Yep, they were able to send me the details. Its on the Don Juan which left Southampton on Saturday.

 

Does anyone know of a site that lists Panama Canal transit schedules? I know the Don Juan leaves Manzanillo (the Atlantic side of hte Canal) to transit sometime on Thursday but I'd like to narrow down when to look at the cameras if I can. :D

 

Figured it out, my car is somewhere in the bowels there going through the Gaten Locks.

 

Oh, man ... you got it bad...

Motor On!

 

Somewhat. Plus transportation stuff like this has always been of interest to me. Aircraft, trains, etc. So seeing how the whole logistics system operates for auto manufacturing has been really interesting.

 

I had been honored to obtain a call from a friend as he found your thread shared on this site. Browsing your blog thread is a real wonderful experience. Thanks for thinking of readers like me. Packers and Movers Baner

 

I just ordered a new Mini from the factory - 2020 2Dr Hardtop JCW. Not my first. I had a 2013 Cooper S Convertible "Highgate Edition". At that time, I was able to track my vehicle through production, and was even hooked up to a Maritime tracking site, where I could track the ship in real time, until it docked in NJ.

Is this not available any more? I went to the Owner's Lounge, but the "Where's My Baby?" feature isn't there anymore.

Thanks in advance.

 

Ok, So I have a 2020 JCW 2 door hardtop on order. I called the 866 number on this thread. Worked pretty well. I entered my production #. The automated message said that my car was "At the port". I wasn't sure what that meant, so I asked to speak to a rep. A few seconds later a friendly woman came on the line and answered my questions.

Thanks for the tip.

 

If you go to https://mygarage.miniusa.com/ you can find the tracking feature there.

I too had tracked my 2013 obsessively, and thought the feature was gone.

I was glad to find it again!

 

I've been negligent in tracking our new MINI, it's at the port already. Assuming that Clubmen are built in Oxford (as someone upthread notes), what ships are due to leave Southampton soon?

Of put it another way, anyone know what ship he'll be on.

 

Thanks for posting the link just above, the “original” Owner’s Lounge does not appear to function any longer.

 

Using the build status at mygarage.miniusa.com, and the only auto transport ships docked in Southampton bound for Baltimore with Wallenius Wilhelmsen at marinetraffic.com, I’m guessing my new ride is on the Tiger. If I’m correct the mygarage status should update to “in transit.” Does anyone else have a MINI due to be delivered to Baltimore in the near future?

 

“In transit” achieved. Now the only issue is how to pay for Merlin now that the stock market has tanked. I certainly would not have started this process if I’d known. Reminds me of the line from the movie Airplane, “I sure picked a bad day to stop drinking.” Insert “buy a new car” where you see fit.

 

I feel you!!! We placed the order for my wife's 2020 JCW Vert on February 2nd, and you're on the same schedule as hers is "in transit" as of the 21st of March. At least for us it has to come to California first and go through customs then on another boat to Hawaii so it won't be here until into May at the soonest. I honestly can't even find what boat it would be on as it apparently is coming from The Netherlands, not SouthHampton but I can't even find a ship that goes from the ports around there to California in that timeframe. So I'm SOL. Might not matter, I'm on a "reduced work schedule" and my wife's job is comission based going into a deep recession.....not sure what'll happen with her new baby :-(

 

Liquid, keep a lookout for the Tiger autocarrier on the marine traffic website. It is currently underway from Baltimore to the Panama Canal, and its port of call prior to Southampton was Brugge. So your MINI might just be on the Tiger too? False hope is better than no hope at all? :-) Good luck!

 

Ok, sort of new questions, has anyone else had their status go from "At Port" to "In Transit" back to "At Port"?

Wife's car was final assembled in The Netherlands, I thought I found the boat it was on and progressed it all the way through the Panama Canal to CA where it'll have to get on another boat to come to Hawaii. My question is, am I most likely getting this because

A. Boat actually just traveled from The Netherlands to Southampton and is now waiting at Southhampton
B. The car is now offloaded in CA, and waiting to be shipped to HI
C. The car never shipped in the first place for one reason or another.

Just curious if anyone had the same happen and what it meant. MINI dealership is still closed here in Hawaii so I can't ask my MA.

