5 hours layover in Amsterdam

Hi and welcome to the forum. Unfortunately you gave not enough information for anyone to give a useful reply. When is this layover? What time of the day? What are your arrival and departure dates? And where will you be flying from and to?

I was trying to figure out where the comment above was coming from.
Where are you coming from, I guess means do you have to spend time going through passport control. The answer is yes from the US and no from another Schengen country. That takes time.
Where are you going, I guess means the opposite of the previous.
Both good points when budgeting time.
Time of year? Ehhh, okay some things are no fun in the winter.

But not asked is time of day. Cause if its 10am to 3pm that’s one answer and if its 10pm to 3am another.

By “when” I meant the time of day, but I’ll edit my post to clarify.

Sorry, flying in from Genoa and land at 800am fly out at 100pm to go to the US. It will be summer time. Hopefully that clarifies

Just to be sure; by 100 pm you actually mean 1 pm? As in 13:00? 1 hour after midday?

You don't have quite as much time as you think, since your second flight requires you
to clear passport control in Amsterdam and you'll have to leave a buffer for that, as well
as get to the departing gate at least 30-45 minutes prior. And you will have to re-clear
security if you leave the airport.

You might be able to take a train to Centraal Station and stroll a bit, but it will be early
in the morning before anything to see has opened. If you know Schiphol and can make
your way around without getting lost, you might have 90-120 minutes to wander around.

I'd have a plan for if the inbound flight is on-time, and one for if it's late (e.g., lounge access).
Or just go to the Sheraton and have a nice breakfast.

Yes 1pm or 1300

I will cut to the chase. You arrive a 8am according to your ticket. By the time you reach the curb to get in any form of transportation you have used 45 minutes if the plane is on time and you are sitting in the front. Then 30 minutes minium to any place in Amsterdam. Then you will want to be back to the aiport 90 minutes prior to flight time, when counting a 30 minute ride back thats 2 hours. Thats a tad tight if they start boarding 45 minute prior. So of your five hours 3:15 is gone. That leaves you 1 and 45 to do something. In my world, on holiday, the first rule is eliminate all stress. I would go find a bar for the five hours.

Others i know would find something to do and have a great time for an hour and a half.

Assuming your flight out to the USA leaves at 1 pm and assuming you booked this all on 1 ticket and your luggage is checked thru to your final destination, you may have time for a very quick dash into the city and even a 1-hour canal cruise. When you land follow the signs to the exit, you don’t need to go thru passport control. Once you’re in the landside area of the airport follow the signs to the trains. Tap your credit card at the reader and go down the stairs/escalator to the platform, take the train to Amsterdam Central. Tap your credit card again to exit the train station. When you arrive there it’s probably around 9 am/ 9:30 am. The canal cruises leave from directly in front of the train station and the first ones leave at 9:30. Take a 1 hour canal cruise and return to the airport by train. I would aim to arrive back at the airport no later than 11 am, because you’ll need to go thru both security and passport control.
Another option is to just stroll around in the city. Amsterdam is quite magical on an early morning.

All this depends on what date exactly you’re flying. I would never attempt this on the first day of the summer holidays as the airport will be insanely busy and you’ll need to be back at least 3 hours before departure.

As others have indicated, Schiphol is vast, and it will take a fair amount of time to walk from your arrival gate in the Schengen area [most likely after being bussed from your plane] to your departure gate in the non-Schengen area, passing through Schengen exit passport control in the process.

You will have time for a relaxing breakfast at one of the many eateries along the way. You might also check out the Schiphol Airport Park, which is supposedly located airside near the D gates - note that the information available online for this is relatively old. There is also the Panorama Terrace, which is landside, which offers views of planes arriving and departing - you would have to go through security to re-enter the airport.

The Rijksmuseum has (or used to have) a small exhibit area in the airport with temporary rotating exhibitions. I did that once years ago on a longish layover. There were a small number of "real" paintings by well known artists. When I googled it now, google shows it as temporarily closed, so further searching might be needed.

The Schiphol airport has a website that you can use to see how busy your travel day will be about two weeks ahead of your travel dates. https://www.schiphol.nl/en/my-travel-day/today If you leave the airport, you really should arrive 3 hours ahead of your flight as it really could take awhile to get back in through security and there are extra procedures checking in for a US bound flight. I have had a layover of that duration in AMS and managed to fill my time quite well with a stroll, breakfast, a visit to the mini Rijksmuseum, a visit to the airport park (complete with trees and birdsong). For myself, the thought of trying to manage my carry on bags, get the right train to the city, take a sprint through an unfamiliar destination, all the while worrying about getting back to the airport in time would be too stressful. If you're up for it, prior posters have given you some ideas of what you could do.