Well, delivery day is over, so here are my impressions.
First - if you can find the time to do it, do it.
Covid impacts everything now, and South Carolina is still on the road to getting a handle on things and opening businesses back up.
Having said that, the people at the Marriott and the Performance Center are really great and handling things very professionally.
The people at the Performance Center are great - friendly, professional, and they make the experience very enjoyable.
After check in and ensuring everyone has signed the waivers for driving, you get a wrist band that tags you as a delivery customer, and gets you 15% off in the gift shop (which will be on top of any other discounts in effect in the store).
They are doing only three deliveries a day (due to Covid), normally they run ten deliveries - usually divided into two groups, a morning and afternoon delivery group.
On our delivery day, they were delivering my M550, and two X3s.
After the paperwork is completed in the lobby, your instructor takes you back to a classroom for a brief orientation to the two-hour drive segment, then it's off to the track.
Each delivery participant is assigned a car from the center's fleet that is the same model of the car they have bought.
Once the instructor has everyone get properly positioned in the seat for proper performance driving, they lead you out to the track. First up - proper braking technique and handling under braking.
After several runs from 20 mph up to 60 miles an hour for the new owner and their companion (if they brought one along), it's time for the short track course.
The instructor leads the drivers through the course, demonstrating the driving line, and then the drivers run the course, gradually increasing speed as they gain confidence. You top out at about 40-50 miles an hour, and it's a really good challenge for the novice racing driver in us all. Both driver and companion make 6-8 runs through the course.
Next up, the skid pad. Normally, the instructor would join the driver in the car, but with Covid, it was all handled over the radio. Additionally, we used the instructors M340i, as all our cars had X-Drive, and the pure rear wheel drive of the M340i is better at helping the drivers understand the ability of the DSC system in the cars.
First step on the skid pad - follow the instructor's commands and spin the car in a complete 360 (or more) with the DSC turned all the way off.
Then, turn it back on, and race around the skid pad pushing the car to break the rear end loose and force the DSC to engage as you work to keep the car under control. After a couple of trips around the skid pad, it's time for the last event of the high performance driving segment.
The Hot Lap with the Instructor - for this lap, the instructor uses an M5, in full rear wheel drive mode, and the delivery guest and their companion get to ride along as the instructor runs a hot lap of the entire course at race speed. If you're the person in the back seat, hold on, because the seat belt isn't enough.
After the hot lap, it's time to move to the off-road course. This is a bit more tame in terms of speed, but seeing the X vehicles up on two or three wheels at step angles and then feeling it as you take your vehicle over the course is impressive. You also wade through 18 inches of water with the cars, and then it's back to the center for the best part:
The Delivery! You are paired with a delivery expert that knows all the features of your car and they spend an hour or more going over every feature, function, switch, and enabling Connected Drive services. They also attach the temp tags/license plates at this point.
My car was the first LCI 5 series with the 820 iDrive 7.0 software update, so they were still learning about the new features.
After the actual delivery, it's time for lunch at the center's cafe - they have a better than average cafe with a couple of cooks making and serving the kind of menu you would find at an high end corporation like BMW. It's not table linen and silver service, but it's good food. They also have good size tables reserved for each delivery so there is plenty of social distancing during lunch. Your delivery expert will join you (if you don't object - don't) and you can ask more questions or just talk about the weather and the delivery expert's background.
After lunch (1PM), you can head over to the BMW Zentrum for the museum tour. It's not open to the public at this time, so it's an extra benefit you should take advantage of - while the factory tours are closed during Covid, the museum also runs a video of the factory assembly process.
The tour is over by 2PM, and then you can head back to the Performance Center where you can hit the gift shop and use the 15% discount. The museum has a gift shop, but there is more merchandise in the one at the Performance Center.
Overall, I'd do it again, and I'm looking forward to coming back to attend the driving courses they offer.
I'll load up some pictures soon.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'll do my best to answer them.