Belgium Holland Tour Report

Hello traveling friends,
This will be a summary of our RS Belgium/Holland tour from April 2026.

Who went: Mitzi & Husband, late 50's, relatively fit & healthy. Love walking & hiking
Celebrating something special ? Yes! Our 35th wedding anniversary!
When: Worst possible time if you don't like crowds
Weather: Always cool enough that we needed our jackets and most of the time a hat and scarf. Could have worn the same shirt the entire time because the only clothing seen in any of my photos is my coat haha!
This was our first traditional tour, having been on 2 previous RS My Way Alpine tours in '24 & '25 with our adult triplets. We landed in Brussels & were met with a 2 hour 45 min wait at immigration. Oh, well. Then, our trip began in Bruges, where we'd booked 2 nights at the Canal Deluxe B&B but also paid for the previous night so we could eat the breakfast once there & get into our room immediately upon our mid-morning arrival. It is cheaper than attempting sleep in 1st class on the plane & waiting until 3 or 4pm that day to shower, etc. That B&B is absolutely wonderful. Worth every penny.
We then went to Hotel Harmony in Ghent a day before the tour began & also really liked it, too! Manager was amazing! She went out of her way to make our stay as near to perfect as possible. We ate at T'oud Clooster that night. Highly recommend. Not fancy but authentic & fabulous.
We met our completely full tour (28 participants) at 3pm for an introduction to one another. Like my other tours, I didn't really get to know who we really clicked with until the tour was nearly over. Not a bad one in the bunch, though.
Here's where I'll potentially have people disagree w me but this is just my opinion. The tour was exhausting. Yes, it was beautiful. It was lovely. It was, however, rushed & the only time I felt truly relaxed were the days we weren't on the tour. So, we learned pretty early on that maybe we're just not traditional tour people but more of the My Way style people, instead. I don't like being rushed out the door early. As the primary cook in our home, one of the important things to me on these tours is to enjoy the fabulous breakfast buffets & not be the one that had to prepare it. However, most every morning was a race to eat & get out the door. So, I'm just giving my own opinion & know that others will perhaps disagree. That's all good.
Ghent was crowded but wonderful & charming. Learned a lot. All the time. Always learning from our guide. Never not hearing him tell us facts & information. It was a bit much & not what we were used to from the My Way style. The bus time was for enjoying the views & the peacefulness of the Alps when we were on the MW tour. The MW guide would talk some but not constantly. My brain was in need of a rest on the B/H trip.
So, we also loved our time in Bruges (this time with the group), Rotterdam was much better than we expected & loved(!) our Hotel New York & the restaurant there. We opted out of the group tour our 1st morning in Rotterdam bc we both had tummy issues. We rested a bit & then went on our own to Kinderdijk. Gorgeous day! Puffy white clouds, blue skies. Fabulous. Keukenhof was SO crowded that I actually didn't enjoy it v much. I don't like crowds & although the flowers were beautiful, I would've rather missed Keukenhof & enjoy less crowds, overall. I will whine a bit & say I have no idea why our next stop in Hoorn was even a part of the tour. Heavens Hotel was just weird & our carpet was filthy, the shower had no curtain or door & our bed faced the open bathroom! And, I really didn't like that there was no buffet for breakfast. We got there too late in the day so most stores were closed & rushed out the door too early for anything to be open the next day. I recommend highly that an additional Rotterdam day be added & take Hoorn off the tour.
We then headed to Amsterdam which I was surprised I liked so much.
Next post: Amsterdam & then Haarlem on our own