We will be staying in Amsterdam and Haarlem late April through early May. We are thinking of buying a Museumkaart.
Where is the best place to buy one? Rick says go to the least busy museum. Any suggestions?
I understand that there is a fast-lane entry at the Van Gogh Museum. Is that correct?
What about the Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk? If we have the cards, is there a queue?
Thanks in advance for your help.
John
Yes, there is a fast-lane for Museumkaart holders at VanGogh Museum.
For the Stedelijk, I walked right inside the lobby and there was an automatic kiosk that I swiped my Museumkaart at and my ticket came out. No lines.
The Rijks was hit or miss and I went multiple times at different times of the day over the course of a few weeks. Early in the day, there was a very long line to just get in the door of the lobby (this was not a ticket line - that was inside the lobby). But with some of the guards, they would let you bypass that line outside completely by just showing the Museumkaart and once inside, I could enter the exhibit space immediately after another guard scanned my Museumkaart. But on other occasions, the guard outside would say everyone had to queue up to get into the lobby.
I purchased my card at a really small museum - just pick one of the lesser known sites that is close to your hotel. For example, none of the historic canal home museums were crowded at all (Van Loon, Willet-Holthuysen), FOAM Photography Museum was also not extremely busy - all are interesting and worth popping in and don't take more than an hour to walk through.
We bought ours at the Amsterdam city museum. No lines, and it was an interesting place.
The fast lane at the Van Gogh wasn't speedy, but it was faster than the other lines. Go all the way up to the front to make sure you get into the correct pass line; they look like they're all together, but they're not.
There wasn't much of a line for us at the Rijks, but the pass did save some time. I think we still had to wait in a line for the audio unit.
Biggest help was at the Anne Frank museum. If you know you'll get a pass, make the online reservation to enter (you don't need to have the pass in hand to make the res for timed entry. Don't buy a ticket in addition to the res, just get the res -it's less than €2). Go at the time on your reservation, go around to the side, and ring the bell. The lines were blocks long for everyone else.
"Where is the best place to buy one? Rick says go to the least busy museum. Any suggestions?"
Whatever you want to see that is not the Stedelijk, the Van Gogh, or the Rijksmuseum. I bought mine at the Amsterdam City Museum, which I really liked (I love social history and city planning), and as Rick had promised, there was no line.
