The Volvo Experience

Wow! What a great time!

We've just come back from picking up our brand new, 2010 XC60. It's beautiful! Check out the photos on Flickr.

We started out on Wed (Oct. 28) by leaving Kaiserslautern by train. The train ride took a little over 4 hours and headed north to Kiel, Germany. The ride was nice. I just love traveling by train. You get to see the landscape, you get to see new people coming on and getting off and it's all WAY faster than driving or any other public transit. We cruised (at high speed) through several regions of Germany and enjoyed the beautiful fall foliage and changing landscapes.

Once in Kiel (a port town) we walked out of the train station and walked directly to the harbor. And just after a short walk we came upon a big ship that would be our ferry. We checked in, boarded and settled into our birth and started exploring the ship.

I have to say, I was quite impressed by the birth! I was expecting much less and got so much more. The beds were comforatable, the bathroom was generous (as generous as can be in a ship's birth) and the whole room gave us pleanty of space to spread out w/o tripping over each other.

After a short exploration, we were off to dinner. The buffet was beautiful. Probably not as nice as a true cruise, but pretty darn nice. Lots to choose from! And the dining room had such amazing views. At this point we were still in harbor finishing the load up - yes, we did eat w/ the older crowd, but if we hadn't we would have had to wait until 8pm to have dinner and me and peanut just can't wait that long for a meal!

When we were just about finished eating, the whole room started vibrating. Well, it just so happens that the dining room sits on top of the engines! So there we were, having our dinner digested for us, and watching the cast off process. It was AWESOME!!

By the time we had finished dinner, we had seen the sun go down and Kiel nearly all pass by. So we headed up to the sun decks to take some photos.

By then we had left harbor and were out to sea in the North Sea. The wind was COLD and hard, but it was worth the fresh air and seaspray.

We whiled away the hours before bed just haning out in one of the lounges and watching the night-time scenery pass by.

We finally snuggled into bed to the gentle rocking of the boat. I was expecting to be able to hear the waves and water pass by, but the room was very well sound proofed and we spent the night in near silence. Another surprise, given that the ferry was carrying a good crowd of people.

The next morning, we woke up, showered, dressed and then went topside to take some sunrise photos. The air was even colder and we were now about 2 hours from port in Gothenburg Sweden. After capturing some photos, we headed to the dining room and enjoyed a seaside breakfast. Again, a beautiful spread with much to choose from. We finished watching the sun rise as we ate our eggs and drank our hot chocolate.

By the time we finished breakfast, we were headed back into civilization so we went back up to take more photos, exchanged some Euro for Swedish Kronor and then got ready to disembark. The captain was quite impressive. There were some interesting maneuvers that had to be made to get us into dock and he did it w/o any trouble.

As we exited the ferry, we headed down a long gangplank and found ourselves in Gothenburg. There at the bottom stood a gentleman with a sign with our name on it! I felt so special. Our own chauffeur. We were whisked into a nice looking Volvo and we drove for about 5 minutes to the Volvo business/manufacturing park, which I have deemed “Volvo City”.

This business park had several buildings and all of them were marked “VOLVO” in some way or another. We were dropped off at the visitor center where we were again greeted by name, introduced to our “new car specialist” and given coffee and postcards to write home. The specialist introduced himself, gave us a quick greeting and welcome and then was off to pull our new car into the showroom.

Shortly after we arrived, another American couple arrived. They were in from Oregon to pick up their new car. WOW, now that’s a trek. So, apparently it doesn’t matter where you buy your Volvo, you can always come to the factory visitor center to receive it. They got to drive it for a limited time (2 weeks I think) and then they return it to the factory (or other approved shipping location) where they pack your car up and ship it to your home dealer. Gosh, I’d find that just too frustrating. How long does it take to ship a car? I know when we did it through the Army, it took about 4 weeks. How hard would it be to get a taste of your new car then be without it and waiting for it on the other side?

So the specialist pulled the new car into the showroom and we were introduced to “Kollett” (yes, our new Volvo already has a name, the License Plate was “KL ET ###” so we named her as such.) The specialist showed us most of the bells and whistles and helped us get the settings in place as we like them – not just the seat and searing wheel, but the whole car has settings that have options you can choose from – kind of like your cell phone – choose the look, choose the sounds, and on and on!)

After we were pretty well set with the car, we were allowed to go out to the “test track”. Yes, sounds impressive and exciting, but it was just a quarter mile strip of asphalt in a straight line. But we drove it back and forth to make sure we were comfortable with how things worked (a quarter mile at a time).

After the test drive, we were invited to lunch at the visitor’s center where they fed us Swedish Meatballs – and they were delicious! I loved it, in a time when they could have introduced us to a lesser known Swedish dish, they chose to go traditional and give me exactly what I was hoping to have!

After lunch, we took a whirl-wind tour of the production facility (where we learned that our model was actually created in Belgium) then a visit to the Volvo museum (boring). By then, it was time for us to head back to the ferry and begin our journey back to Germany.
We loaded up onto the boat, this time thru the vehicle ferry entrance, went back to our birth, dropped our things, and went to the sundeck to enjoy the sunset.

The sky was on fire that evening and we got some amazing photos. When we’d had enough wind, we headed to the dining room, had dinner then wasted away the evening and finally tucked ourselves into bed.

The next morning we were determined to capture photos of the sunrise. So we set the alarm extra early, got bundled up and headed topside to get the photos. Sadly, as we approached the doors to go outside, we saw that it was raining – yup, we must have been back in Germany.

It wasn’t raining too hard, so we stuck around to see if we could see anything, but the cloud cover was so thick for as far as you could see that we never saw the sun until 4 pm that day. A few more photos later, we were headed back to breakfast, followed by gathering and cleaning up the room and then over to an observation lounge where we once again watched the docking process. We were dismissed to our cars and eventually, we drove off the boat and back onto German soil.

We drove south starting at 9am. We made a few stops (food, bathroom) and finally made it back home Thursday evening at about 8pm.

It was a great time! Part of me wishes we had stayed a night in Sweden, but at the same time, I was happy for the excellent ferry cruise and the wonderful treatment we received at the Volvo center. I was truly feeling like a VIP by the end of the trip – and the best part was the excellent souvenir we got to bring home.