Mahalo

 

Same thing happened to me. I followed the build from the factory to Southampton where there was an auto carrier called the Tiger bound for Baltimore. At that point The Dashboard changed from “at port” to “in transit”. I tracked the Tiger to Baltimore, and after it departed I assumed Merlin Too was on shore awaiting ground transport to Pittsburgh. Of course now the virus was in full swing and I was sure that it would be quite a while until my new ride arrived since the sales department at the dealership was closed. At some point shortly there after my status went back to “at port.” My MA said that as soon as he could get in the building he would check on the status. To summarize, I’m still waiting.

 

Cool, so maybe it does mean it's just sitting at another port. Please come back and let me know what you find out.......Hawaii is not opening up very fast so no telling when I'll talk to my MA again. Mahalo!

 

So.......mine now says it's at the dealership????? Confuses me because I thought they had stopped car shipments to Hawaii. SOOOO Confusing!

 

Good news! Hopefully your MA can figure out a way to close the deal...

 

My MA emailed me back over the weekend. Guess what, car isn't even on island yet, he said it's still on California waiting to get on a boat to come to Hawaii. So....the website tracker is way off :-(

 

It now says my MINI is HOME. Um.....nope, it's not even in Hawaii yet but I have signed paperwork for financing. But seriously? Website is useless!!! I haven't even SEEN the car yet, let along have it in my driveway.

 

Just to keep everyone updated......wife's new MINI finally arrives on Maui tomorrow 6/16.......hopefully get it tomorrow too, but depends on work.

Ordered 2/1, on Maui 6/16. 4.5 months :-( :-)

 

Tried to track my 2021 Mini and all I get isproduction started and a completion date of a month later. The owner's lounge link only works if you're financing the car which I am not.

 

Since some of the information in the first post is a little out of date, I thought I would share what I have learned and how I have been stalking the carriers that may be transporting my MINI from Southampton to North America.

Order Status Tracking

Since I pre-ordered my MINI, I do not yet have a MINI Financial Services account, so I cannot log in to the MINI Owner's Lounge. However, I was able to register at and log in to MINI My Garage: https://securelogin.miniusa.com/

I have been tracking my MINI's production progress there.

Production Number
Of course, you must know your MINI's Production Number before you can track it. Your dealership can provide this to you once it has been assigned. My dealership wasn't proactive in giving me this number, so I had to contact them to get it. If your dealership hasn't given you the Production Number for your MINI after 1-2 weeks, contact them and ask for it.

Shipment-related Status
Depending on how proactive (neurotic?) you want to be, pay attention to these status transitions:

• When the status changes to DISPATCHED FROM FACTORY, you can start building a list of Roll-on/Roll-off (a.k.a. Ro/Ro) ships that will depart from Southampton after that date. As mentioned in the first post of this thread, it can take a couple days for your MINI to actually get to the port...so it is unlikely to get loaded onto a ship leaving that same day.
• When the status changes to AT THE PORT, you can start building a list of Ro/Ro ships that will depart from Southampton from that date forward. From what I have seen, this can be anywhere from a couple days to several weeks. You may even see several ships come and go that could have taken your MINI, but didn't. (I saw 8 potential carriers come and go without my MINI after it arrived at Southampton. )
• When the status changes from AT THE PORT to IN TRANSIT, that's the actual date your MINI left Southampton. You should really be able to narrow down the list of suspects to the right one. Or call your dealer to ask them. (But where's the fun in that?)
  • When my MINI's status updated to IN TRANSIT, it was a day after one ship left the port and a day before the next one was due to come in.
  • When I called 1-866-ASK-MINI, they gave me the name of the vessel carrying my MINI, and it was neither of those...and had left the port FOUR DAYS earlier.
  • So, you might save yourself some effort and just ask for the name of the carrier ship once the status changes.

Also, the ship carrying my MINI is operated by a different company that WW or K-Line, so that may be a factor. (Pro tip: That could happen to you, too.)

Tracking WW/ARC ships

As noted in this thread's discussion, WW no longer allows you to directly track your MINI via VIN for security reasons. However, you can use their interactive schedules tool to identify which WW/ARC ships may be transporting your MINI.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen (WW)/ARC Shipping Schedules: https://www.walleniuswilhelmsen.com/schedules

On this page, select the "By Ports" option. You can either select the departing/arriving ports from the map or start typing in the appropriate names in the DEPART and ARRIVE fields. Remember: Southampton is the DEPART port, and the ARRIVE port will be the “Port Loc.” on your Vehicle Inquiry Report. The DATE field will default to your current date, but you can adjust that to a future or past date to help you refine your search. Click on the green "Find schedule" button and the web page will generate a list showing you all planned voyages from Southampton to your "Port Loc" port from that date onward.

