely supervise both me and my kids.

Tip: Beer, not melatonin, is the best cure for jetlag. When you have a hangover, jet lag is not an issue.

On Sunday, we went to Dachau concentration camp. My 5 y/o learned a lot and the 2 y/o was the reason we got some nasty looks from the museum attendants. It was a largely indoor exhibit which we had to see at a relatively fast pace since the kids attention span would not be long enough for it. It was well worth it, since my son now knows well who Hitler was. We also went walking again around the city. The kids played freely and my 5 y/o particularly liked taking pics with all the lions around the city. We ate, took things easy, and basically continued to recover from the long flight.

On Monday, I went with my 5 y/o to pick up my new 750i sport. The process was quick and easy and we drove off. I picked up the rest of my family and headed to Legoland (thanks to Scott's advice). The kids had a great time. It was a Monday and the park was relatively empty with the rides fully available. We then headed to Reutte, outside of Fussen, and stayed for two nights at the GUTSHOF zum SCHLUXEN on the advice of someone else in here. It is a moderately priced nice inn with beds for all of us. The area around here was beautiful and we continued to walk around, following advice and common sense to keep our activities mostly outdoor. When we got to go to one of the castles, the kids were a little hard to control, so we skipped the second castle tour. We rented a pedal boat by a beautiful lake, went up a cable car, and to a toboggan ride and playground to keep the kids interested.

Tip: For runners, Munich has great parks with trains and the Fussen area, early in the morning, has very scenic roads in which you can run surrounded by the alps...not to be missed.

On Wednesday, we decided to head to Lindau at Lake Konstanz a day early since he had slept uncomfortably for four nights due to the lack of AC. We had a nice "5 star" hotel, the Bayerischer Hof Lindau, in a junior suite with a pullout sofa facing the lake. The hotel had a pool and the kids liked this a lot. We met a nice couple who had a 4 y/o and spend time with them while our kids played and got acquainted. We enjoyed a street show with a guy in a unicycle doing a juggling act and so did the kids. After a fifth night of sleeping uncomfortably without AC (there was a heat wave during these days), my wife and I started to get cranky and left Lindau after just a night. We talked to a guy from Switzerland who told us we should not go to Colmar and head to Lucerne instead, which we did on Thursday. This was mostly a mistake with the exception that we stopped at the Rhinefalls, which were great for all of us and a highly recommended stop for kids. We stayed in Lucerne in an expensive hotel, although with AC finally, and left after one night before we ended up broke. Switzerland is ridiculously expensive and the Lucerne area has nothing to offer kids, so I do not recommend it. It seems to be an area for the snobby crowd who could not get a place to stay in the French Riviera.

Tip: Do your own homework and don't change plans based on what someone else will tell you about their country. They will all tell you to go to their country, so do what is best for you.

By Friday, June 24, we were very tired of not sleeping well for so many nights in a row and realized that the AC was a key oversight on my part when booking hotels at this time of year. We were frustrated and cranky because of this. Our two week schedule went out the window and we started to improvise. The kids, on the other hand, were fine and having a great time. We headed to Baden-Baden three nights earlier than planned. We stopped at Rust (Europa Park-thanks again, Scott). They have a few hotels that are part of the resort. We went to the pool, to a "kids disco" that night, and slept again uncomfortably with no AC. We had a great time at the park on Saturday despite my wife and I being eternally tired. We arrived at Baden-Baden on Saturday, thinking we needed to return early to the US since we were so tired of not sleeping. I called Lufthansa and there were no options. We had to stay until July 3. I thought at this point things happened for a reason, and boy, was I right about this because in Baden-Baden things really started to get a lot better for my wife and I.

We stayed at a suite for three nights after a same day reservation at the Steigenberger Europaischer Hof. They gave us a big discount for a suite with AC. It may the room tolerable, although not cold like we are used to (I guess we are spoiled when it comes to AC). The environment in Baden-Baden was great and the town was beautiful. It has a very relaxing atmosphere and it was here where we felt we were truly starting to experience Germany (actually, the first night at the Englischer Garten was a great and truly German, although more specifically Bavarian, experience). We went to the Caracalla Spa, where they have baths with different types of water with different composition and temperatures, which is supposed to have immune system boosting properties and other not necessarily scientifically established benefits. They have a play area for kids to stay with supervision while we went to bathe. We had a great and relaxing time in here. It was here also were we realized that we really did not like German food and started to eat more pizza. My thoughts of leaving early quickly disappeared.

