Amsterdam, Netherlands Port Reviews

We flew into Amsterdam a few days early and stayed at the Doubletree Centraal Station, which is also close to the port. We arranged walking and boat tours for one of the days and a tour of the area on another.

We did not take any excursions - just stay near the port and explore! Skip the hop on/off bus - it was worthless - but do walk around, tour canals & try local cuisine!

The canal tour was excellent and informative.

So much to see and do. Everyone wished we had another day in Amsterdam. One day just isn't enough. We looked the included walking tour which included a visit to a Diamond Factory. We felt thatwas a waste of time.

We stayed 2 nights in Amsterdam after the cruise. Book museums well in advance. We parked at the airport, much cheaper & booked in advance.

We booked the AMA-suggested hotel and I do recommend it for convenience and recovering from jet lag. Our hotel room was nice, and the hotel itself appears to have repurposed older multi-unit homes. There were five-six stairs going down into the room as soon as you walked in the door so you had to drag your luggage down these steps, and I think it might be difficult for physically challenged guests. We had a French door that only partly opened (it rammed into the curtain rod) but we were still able to look outside over the canal to the street. The breakfast food at the restaurant was good and included, though I don't think it was worth the 35 euros they would charge if you weren't staying there. Though we missed the tour on embarkation day, the two-hour Amsterdam walking tour the day before was very nice, and the Keukenhof Gardens are not to be missed if the flowers are in bloom. There is a lot of free time in Amsterdam, and the tour guide as good about telling you what is open and worth your time. Please note if you would like to see the Anne Frank home, you have to make reservations months in advance. Everyone who went said it was worth it. (We didn't go.) There is a new Holocaust Museum that we didn't get to see; you might want to consider making reservations in advance for that. There were other places that were culturally significant in that time frame that cost nothing to visit and were open. In our free time, we decided to go to Hollandsche Schouuburg, which was the only remaining theatre allowed to the Jews after the German occupation and was the gathering place before the Jews were taken on trains to concentration camps. They provided a listening device that you could use to hear individual stories. It was a no charge alternative to the Holocaust Museum and recommended to us because the museum was booked up for the day. Amsterdam is a lovely city to explore. We'd love to go back sometime.

Local land excursion by guide was very informative.

Very nice tour, the mills and the history.

We were surprised by how dirty and crowded and full of pot smoking this city was. Take the canal cruise but I wouldn’t recommend a long stay in this expensive city.

I did not do an excursion with Royal. We went 3 days Wayland did stuff on our own. We’ve been to Amsterdam before- we love Amsterdam