Day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle

I don't know if you have looked at this, but Mike's Bike Tours in Munich have a great day trip to Neuschwanstein. You meet at their office and take a coach. Then you ride bikes to Swan Lake, and then have lunch before heading to Neuschwanstein. When I booked this, I thought our son and husband would think it was cheesy, but we all loved it. Lunch was at one restaurant, but we did not all sit together, so just our family was at one table, to give you an idea. The bus was very comfortable and it had a bathroom. We normally don't care for these types of tours, but this one was very enjoyable.

Get the Bayern Ticket it covers the bus train to Schwangau roundtrip:
https://int.bahn.de/en/offers/regional/regional-day-ticket-bavaria

Make the day trip decision once you know the weather will cooperate.

Thanks so the day ticket is much more cheaper
I see a fare of 42 euros which will take the 3 of us for entire date. I presume our return journey will also be covered, right ?

Thanks for the suggestion of the Mike's bike tours, I will look that up

We did this but had a rental car so I don’t have any suggestions as far as bus vs train, but I would possibly say the train route because it goes to Fussen. Fussen was absolutely our favorite town of the trip and the one place we regretted not having more time.
Expect lots of crowds! We were there in July but it was still worth it and manageable.
Not sure if you have tickets yet, but if not they’re probably already sold out.. they do save some same day of tickets but they were gone by the time we got there. If you don’t have tickets I still highly recommend going!!! It was so amazing to see up close and the area around it. Learning about King Ludwig before too made it so interesting to see.
Since we didn’t get Neuschwanstein tickets, we booked a tour of the Linderhof palace, where Ludwig actually lived and spent most of his time.
Rick has some really great info about all of those areas in his Germany book! Hope any of that helps

LInderhof is worth seeing. If the only tour you can book also includes Linderhof, I'd suggest you do it.

Thank you Derek. This helps, and we will do the full package including Linderhof

So I have another question :)
We have two full days, I was thinking of using the other full day for a Romantic Road tour which includes Rothenburg and Harburg
https://www.viator.com/tours/Munich/Romantic-Road-Rothenburg-and-Harburg-Day-Tour-from-Munich/d487-285010

Whats your suggestion and that of others please?
If we take this, then we will only have half a day (the day we reach in afternoon around 3 PM), and evenings of the next two days. Will that be too much.

Thanks

I don't see any bus connections from Munich to Schwangau on the Bahn website. That doesn't surprise me since the buses are run by the Bahn and are normally used to augment travel on routes not serviced by rail, not to compete with it.

Doing the trip by yourself (rail to Füssen, bus to Schwangau) will require a bit of planning, but will save you a bunch of money. The companies offering tours are counting on you being to lazy too do it yourself; that's how the make their money.

I would not recommend the tour offering the castle plus Linderhof plus Oberammergau unless you just want to add names to you trip to impress your friends. Those tours spend about ¾ hour at Linderhof, just enough time to take the tour of the tiny palace itself, but no time to really see the grounds. There is so much more to see at Linderhof, but the tour doesn't stay there long. Same thing with Oberammergau. Just about enough time to visit one shop there. (Actually, their latest tour description says they just drive through).

In my opinion, they don't spend nearly enough time at Linderhof or in Oberammergau. Those two stops are added to give the appearance of being better than touring just the castles. You could do a trip by yourself over two days using public transportation with an overnight stay in Oberammergau; that would be a much better trip (I did that in 2007).

If we take this, then we will only have half a day (the day we reach
in afternoon around 3 PM), and evenings of the next two days. Will
that be too much.

Half a day... do you mean half a day in Munich? And are you counting the hours from 3 pm on as half a day for sightseeing in Munich? That's just the evening actually, if you are arriving by train, transitting to a hotel, checking in after 3 pm.

I suppose if you are staying in Munich with the goal of seeing specific things in Munich, then the additional day trip would be too much. If Munich is just a place to sleep for 3 nights, then the day trip makes sense - the only thing that doesn't make sense is staying in Munich only for day trips to Neuschwanstein and Rothenburg. Why not just skip Munich and go straight to Füssen for a night or two... and then to Harburg (stopover) and continue to Rothenburg in the late afternoon for your final night (or two?)

Thank you Russ, you are absolutely right - too much of running around
We will stick to Munich for a day and then go to the castles the next day

Thank you Lee, I do agree the tour tries to cover so many things in one trip but we dont have a choice and not much option, since we are in Munich only for 2 days

I am still not decided on which tour to take. Maybe we will go only for the Neuschwanstein trip on our own because if we don't take the tour, covering both palaces in one day is very difficult

Thanks,

then to Harburg (stopover) and continue to Rothenburg in the late
afternoon for your final night

@ Russ
When I first saw this, I thought you were advising to go via Harburg after the same day as seeing the castles and the stop in Harburg would be for the night since it would be hard to leave Füssen after the castles close and get to Rothenburg before late night. But now I see that you are suggesting Füssen to Rothenburg as a one day trip with a stopover in Harburg.

Harburg castle would be an interesting place to visit. It is one of the oldest intact castles in Bavaria, dating from the 11th century. I stopped there in 2007, when the train Haltestelle was south of town about a km. The new stop is a little closer to the castle, but they should realize that there are no lockers at Harburg; no building, just a shelter! It's more like a bus stop than a station.

There are two towns in Germany called Harburg. The larger one is near Hamburg. The town with the castle is Harburg(Schwab) (Schwaben). Keep that in mind when using the Bahn website to find connections. Harburg(Schwab) is 11 minutes by rail north of Donauwörth.

When I went there in 2007, I stopped in Donauwörth and stashed my luggage in a locker there, then returned to Donauwörth afterward to retrieve it. However the Stationsdatenbank website indicates that there are no longer lockers at Donauwörth. It looks like there is a tourist office next to the Marktplatz and Rathaus in town. They might hold your luggage for you while you go up to the castle.

Hi all

Thanks for your suggestions but finally we are taking the long tour of Linderhof and Neuschwanstein castle today

I would like to good options for lunch around Neuschwanstein, if there are any. We are looking dor not so pricey options

Do suggest
Thanks