We are taking our first ever Cruise of any kind next MAY and will start out in Amsterdam. We would like to begin with a few days exploring the city. ANY advise as to location for home base for 3 days. Then catch a river Cruise with VIKING from Amsterdam to Basel. On the ALRUNA, May 15th to the 22nd. This will be not only be our very first time in Europe but our first RIVER CRUISE so will be looking for ANY and ALL advise and reccomendations.
Posted by
Lynnwood, Washington
10619 posts
Your cruise will probably dock in the area close to Central Station. You may want to consider if you want your hotel to be near Central Station for ease of transfer to the ship or if you want to stay in the museum district to give yourself another location to explore. Public transportation is easy to use.
Warning: watch where you walk in Amsterdam. Bike lanes are busy, bikes are fast, and there isn’t a great deal of patience for people walking in a bike lane. You need to step up your awareness.
Tickets to get in advance: Anne Frank House, Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum.
Posted by
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
6079 posts
We sailed on Emerald, not Viking in May last year. Here's our Trip Report if interested that includes a few days in Amsterdam and then a week in France and Switzerland after.
We're very happy with the hotel we stayed at in Amsterdam although it's not right in the tourist zone of Amsterdam. However it would be a 10 minute walk from where we saw all of Viking's ships docked.
Posted by
Bellingham, WA
2150 posts
There are loads of hotel recommendations here on the Forum, so take your pick. I can recommend two restaurants: 't Zwaantje for Dutch and French food in a charming atmosphere near Anne Frank House (http://zwaantje-restaurant.nl) and Sampurna for rijsttafel (https://www.sampurna.com). There are other recommended rijsttafel places, as well. For picnic items (maybe for your evening canal tour with Those Dam Boat Guys), try Sterk Staaltje (https://www.sterkstaaltje.com), which is a kind of bottle shop and deli. They have beer and wine, packaged snacks and prepared food. For bitterballen, Cafe 't Blaauwhooft is a cozy neighborhood place not terribly far from Centraal Station. It's definitely out of the way. It was recommended by the captain of our canal tour boat. (https://www.blaauwhooft.nl/english/). There are plenty of bitterballen places, of course, and you can get them from the vending machines at FEBO, as well.
Posted by
Wyckoff, NJ, USA
8819 posts
Amsterdam is busy all year long, so it can be desirable to make dinner reservations, even at medium and lower-range restaurants. Many of the local restaurants are much smaller than comparable restaurants in the USA, so they have less seating.
Consider realistically whether you can manage your luggage on a tram car, which does have one step up from (other than Central Station) platforms. Amsterdam is so big that you are going to be taking a tram every day, multiple times. We always buy a multi-day ticket.
If you can go to the library and find (almost any, not just Amsterdam) a Rick Steves guide, he has pages and pages for first-time visitors to Europe.
Posted by
Ontario, Canada
7691 posts
As mentioned, using the Search will yield many forum threads (filter to within 1 year) for accommodations. As with many Western European large cities, hotels can be expensive. I use booking.com to filter for budget and a central location to find a hotel, then book on the hotel's website. We like the museum quarter or the Jordaan neighbourhood.
This site, plus the RS guidebook should provide ample information about sightss to see, things to do, and how to get around. I'd also recommend YouTube as a learning resource. There are videos on A'dam by Rick and by Wolter's World that I found particularly good.
You may find some useful cruising information in the River Cruising subforum of Cruise Critic. But I've found the videos on YouTube more instructive. For starters, check the river cruise vlogs by Tips for Travellers.
Posted by
1 posts
You’re going to love the Rhine route. May is a fantastic time to be in Amsterdam because the weather is usually starting to warm up nicely. Your ship will be docking right near the central station (along De Ruijterkade), so staying in the canal belt or the Jordaan would be ideal. Those places provide nice areas to walk, shop and eat and its within a 10-20 minutes walk to your ship.
If you plan to visit major attractions like the Anne Frank House or Van Gogh Museum, book those tickets online the moment they open (usually 6 weeks to 3 months out) as they do not sell tickets the day of. The Rijksmuseum is probably the biggest bang for your buck and you can usually book those a day before for a specific time slot.
If you want to experience real local favorites, I would suggest finding Indonesian food and Surinamese food. Both those places were Dutch colonies for over 300 years and the food is delicious. The Netherlands is perhaps the only place in the world to find Surinamese food (other than N. South America) so its a must try; its basically Indonesian & Indian food combining with Caribbean jerk flavors. Its delicious and an undisputed favorite of Dutch people. On the canal belt you can find a favorite local spot - Simz Eethuis for Surinamese. For Indonesian, on that same street there is a nice sit-down white table cloth-style restaurant called Restaurant Max for a nice evening dinner. I would recommend to make a booking before you plan to go.
Good luck and enjoy your trip!!