On Monday (June 27), we decided to skip Heidelburg and go to Prague instead. We stopped at a very nice and quaint small town in the way (the name escapes my mind, but it was a very nice stop). As we came into Prague, after going through Pilsen, we were disappointed with the looks coming in from the west side of the city. Buildings looked old, there was trash and prostitutes in the roads, and it looked very poor. We thought maybe we made a mistake after driving across Germany for 5.5 hours. After just a short walk through the streets of the Old Town of Prague, our disappointment was completely gone. This stay, completely improvised, turned out to be the best decision of our trip. Prague was by far the best place we stayed in. We stayed in at the Andel’s hotel in the business district of Prague. We had a huge suite with two floors, about 20’ ceilings in the family room, kitchen, two baths, two rooms with undivided and comfortable king sized beds, electric shades, and two approx 40” plasma TV’s on each room. Service and breakfast were impeccable and, of course, it had AC. We had all this for about 230 euros a night, which I think was a great price for these premium accommodations. The city of Prague is amazing. For those of you who have been there, I am sure you know what I mean. We walked and walked and walked…my 5 y/o went up 287 steps to the top of the Prague Castle main Chapel, which has breathtaking views of the city. There is history in every single corner, the architecture is amazing, and the city is old, but kept in a pristine shape. It has not been bombed through many of the wars in the area, which is the main reason it is so well maintained. We went to the Prague Castle, a must for all going to Prague. We also took our kids to a marionette version of Don Giovanni, which he loved. This city is so amazingly rich in architecture. Anything I say here will not do justice to the beauty this city has. I have been to France, Florence, Venice, Madrid, southern Spain, and now Munich and I think Prague not only rivals all of them in terms of architectural and historic value, but probably surpasses most of them. I think this should be a destination on the top of anyone thinking of visiting Europe. It is also cheaper than Germany. Here I understood well that the standard of comfort in hotels in Germany is significantly lower than we are used to in the US. This applies to many other places in Western Europe as well. Interestingly, you can feel in their culture and personality their many years of communist repression. Anyway, visit Prague…this stay alone would have made the whole trip worthwhile.

On Thursday (June 30), we headed back to Munich. We stopped in Regensburg on the way back and spent a few hours here. This also was a great stop. The town is old and beautiful and it has one of the oldest bridges in Germany over the Danube, built in AD 179 by the Romans. Again, we stuck to the outdoors, mainly plazas with fountains and pretty buildings for the children to roam freely.

We arrived at around 6pm at Munich and headed to the Hofbrauhaus, kids and all. We had a great time and I had almost three liters of beer. Again, my wife had to supervise me. I met Ralph, a very nice German fellow, a few other Germans from the area, as well as a group of heavy drinking South Koreans, Spaniards, and Americans from Colorado. I may have met other people, but I don’t remember after my second liter. We had a great time. The kids had fanta and sausages and had a great time dancing to the typical Bavarian music. My wife had to finally drag me out of there past midnight. Otherwise, I would have closed the place.

On Friday, I went to EH Harms to return the car. This was a quick 30-45 minutes process. We went in the afternoon to Deutsches Museum and spent a couple of hours at the kids section. They liked it so much we had to drag them out of there.

This night (Friday, July 1), we hired a babysitter and headed to the city. We hit about three different bars and beer gardens and ended up at a great Turkish restaurant called Myra (www.restaurant-myra.de). The service and the food were impeccable. I was not impressed with German food at all and it was in this foreign restaurant was where we had our best meal. We had reservations about hiring a babysitter, which charged us 10 euros per hour for six hours, but it was well worth it. My wife and I had an incredible night and now regret not having hired a babysitter earlier.

On Saturday, we just walked a little, went to the indoor pool at the hotel where we stayed (Arabella Sheraton in a small Junior Suite at 140 euros per night, with AC, of course. It is to the west of the city center with a U stop right in front of the hotel, so it was very accessible) and mostly rested and mentally prepared for the long 9.5 hour flight back to Charlotte, NC on Sunday July 3. The kids behaved much better. We carried our car seat for the 2 y/o to sit in, which we did not do on the outbound flight. This made things a lot easier. They really behaved surprisingly well despite not taking any benadryl.

In conclusion, we had a great trip and it was very well worth it. We can’t wait to do it again. The 2 y/o never got bored, and although she will not remember specifics, she does now know a handful of German words. I also believe the early stimulation will open her mind for future visits. As for my 5 y/o, I asked him when we came back if he liked this trip or our prior one week stay at a Beaches resort in Jamaica, and he told me he liked Germany better. Perhaps is more recent, but his response surprised me. His world is much bigger now as a result of the trip. He learned that people in different countries have different currencies, languages, foods, and personalities. He also now knows who Mozart is and that he composed Don Giovanni, that Hitler was a bad guy who killed a lot of people and in the end killed himself (mostly in his own words), and also knows who Einstein was. It was a physically demanding and mentally and emotionally rewarding trip, if I must put it in one short sentence. Nevertheless, we did not mind the exercise of walking, stroller pushing sometimes up steep hills, and plenty of piggy back rides. Also priceless is the fact that in a place as far and with work far left behind, you can’t help to grow much closer to your family.

I have a lot of pics and will post some later. Finally, but not less important, I must thank the bimmerfest community for helping me plan this unforgettable experience. I now just can’t wait to do it again.