I visited Amsterdam in the 1980s and didn't have to book anything in advance, but today, I understand it is necessary for the Anne Frank house. What other places do I need to book up front.
We are planning to visit:
1)Van Gogh Museum
2) Rijksmuseum
3) Canal boat ride
4) Tour outside the city -some call it a windmills tour.
5) Ann Frank House
6) The Royal Palace
Anne Frank, Rijks, and VG.
The rest you can just show-up and purchase a tickets on-site.
Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh need an online timed entry ticket.
The most important thing to book in advance is the Anne Frank house. Due to the size of the house there is only a limited amount of tickets available and they sell out fast. Tickets for August go on sale on the first Tuesday of July and that’s when you should buy them.
The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum require booking in advance as well, but you can buy them much closer to your visit.
In 2019 we did a canal boat tour with Stromma. It was recommended by our BnB host. It was a hop on hop off, but we boarded at the Rijks and stayed on for the entire tour. Great on a warm day to see beautiful Amsterdam from the water.
We bought our tickets about 20 minutes before the tour. https://www.stromma.com/
Re Anne Frank House tickets depending on your time zone you may be able to buy them late in the day on the first Monday, that worked for me. August tickets will sell out fast, don't wait Be sure you purchase from the official museum site and not a third party https://www.annefrank.org/en/
Book in advance!! Yesterday, the Rijksmuseum was booked out for the next 3 weeks, and my chosen date and time (in 6 weeks) for the Van Gogh Museum had only 6 tickets left!
The Rijksmuseum is not booked out 3 weeks in advance. There are still plenty of tickets available for today and for the next weeks. The only thing that’s booked out in the next weeks are the guided tours in English. Luckily you don’t need a tour, because the Rijksmuseum has a great and free app which features tours plus audio and video guides to help you guide yourself through the museum. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can get the audio guide in the museum which is a small tablet-like device with the exact same app installed on it.
I just booked numbers 1 through 4. Can't book Ann Frank house yet.