When you click on a row in that list, it will expand a tab to the right showing you the details of that voyage, including the name of the vessel. Below the vessel's name you will see the voyage name; click on that to see the full route, including all stops before, between, and after the 2 ports you entered.

If you don't want to click on each row to find the vessel names, there are options to download the schedule in PDF or Excel formats.

Tracking K-Line ships

The K-Line Schedule page is here: http://www.klineglobalroro.com/schedules.html

From there, I found the K-Line Europe - Trans Atlantic Shipping Schedules: http://www.klineglobalroro.com/sched...c_schedule.pdf

This schedule format looks a bit intimidating compared to WW, but is fairly straight-forward once you understand how to read it. There are several tables, and the red header for each table indicates the route.

The left-most column of each table shows you the ports the vessel will visit in order, from top to bottom. So you will only care about the table(s) which show your "Port Loc" port on any row after Southampton (so you can ignore the "Trans Atlantic Loop Eastbound" table).

Each subsequent column will show you the name of a vessel and the dates it will arrive at and depart from each of those ports (in the form of ARRIVAL/DEPARTURE).

I don't know what it means when the text is in red, but I speculate that indicates the information is tentative or at-risk of being inaccurate.

Tracking Vessels at Southampton Port

The WW and K-Line sites give you shipping schedules, but schedules are plans, and therefore subject to change. The Port of Southampton website offers tools that will help you more confidently determine which vessel your MINI was loaded onto.

Planned Shipping Movements Page
Southampton Port Planned Shipping Movements: http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live...ned_Movements/

This page will show you Southampton's current schedule for Arrivals, Movements, and Departures. The Arrivals and Departures sections will show you 4-5 days' worth of each. (You can ignore the Movements section.)

The further away the date is, the more coarse the estimated time of arrival/departure will be. This page updates every 10 minutes or so, and those times will update as new information comes in (which includes accounting for how far ahead or behind schedule each vessel is).

You can cross-reference the information on this page with the WW & K-Line schedules to see what time of day each carrier that might transport your MINI is expected to arrive and depart.

Vessels Sailed Page
From what I have seen recently, the vessel will typically depart some time after the planned time. You can confirm the actual time of departure (after it has happened) on the Southampton Port Vessels Sailed page: http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live...essels_Sailed/.

There's usually a day or two between each candidate vessel, so down-to-the-minute tracking probably isn't necessary. My MINI is still waiting at Southampton, so I cannot say how quickly (or slowly) the MINI tracking status will update after being loaded or the ship's departure. (Update: In my case, the status changed 4 days after the ship left Southampton. If anyone else has paid attention to this, please share your experience.)

However, if you see your MINI's status change to IN TRANSIT on a day that a WW or K-Line ship wasn't planned to transit (e.g. because a different carrier was used), you can use the Vessels Sailed page to narrow down which ship it may have been loaded onto. Look for all ships with Type "Ro/Ro" or "Vehicle (MVE)", then look at the Destination for each of those ships to narrow it down to the one heading to your Port Loc. (Remember, that ship may have other ports of call before your Port Loc., so you may have some further detective work to do.)

Pro tip: The Vessels Sailed page will only show you the last 36 hours of history. If you need to search beyond that (like I did), the myshiptracking.com site offers a more thorough log here: https://www.myshiptracking.com/ports...kingdom-id-390

Pro tip: Dates and times shown on these pages are localized to Southampton, UK, which transitions to Midnight several hours before your local tine here in North America. Don't forget to take that into account when a departure happens early in the morning at Southampton.

Tracking the Ship

Once your MINI has left Southampton and you know (or are reasonably confident) which ship it's on, there are a few web sites you can use to track it.

There are many sites you could use. I like these two sites:

• https://www.marinetraffic.com
• https://www.myshiptracking.com/vessels

Just enter the vessel name in the search bar at the top of the page. The tracking site will show you lots of cool info about the vessel, including its current location (if it is within range of AIS receivers near the coasts). Some sites offer additional information for a fee or subscription, but the free info quite adequate.