We got our Oktoberfest package finalized this week. Through a booking agency (Extratours GmbH) we get two nights in a three-star hotel, two seating reservations in a big beer tent, plus food & drink vouchers good for two liters of beer and half a chicken each. All this for a fairly reasonable rate.

I originally booked in the Spring. I communicated a couple times with Extratours asking if I could select which beer tent we get. They said not really, but they’d do their best to honor any specific requests. So I sent a special request after I picked out a couple traditional Bavarian tents (as well as and a couple tents we didn’t want to be in).

For those of you who don’t know, the highlight of Oktoberfest revolves around the 12 big Bavarian breweries. Each has a giant structure - or ‘tent’ - where they serve their beers and each some traditional foods. These tents hold up 10,000 people, with another couple thousand corralled in patio seating. Yet despite the huge capacity, you still need to reserve space for either a lunch or dinner-time seating. Otherwise you’ll be standing in line with thousands of unprepared backpackers waiting for a seat to open up.

Last week we got our beer-tent booking details. We got an evening seating (4:30-10:30) in our first-choice tent: Hacker-Festzelt. PERFECT!

The only problem was that I work with a German fellow, and he arranged conflicting plans. He called up some of his old pals at IDG Germany and managed to score me a couple tickets to the Bayern Munich football match that same night. Gah!

I wrote a (very carefully worded) note to Extratours asking if they could re-jigger my beer-tent booking. No problem, they said. Although they couldn’t get us an afternoon seating, they could just move our reservation up one night. So we’ll be in the exact same beer tent for the evening seating one night earlier than previously arranged. Then the next night, my German buddy Martin and I will take in the splendor a wonderful soccer game from the IDG Germany luxury suite. Food and drink provided. I think that sounds like a damn fine way to celebrate 40 years of walking the earth.

So many, many thanks to the very nice customer support folks at Extratours. They were very understanding and did a very capable job of juggling my crazy requests. If we ever happen to re-visit Oktoberfest, you can bet we’ll be return customers.

And many thanks to Stephan Scherzer for scoring the soccer tickets. This will be my second time seeing Bayern Munich play, but my first at their spectacular new Allianz Arena. Can’t wait.