Shipping time from Germany to U.S.?
 

I mailed a large box from Rothenburg to the U.S. on October 13 and it has not yet arrived. They told me it would be about 10 days. Does anyone have any experience with actual shipping times from Germany? What would be the best way to check on the status of my package?

Thanks!

Well the basics - did you send it by air mail or sea mail, the latter which could take up to two months.

Or air freight, etc. How did you send it?

Hi J,

If you sent it surface mail, figure closer to 60 days.

((I))

We shipped items home from Germany last time we went & we beat the box home by several weeks. I would guess a month, at least.

Even for an airmail package you ought to allow for at least three weeks, often closer to four.
Surface mail is much more hit and miss - don't be too surprised by a two months period.

Wow. As much as we paid I thought it would be pretty fast. It cost us about 50 Euro to ship. I'm looking at the form but don't know how to tell the shipping type. How can I tell?

It really does depend on how big and how heavy a package it was and how you shipped it. When you said you mailed it, did you actually go to the post office, or some other shipping company, or did someone else handle it for you?

Our one experience - shipping Rothenberg to California - the package arived about 12 days after it was mailed. This was a box of souveniers that we bought at Kathe Wolfhardt and had sent from the store - not particularly heavy, but rather large (about 3'x3'x2').

I sent a package home from a small town in Germany in May; I paid about 25 Euro, and I was asked to remove something from the package to bring it below a certain weight, which I assume was to enable it to go air mail. It took about 10-12 days. I know it arrived at home before I did.

I mailed a parcel from Düsseldorf to Michigan in January. It took 5 weeks. It was 2.3 kg (about 5 lbs) sent printed matter rate and cost €13. The clerk quoted me €50 for priority mail but it would probably have arrived before I returned.

There is virtually no way to check on the status of your package unless you had used DHL or FedEx.

>DHL
DHL IS the official federal German parcel service, whenever you're sending a package from a german post office, it will be nothing else but DHL. Quite good, because tracking is in fact possible.

Thanks, everyone. I got a notice in the mail today that I have a package at the postoffice, so I'm hoping this is it. Lots of Christmas presents in there!

logos -- are you still in Furstenfeldbruck?

No, I'm in Munich. Did you like Fursty? :-). Never been my fav place, but where you grew up is where your roots are...

Yes, we really had a nice day there. We took the train from Munich and walked all around town. It was pretty, everyone was really nice and the town hall was very helpful. They gave us some little souvenior type things, too. It was nice to be in the small town atmosphere.

We took your advice and had lunch at the monastery. I didn't know there were two restaurants there. We ate at the fancier one and it was delicious.

Now I wish we would have tried to go out to the former base, but we decided we probably wouldn't be able to see much.

Also loved Munich!

Good descision, they wouldn't have let you in anyway. You can't go any further than the memorial as a civilian.

logos999,

My parcel has a sticker on it reading

Deutsche Post DNr. 70
DHL Express HUB 47
Päckchen.

It's called "Sendungsverfolgung / Track and Trace" on the www.dhl.de site, and is available for all parcels inside Germany. You just have to enter identcode and zip. For international parcels, you'd have to pay extra :-(. Yours isn't a parcel, but the smaller in size, cheaper alternative, a "Päckchen". Outside of Europe, you can track only the more expensive "Express parcel".

We had something shipped from St. Goar and it took almost 4 weeks. You'll also have to pay a fee to get it.

Well my package arrived -- guess I just needed to post on Fodors to make it happen!
The box was mangled -- hard to believe it was the same one we shipped it in. It had been opened and retaped but everything was inside and intact.

Shipping time was about two weeks. I didn't have to pay a fee to pick it up. Next time I think I'll try to fit stuff in my luggage, or buy less stuff!

Thanks for all your replies!