US to Amsterdam customs and passport control

Yes, you go through passport control. You have to pass through customs, but unless you have something to declare, you just walk through the "nothing to declare" doorway; there is no line.
How long passport control takes depends on how many other flights are arriving at the same time yours does. If you're traveling at a peak time obviously it will take longer.

Is Amsterdam your destination or are you connecting through AMS? We did the latter in mid-October on our way to Venice. Since we just had carry-on, we went directly to passport control. It took about 45 minutes, but, since we had a 5+ hour layover, it wasn’t an issue.

The speed of passport control varies depending on time of year, time of day, and number of arriving flights. Last September the line to get through the transfer passport check was VERY long (probably an hour). Thankfully I didn't need to go through it because I was transferring to a flight to Turkey and not going to another Schengen country. If your final destination is Amsterdam, the passport control line can also be very long - it took over an hour when I stopped over in AMS in early October.

Schiphol has a planner that shows you how busy the airport will be on your travel day - check it a couple weeks out. They also have a transfer page you can plug in your flight info but it's only a few days ahead.

I am a bit confused - is Customs and Passport Control two different checkpoints or one in the same. I am flying into Amsterdam from the U.S. with a group of friends and we've never been to Europe before. We're trying to anticipate what to expect. At what point do we pick up your luggage? Is it before or after we go through the different checkpoints?

It is 2 processes, same as US airports. After arrival, you head for for baggage claim. Before you get there, you will pass through immigration where you show your passport. You may be asked a few questions, like purpose of the visit and how long you are staying. Then your passport will be stamped and you are officially admitted. Proceed to baggage claim and pick up your bags, then exit through the "Nothing to declare" door. That is customs. In rare circumstances you may be pulled aside and have your luggage searched.

That is assuming Amsterdam is your final destination. If you are changing planes to another European destination in the Schengen zone (most of Europe except UK, Ireland, and some far eastern European countries), you go through passport control to the other section of the airport where all these flights go from. You go through customs, (same process as Amsterdam, walk out the nothing to declare door) at you final destination.

If your final destination is a nonSchengen country, you just change planes in that section of the airport without going through passport control. You do that at your final destination.

Americans tend to call the whole process...customs.

Passport Control/Immigration is for people. Customs is for your stuff.

You will first go through passport control to get your passport stamped. You then go to baggage claim to get your stuff. Once you have your bags you will head to the exit. You will have a choice of two: green if you have nothing to declare and red if you do. In most cases, you go through the green door and keep walking. If they want to stop you they will but chances are they won't.

We arrived at 11 am and waited 2.5 hours to clear passport service. Our flight was delayed so assume it was just bad timing with many flights but it was a rough start to the trip after the 8 hour flight.

Must be tulip time.

The issue isn’t so much the tulip time, which technically doesn’t start until 2 weeks, but the start of the Easter holidays today.
The airport today is very busy with loads of passengers departing on Easter holiday, transferring at Schiphol or arriving at Schiphol to spend their Easter holidays here.
Schiphol doesn’t want people to miss their flights, so what they do in case of crowded days like today, is allocate as much staff as possible to the passport checks of outgoing and transferring passengers (Schengen to Non-Schengen and vv). If there isn’t enough staff available, this means that there is less staff available to check the passports of arriving passengers which can result in a very long wait for those who aren’t eligible to use the self-service E-gates.

And it's fair to say that the US has been famous for decades for the wait time for "Non-US Passports." Plenty of fees are collected for these services.