This opening-weekend Oktoberfest Munich package is our most popular program, allowing you to experience up close and personal the festival’s 200-year-history of pageantry, pomp, and perennial cheer. If you are flexible, culture curious, have an adventurous side, lust for knowledge, like to explore history and have fun, Package 1 is for you!

(Note: If instead you prefer Oktoberfest during the week, no problem, Brett’s packages can be offered any day(s) of the week – contact Brett with any questions you may have.)

Oktoberfest Package 1

Opening weekend – Oktoberfest Munich 2024

Only 6 places remain on this tour package

Join veteran guide Brett Harriman for this exclusive 4-day (3-night) Oktoberfest tour package in Munich, Germany!

Established in 1810, Oktoberfest this year celebrates its 214th birthday. This year also marks Brett’s 26th Oktoberfest in Munich and he looks forward to sharing with you his passion for the world’s most famous folk festival.

There’s much to learn and explore on this exciting and action-packed tour. So come along and join Brett in the capital of Bavaria where you’ll experience Munich and Oktoberfest like a local!

We do all the heavy lifting, we’re a one-stop shop, just sign up and you’re done. Instant Oktoberfest. You save the hassle of surfing up and down the Web to find an expensive hotel nowhere near the festival grounds and then trying to get into a beer tent, which is next to impossible on the opening weekend. Additionally, our seating reservations are in the center of one of Oktoberfest’s best tents, serving Munich’s most favored beer: Augustiner (brewed by monks since the year 1328).

Our Oktoberfest tour packages can’t be beat for price, location, satisfaction, and service!

Package itinerary:

DAY 1 (Friday), September 20: Brett Harriman, your guide, will be at the hotel all day greeting arrivals and facilitating check-in. At 5:30 p.m. we’ll meet for introductions followed by an orientation tour of the Oktoberfest fairgrounds. (Optional dinner at Munich’s best traditional brewery restaurant.)

DAY 2 (Saturday), September 21: (Wear your walkin’ shoes.) After breakfast, we’ll begin our Oktoberfest adventure by viewing the traditional opening-day parade (dating from 1887). Known as the Festival of Innkeepers, the parade is an hour-long procession of horse-drawn brewer wagons transporting the ceremonial first beer kegs to the fairgrounds. The guest of honor, seated in the leading wagon, is the Bürgermeister, or mayor of Munich, who will tap the first keg at noon to kick-start Oktoberfest. (*For more on the mayor and the start of Oktoberfest, see after Day 4.) We’ll follow the horse-drawn procession to Oktoberfest, where Brett will give you an orientation tour of the fairgrounds. (Consider a ride on the giant Ferris wheel with commanding views over Munich and beyond.) Afterward, Brett will escort the group back to the market square for an orientation tour of Munich’s Old Town (but those who would like to stay at the fairgrounds are welcome to do so). The rest of the day-evening is free time.

DAY 3 (Sunday), September 22: (Again, throw on your walkin’ shoes.) Today, Brett insists, is the best day of the year! Morning rings in the Costume and Riflemen’s Parade, since 1835. This is not just any parade, this one happens to be the largest and most beautiful and historically rich costume parade in the world, comprising some 6,500 participants marching in a 6-kilometer-long spectacle from downtown to the fairgrounds. The participants are members of folk clubs from all parts of Germany, and Europe, proudly displaying their regional colors and garb, historical uniforms and (in many cases) musical accompaniment. This is truly a pageant not to be missed, and your tour guide will show you the way to marvel every footstep! At 4:15 p.m. we’ll meet in the hotel lobby for the climax of your Oktoberfest package: a reservation at one of the Fest’s best tents for dinner, beer and barrels of fun! (NOTE: Shops on Sunday will be closed; attractions will be open.)

DAY 4 (Monday), September 23, 2024: Regrettably, it’s time to say Auf Wiederseh’n to the friends we’ve made. Our tour is over. (Check-out by noon, or with advance booking stay longer — speak with Brett.)

*(Continued from DAY 2): Once the wagons arrive at the fairgrounds, the climax is not far off. At the stroke of 12 noon, in the Schottenhamel tent, the Bürgermeister clobbers the very first keg of Oktoberfest beer with a wooden mallet and proclaims, “O’zapft is!” (It’s tapped!) At that moment, twelve cannon volleys ring out across the Wies’n, puffs of smoke burst overhead, high in the sky, officially signaling the start of Oktoberfest to the other tents and that beer can be served, precisely when an army of determined barmaids begin the mad dash of carrying fistfuls of frothy mugs to dry-mouthed patrons crying out for beer like nesting chicks begging their mother for food. For many beer enthusiasts, the rest of the day is a blur!

NOTE: If instead you prefer Oktoberfest during the week, no problem, Brett’s packages can be offered any day(s) of the week – contact Brett with any questions you may have.

Advance payment:

Click the ADD TO CART button to pay your advance payment via PayPal (for other forms of payment like Venmo use: @Brett-Harriman or Zelle use: [email protected]).

In case you do not see the PayPal button, refresh the page or try on another device, e.g. non-Apple product.

Feel free to contact Brett with any questions you may have.

(Sign up for this event and receive a free trip consultation as part of your package.)

Money, package details:

• The land-only price for this package is 875 — 575 euro (payable in Munich) + US$300 (advance payment) per person (double occupancy) — which includes your accommodations (in a highly rated, contemporary, centrally located, non-smoking hotel), one dinner or 2x liter-sized beers, all (public) transportation when traveling with the group, a reservation at one of the Fest’s best beer tents, and Brett Harriman as your personal guide. You will be hard-pressed to find a better Oktoberfest deal, anywhere!
• The price for this 4-day (3-night) package is approximately US$226 per person per day (575 euro x $US1.05 = $604 + $300 advance = $904 / 4 = $226), which is hard to beat when considering the exclusive hand-held nature of the package and especially that room rates in Munich during Oktoberfest essentially double in a city that are already pricey.
• The price does not cover breakfast, lunch, two dinners, and of course personal expenses, such as whatever you do on your free time.
• Among the many highlights, you’ll experience Oktoberfest like a local as Brett guides you through Munich’s Old Town as well as the festival grounds, to prime positioning for the opening-weekend parades and to your reservation at one of the Fest’s best beer tents. (For a general tour summary, browse the day-by-day itinerary above.)
• Single supplement: All rooms are doubles and therefore the package is based on double occupancy. On account of the exorbitant room rates during Oktoberfest, the supplement for a single traveler is US$450. (Sorry! but the two-week Oktoberfest period commands Munich’s highest room rates of the year.) That said, single travelers are welcome to room together to save the supplement; (notify Brett if this is you and he will do his best to make compatible room assignments).
• Payment: To reserve your place an advance payment of US$300 per person is required and the remaining 575 euro is due in Munich upon meeting your group leader. After the advance payment is made Brett will contact you to confirm your place. (Note: Reserve your spot sooner rather than later before the package is sold out!)
• Cancellation: Deposits are fully refundable 60 days prior to tour departure (minus applicable transaction fees, e.g. 2.9% via PayPal). Within 60 days, however, your deposit will be forfeited (sorry!) unless your spot can be immediately filled or you’d like to transfer the reservation to a Harriman tour package for the following year.