Even though there are tons of travel agencies to organize this daily trip, I decided to arrange everything on my own. So, here are the steps I did:
1. Reserve your tour in advance: Let's face it, we all know that Munich is a nice city, there are many things to do and many little towns around it but there is nothing that can beat the castle. So, expect a huge crowd at all times regardless the season. The castle organizes a new guided tour - mostly in English almost every 5 minutes (at least it was so when we went there) so the question is not really whether you can go in, but how much you have to spend in front of the ticket office.
To perform online reservation, simply go to the official website of Neuschwanstein Castle and choose the date and hour you are interested to go. During the reservation, you are not asked to pay, but to give a card information to pay the ticket price in case you don't show up. Keep in mind that you can cancel or change your reservation via e-mail with no problem.
The reservations are organized only a few months before - so if you don't receive any confirmation right after your request, don't worry. They'll come back to you.
2. Arrange your train: If you want to travel a bit in Germany, Bahn trains (www.bahn.com) are your friend. Check out from "Munchen" to "Hohenschenwangau Neuschwanstein Castles, Schwangau" and start playing with hours.
To reach the castle, you should take a train from Munich to Fussen (which takes about 1,5 hours) and take a bus from in front of the Fussen station to the Castle site (10 minutes).
We purchased a Bayern Ticket- which costs 31€ to cover 2 people (even more maybe, you should check it out) and cover the return train ticket between Munich and Fussen and the bus connection to the castle area. The trains depart once in every hour and you will find the bus connection waiting for you. This Bayern ticket starts from 9.00 every day - so you can take the train at 8.53 - but this means that you have to purchase two Bayern tickets. Alternatively, you can start your journey from other train stations of Munich other than Munich Hbf so that one ticket would be enough.
3. Plan your reservation details along with the train: We got wrong here - we made the initial reservation to purchase the tickets before 11.00 and watching the train timings made us realize that we can never make it. After discussing a while, we decided to postpone our tour (via e-mail, remember?) to pick up our tickets at 13.00.
After searching all the blogs and video clips about traveling the castle, the only information we failed to receive before reaching there was the bus stop where we get off once we reach the castle site. You can find my updated version of the site map with all the required points to get. The bus stop and the ticket office takes about 5 minutes by walk.
After changing our tour time, we nailed it! Catching the train at 9.53 helped us to be there and collect our tickets around 12.30. Once there, we saw an enormous line (almost 70 people) for those without reservations and a line with 1 couple with the reservation so we were the happy ones!
4. Walking to the castle: After collecting our tickets, we were ready for lunch before to climb up to the castle. I always assume that isolated places from the regular life would always cost more and not to get scammed by the locals, we preferred to packed our lunches in Munich - but keep in mind that this is not required at all! You can find little outdoor shops that you can grab a sandwich, a hot dog or a mulled wine near the ticket office and up the hill near the castle entrance.
The path between the ticket office and the castle entrance takes about 40 minutes by walk. When we were there, the weather was rainy/snowy but still, we did not suffer from the ice on the main path. Yet, you can consider to get a horse trolley to go up and down with various prices. We preferred to walk with clear weather and amazing forest view.
To reach the spot from which you can make the most iconic shot, you need to reach the bridge on the photo below called Marien-brucke. Yet, the path to reach the bridge was icy - and that is why it was closed so unfortunately we missed it.
5. Enjoy the castle: The tour itself takes about half an hour. The castle was not used by the king properly, and that is why maybe it was not as magnificent from inside as it is from outside. But, you can reach an amazing view every now and then.
6. Visit the lake: Before to take the bus for Fussen, we decided to take a look at the Alpsee lake, which was completely worth it.
7. Stop by in Fussen for 1 hour: I know that you came here for the castle and maybe you are tired - but do not miss this cute little town. Having a walk for half an hour or one hour would be more than enough.
I hope these steps will be useful for you..
