Family Trip Report - London, Paris & Amsterdam - AMSTERDAM DAY 3 & DEPARTURE DAY

Posted by Tina (Western NY) on 10/12/16 11:14 AM

Amsterdam Day 3 7/16

Our plan for today was to finally take the canal cruise recommended by Joanna. After a quick breakfast we headed toward Centraal Station, and easily found the pier we were looking for. We wanted a smaller open boat & this exactly fit the bill. The next cruise was leaving in a few minutes, so we purchased our tickets & had time to take a few pictures. They had very large wooden shoes on the pier & we got some fun pictures trying them on. Another group of 4 joined us & we were off! The boat probably could have held 12, so this was a good choice for us. The entire cruise was about an hour, maybe a little longer, with the Captain giving us commentary and answering any questions. I think this was a better option than one of the larger boats. It was an overcast day & a little chilly on the water. Daughter had not really dressed for the weather, so she was pretty cold by the end of the trip. We really enjoyed seeing all the beautiful homes on the canals.

After arriving back at the pier, we headed off to explore some of the neighborhood around Centraal Station. We did a little shopping, while looking for a place for lunch. In the end, we ate at what I think was a Canadian restaurant, as they featured pulled pork & chicken wings on their menu, both favorites of the kids. The food was good - a little taste of home!

We had decided prior to leaving home that we were going to use our time in Amsterdam to rest & relax after all the busy days in London & Paris. We did not plan on seeing any of the big sights on this trip but just enjoy being in Amsterdam. I did find one small place on TripAdvisor that the kids were looking forward to seeing - De Poezenboot! The CatBoat! This is a small cat shelter on a boat that allows visitors for a few hours in the afternoon most days of the week. We have 4 cats, so by this time in our trip we were really missing them. Daughter said she was going thru withdrawal & needed to pet something! Joanna had marked De Poezenboot on our map, so we were able to explore a little more of Amsterdam on our way. We easily found it & went on board. It seems a very nice shelter, not too large. Some cats were walking around & some were in cages. They also have a screened outside area on the boat for the cats to get a little fresh air (no visitors to this part though). We stayed for a while, petting cats, getting our cat fix! We ended the visit by leaving a donation. They also had t-shirts for purchase to raise money.

We headed back to the apartment for a little rest & do some laundry. We went out again later for dinner, but really just spent our last evening packing & making sure the apartment was in good order.

Posted by christa

alameda, ca, usa

10/12/16 06:33 PM

2602 posts

Adding De Poezenboot to my itinerary for my Amsterdam trip next April, thank you for the report! I always end up stalking cats on my trips, desperate for a cat fix.

Posted by Tina OP

Western NY

10/13/16 10:20 AM

85 posts

Hi Christa! Yes, De Poezenboot was a perfect way to get a little cat love while on vacation. Enjoy your trip!

Posted by Tina OP

Western NY

10/13/16 11:06 AM

85 posts

Departure Day 7/17

After all my planning, this was the end - departure day. We did our last minute packing & picking up around the apartment. This apartment was a great choice for us, lots of room and it was fun to do some grocery shopping and cook a few meals. We planned to leave at 9:00 am. The hardest part again was getting daughter's suitcase down all the stairs (quietly since it was eary)! I got some funny pictures of son & husband wrestling it down the stairs. Joanna had said to knock and say goodbye if their curtains were open (meant they were up for the day). Curtains were still closed, so we locked up the apartment & put the keys thru the mail slot. We received a nice email later that day from Joanna thanking us for leaving the apartment in such great shape. She also gave us a great review on Airbnb (hosts can review the tenants on this site) and we gave her one as well.

We made the short walk to Centraal Station, the streets were pretty quiet, so not so much bike traffic to dodge. The only really busy places we saw were the coffee shops. Daughter commented on how many people were in the coffee shops at 9:00 am on a Sunday morning! I had been saving up my euro coins during the trip as I thought I had read that tickets from the train station to the airport had to be purchased from a machine that only took coins. I couldn't find a machine at the Station and was directed to a ticket line & bought the tickets at the window.

The next train was leaving shortly so we made our way to platform. After a brief wait, the train arrived & we made the short journey to the airport. The check-in desks for IcelandAir were in a different terminal from where we exited the train, so after asking for directions, we left this terminal & walked quite a ways outside to reach the correct terminal. We were very early for our flight, but I wanted to make sure we had no issues getting to the airport. Our flight was at 2:00 pm and the check-in desks weren't open yet. People were already lined up for the check-in desks when we got there (2:00 pm flight was the 1st of the day), so there were plenty of people even earlier than we were!

Check-in was opened probably about 11:30 and the line moved very slowly! We finally made it to the front & were told that we would need to check all three of our carryon bags (in addition to daughter's huge bag of course). We had no issues with the bags on our flight over, but were told if we didn't check them now, they would be gate-checked. We quickly got anything we might need out of the bags and checked them. Next was security which also moved very slowly. Now I was really glad we had gotten to the airport early!

We decided to head to our gate, then buy something to eat & food for on the plane as well. We passed quite a few places to eat, but I said "lets wait until we get to our gate, there'll be plenty of places to find food." Ha! Bad decision. We walked for so long, we stopped an airport employee to ask if we were going in the right direction! Once we finally got to our gate, we couldn't find a way to get in. The doors to the waiting area would not open, although we could see some people in there. It was very deserted in this area. Finally found another airport employee to ask how to get into our waiting area. He told us that IcelandAir doesn't open their waiting area until a short time before boarding. Great! We still needed to buy food, both to eat now & eat on the plane, so we made the very long trek back to the last place we had seen to buy food, a small sandwich stand. Food purchased, we made the long trek back to wait for the boarding area to open up. I was really racking up steps on my Fitbit today!