RS Heart of Holland & Belgium Tour April 2026 few questions

Posted by mtatarczuk84 on 10/09/25 01:23 AM

we will be traveling from Boston, as always on a red eye arriving mid morning.
1. Is it worth staying for the rest of the day and one night in Brussels before joining the tour in Ghent the next day? or would you just skip Brussels and go straight to Ghent?
2. If staying in Brussels what would you suggest for things to do? a nice, moderately priced restaurant?
3. In Rotterdam we are so excited to visit the KeuKenhof garden. It looks like they are not allowing much time for this. description is "we will begin the day amoung the flowers, then we will wind our way north stopping for lunch ...." The garden opens at 8am. If we leave at 11am that allows only 3 hours. Is that enough or should we try to go during some of the free time we have. It is the last day in Rotterdam. Also I think we would need to buy the tickets in advance.
We hope to spend our free day taking the water taxi to Kinderdijk. does that take the entire day or could we split our time between another tour of the Keukenhof garden (or other garden) and Kinderdijk?
4. we will be in Amsterdam at the end of the tour, 2 days before Kings day. should we cut and run or stay to enjoy the celebration?
5. If you had an extra 5 days to go anywhere in Europe at the end of this trip (in April) where would it be? we do not ski and not crazy about cold weather.

I will probably have other questions, but those are mine for now.

Posted by KD

10/09/25 02:31 AM

1582 posts

We took the tour in 2024. It's arranged differently now, but...

Day 7 You'll have a free half day while in Rotterdam. That's when you would go to Kinderdijk. A free half day is perfect for that. With maybe some time left over for something within Rotterdam! Depending...
(On our tour we were staying in Delft; we took the train to Rotterdam, tram to water taxi; water taxi to Kinderdijk. Explored! Did everything in reverse and met our group for dinner back in Delft. You've got it easy!!!)

Day 8 Keukenhof is not in Rotterdam. You'll be leaving Rotterdam that morning; then driving to Keukenhof. We had about 4 hours on our tour, but it was over the lunch hour; so we independently ate lunch at Keukenhof. So 3 hours is enough time since you'll be stopping for a group lunch after. You definitely won't need to go again. Plus you'll have moved on and are staying in/near Hoorn.

We arrived in Delft on Kings Day. It was a fun experience. I thought Amsterdam looked like it had partied hard when we arrived in Amsterdam 2 days later. You might consider taking the train to Haarlem that day to experience it, but party in a smaller city is more my thing. If you love a big city and big partying stay for the experience. Wear Orange if you are anywhere in the Netherlands on King's Day. If I had 5 days to go elsewhere, I'd probably skip Kings Day and spend 7 days exploring somewhere else in Europe....we spent 9 days in France on our own before our Belgium and Holland tour. This was all mid to late April. We had beautiful weather everywhere. We got lucky!

Posted by Windyram

Belgium

10/09/25 07:28 AM

129 posts

Stay in Brussels if you've never been there before. Choose a hotel at walking distance from the Brussels-Central station (from where you will take the train to join Ghent).
Some good hotels in different pricing levels:

Hilton Bruxelles Grand Place
Hotel NH Brussels Carrefour de l'Europe
Hotel Le Dixseptième
Novotel Brussels off Grand Place
Hotel ibis Brussels off Grand-Place

For things to do I would say you can’t miss the drop-dead gorgeous Grand Place, the Royal Galleries Saint Hubert, the Mont des Arts and the Place Sainte Catherine neighbourhood. Don't forget Manneke Pis, one of the landmarks in the old center.
Brussels has so much more to offer, though, and you could easily spend a few days exploring the city.

Posted by mtatarczuk84 OP

10/13/25 03:41 PM

2 posts

thank you so much for your replies!

Posted by lavandula

Sydney, Australia

10/14/25 07:45 AM

202 posts

Brussels has a lot of good museums so you could spend a day in them (Royal Museum of Fine Arts is a complex of galleries). You could stay in the Sablons district (there is a nice NH there), and spend the rest of your time amongst the chocolate shops in Place du Grand Sablon. Have dinner or lunch in Au Vieux Saint Martin, which is just up the street. There is also a lovely church and an antiques market in this square on Saturdays and Sunday mornings. If that doesn't take your fancy, make sure you get to the Galeries Royales de St-Hubert for the boutique shops, chocolate shops and nice cafés. I am sure the tour will want to take you to this last place and of course cover all the usual suspects like the Grand' Place, Manneken Pis, Atomium, etc. so don't fret if you don't cover these by yourself.

I think that would be a nice way to get over jet lag, and all in a small, manageable corner of the city. If on the other hand you tell me you want to go out on the town and try the local beer, try À La Mort Subite, which is not far away.

Lavandula