Melk Day Trip from Vienna
 

I read a lot of posts to prepare for our Melk day trip. They were so helpful!
I would like to add my two cents worth:
1. We took the tour (in English) at the Abbey. You can visit on your own but I don't think I could understand or appreciate what I saw without a guide. We got background information and little interesting stories that really made the history of the Abbey alive. In my opinion, the guided tour is a must.
2. Don't skip the gardens. There are the formal gardens and then a series of larger,natural gardens that are absolutely delightful. You can go around them in 30-45 minutes. It's worth taking an earlier train to go around the gardens before the tour.
3. We discovered the hard way that you have to get to the boat early if you want to get a seat (we took the 13:45 boat)! We took our time wandering around Melk, having something to eat and when we got on the boat about 20 minutes before it left we couldn't find a table to ourselves. Many "prime tables" were reserved (I had no idea how to reserve ahead of time.) Luckily I saw a family who had been on the Abbey tour sitting at two tables and I asked if we could join them. Otherwise, my husband and I wouldn't have been able to sit together.
Several posters wrote not to bother eating in town because there's food on the boat and I want to second that. The boat has a real restaurant (light food and main courses) and we should have just come early and eaten there (and found a table to ourselves!).
4. We got off at Durnstein like everyone recommended, walked around for about an hour, caught the 16:40 bus to Krems train station and got the train back to Vienna. Easy peasy!

Thanks for this! We'll be going October 2nd.

I see that the combo ticket with train/Abbey/boat doesn't include the guided tour. So did you just buy that at the Abbey?

It was just a couple of euros (2 -3?) a person. We went straight to the ticket office at the Abbey and bought the tickets and then went into the gardens. (Everything is close by.) I recommend buying the combo ticket the day before. We stopped on the way back from Schonbrunn but going to the West Banhof isn't really out of the way and worth saving the hassle in the morning. The combo ticket is good for 4 days. Then you get to the station in the morning and just get on the train. If you come by metro, there is an elevator which brings you up to the train platform level of the station /mall. There are places to have a cup of coffee on that level. (I must be giving the impression that we drank a lot of coffee. I guess we did!)
We left at the 8:22 train (or around that time) and had time to tour the gardens and have a cup of coffee before the 10:55 tour (There's a small coffee shop in the gardens.). By the way, the ticket allows only one entrance to the gardens so either go before or after.
Hope you have nice weather!

Thank you! That's super helpful! Does the train ticket have to be validated before boarding?

No, the conductor comes around. It's a regional train with assigned seats.

You can take the cruise to Krems but then you have to get to the train station on your own. Everyone on the forums recommended getting off at Durnstein which is more picturesque. The bus to Krems train station costs only 2.20 euros.

Thanks. Planning my trip for next Sept, so this is very helpful and just the specifics I like

Check out the following post. It gives such detailed instructions that you can't go wrong!(Especially on how to get to the bus stop in Durnstein.)
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ls-details.cfm