Amsterdam layover

4 hours will be tight. Figure one our to get through customs and 30 minutes round trip on the train from the airport to Amsterdam and back. Also figure one hour at least to get back through security and you are down to a little over an hour to see the city. Another option would be to go to the observation deck in the airport and watch the planes arrive and depart. It's not much but it is a stress free way to pass the time. In my opinion, you would be racing against the clock and be stressed the whole time if you tried to squeeze in a trip with only a four hour layover.

A 4-hour layover is not enough time to go out of the security area, travel to/from Amsterdam and enjoy anything but a stressful run.

I'm with Andre on this. Four hours isn't enough time to get out of the secure zone and go exploring. Schiphol airport has plenty of things to do to keep you busy. You might look at the airport's site to get some idea of what's there.

I had a 4 hour layover and really made the most of sightseeing right at the airport - check out Holland Lane and the mini Rijks Museum, sit down and have a leisurely meal, take a nap on the cool couches they have by the little museum or get a message. Four hours will go by super fast - I had a lot of fun during my 4 hours.

Thank you all for answering my question. May I ask what you would consider the minimum time I would need to be able to spend an hour looking around Amsterdam? 5 hours? 6? 7? Just wanted to know in case my flight gets bumped.

Six hours. You might to research if your airline has later flights. If they do you could politely ask at the transfer desk at Schipol if they would put you on that later flight, so you could head into the city. It's worth a try:)

You might want to see if there is a later flight to Budapest. We had a stopover in Amsterdam and were able to go to the counter and change our next flight to a later one so we could go into
Amsterdam.