Amsterdam airport

[lizbeth]

Hi -

Cruising to/from Amsterdam? Or have a layover there?

If you have time to spend in Amsterdam's Schipol airport, it looks like there's a lot to do. Here's an article that may help with your planning:

 

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport already has a casino, a library, an indoor/outdoor park, a museum and plenty of great shopping and dining options. A floating bus tour – the Floating Dutchman – recently began offering a city tour beginning at the airport as well.

Now the airport has opened the first 6D XD theater in an airport.

Located in the pre-security Schiphol Plaza, across from the Meeting Point, the XD theater puts visitors in special motion-based seats that offer “rides” that includes sound, wind and lighting effects.

The journey is pretty short, just four or five minutes per film, but there are currently three films to choose from: Canyon Coaster, which goes through canyons and mines of the Wild West, Jett & Jinn, which features a little boy and his cat flying through the city and Snowride, a thrill ride across snow-covered ski slopes.

The XD Theatre, is located at Schiphol Plaza across from the Meeting Point. You must be age five or over to ride. Admission: 6 EURO – about $8.

 

Liz

[eh2zed]

Schipol always ranks high in the ratings for international airports. Love the train station is there as well.

[MATHA531]

This past summer I had a cruise out of Rotterdam and I hate travelling on the day of a cruise just in case' with the cruise scheduled to leave on a Sunday I arrived in Amsterdam on Friday leaving the USA on a Thursday evening. After a fruitless search for a relatively inexpensive hotel, I ended up stayng at the Citizen M walking distance from the airport and it was fine. The airport had everything I needed and it was a quick 15 minute train ride into Amsterdam Centraal station because of the train station located right smack in the airport; quite frankly it was a better experience, or at least it seemed so then finding a hotel in town. Sunday morning I simply hopped on the train to Rotterdam; couldn't have been easier or more convenient.

[Elsie_T_Roohls]

Don't stay at Schipol!!!

 

Amsterdam is a wonderful city. Take the train from the airport to Centraal Station and stay at any of a myriad of wonderful hotels. I like the Marriott but there are many. You can walk around Amsterdam and take trams almost anywhere. Take a Canal Cruise. Don't go all the way to the Netherlands and miss Amsterdam. If you have longer time in Netherlands, I also recommend Den Haag, the Capital of the country.

 

Elsie

[MATHA531]

Yes Elsie....everything else being equal you're right but everything else, at least for me on this trip, wasn't equal.....search as I might, I couldn't find a hotel less than €200/night in Central Amsterdam (it didn't help it was a holiday weekend I suppose)....the Citizen M cost me less than half that price and as I said, I spent the whole day in Amsterdam hopping on all the trams and doing the canal boat trip and everything else....at the end f the day it was a 10 minute train ride back to the hotel at the airport. Also didn't have to shlep my baggage into town, shlep my baggage on Sunday morning to the train station. While I don't disagree with you necessarily that it might be better to stay in Central Amsterdam, you pay an arm and a leg for that and put up with other inconveniences. Staying by the airport might not be everybody's cup of tea, I get that but there was very minimal inconvenience.