Great 'MoneySaving holiday guides, #4: Amsterdam' Hunt

Roberta1

houseswap wrote: »

If you want a great choice of freshly cooked food at lunchtime or early evening, go to the Vroom and Dresman department store for the wonderful selection of cafeteria style food on offer.Everything that you could wish for is there and many things are cooked to order. Everything looks Very tempting, not forgetting the fab cakes, drinks etc. I can really reccomend it, plus its not too expensive.

Another vote for Vroom and Dreesman here. Good, freshly cooked and cheap food in a very expensive city.

dug123

For accomodation I would recommend the Amstel Botel which is moored on the side of the river with regular free ferries over to Amsterdam central station. It is cheap but warm and the beds are good and all en-suite.
For a trip out I would highly recommend the Heinekin Experience. It is a nice walk from the centre (if it is not raining) and a fun few hours with a few excellent Heinekin to sample. (It is one of the best trips I have beem on anywhere!) It is all in English and great fun.
I love Amsterdam, sadly my wife doesn't! (she likes beaches)

Amsterdam_Fan

I suggest if you only have 3 days in Amsterdam to do the museums and attractions that the Amsterdam card is STILL a good deal. You get a lot of choice, discounts and freebies and free canal tour. It's just a shame I couldn't stay longer, it is a lovely city.

Also go see the Windmills at Zaanse Schans - well worth the train fare out of the city. A real taste of the old Dutch ways with clog making demo's, cheese tasting, and of course the windmills, The Cat is the best!

We stayed outside the city too at Zaandam, where the hotel prices were cheaper than the city centre, even with paying the train fares in. Although it made for a longer day the train journeys were on time and trouble-free - and of course, nearly everyone is bilingual so language is no problem either! Didn't want to go home...(sigh):rotfl:

Regge

The train ticket machines at the airport offer a shortcut to buy a ticket to Amsterdam using "comfort class". This is actually first class and will cost you € 6,30 (one way). If you navigate the menu instead (available in English) you can buy a second class ticket for € 3,70.

spugzbunny

I have just come back from Amsterdam last week.

A few of my recommendations are:

We travelled by Eurostar. We actually booked it through http://www.nshispeed.nl/en (the dutch high speed network) rather than Eurostar as it worked out significantly cheaper.

We stayed at the Globe Hostel in teh red light district. It worked out at around £100 for 3 nights but we were in a 20 bed room. We were really lucky in that we actually had a seperate 4 bed portion of the 20 bed room so if I booked again I'd request room 101 beds 1-4. The bar here was also cheaper than most with a large smoking area if you liek that kind of thing!

Food wise I can't recommend Chipsey King enough for cheap and yummy street chips. About 2 Euro for a huge cone! Yum!

jrandrews72

The Netherlands has a great railway system, its clean, reliable and in places fast. Amsterdam is a tourist trap, and busy city. I lived in NL for 1 year and my tip is to stay in a nearby city. My choice would be Leiden, Delft or Gouda. When you want to go in to Amsterdam to do the dam stuff people do there then get the train. When I was there the Dutch Railways (NS) had a weekend unlimited thing where you could go anywhere all weekend for 50 euros so you could also get to Maastricht and other places you might not have normally considered. Plus as its all europe.. why not get a train into Germany (e.g. Cologne) Belgium or France. You could easily base yourself in South Holland, Enjoy major european cities in the day time and enjoy the quiter and more genuine dutch experience in the evenings. Plus usually you get a slightly better hotel price outside of Amsterdam but still you will pay more than the average UK hotel. If you want a cheaper hotel then you need to get out of what they call the Raandstadt (sorry probably spelled wrong). This is a ring of cities from Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam. Oh.. and best tip for getting there.. It does not suit all people but look for the Rail and Sail deals. You travel on UK train, Ferry to Hoek Van Holland then Dutch railway. No cars.. but its greener and cheaper. I last saw this at £39 which I think is a bargain. Hope this helps some people.

Pembroke

sarahjgent wrote: »

^^ Love the above post! Thank you.

Myself and a couple of friends are off to Amsterdam (well Duinrell in Holland on a Sun 9.50 holiday - £50 each for a week away isn't too shabby - including accommodation, ferry and petrol money!). We want to do things like the Heineken Experience and the tour of the Bols factory (we all work in bars so it'll be good for us to see these kinds of things).

If anyone has any suggestions regarding these and suggesting for parking in Amsterdam (as I've read online that this can be expensive and difficult) that would be brilliant!

Parking on the street is expensive and locals leave all glove boxes and boot areas open to show there's nothing in them worth stealing, although the situation is much better than it was.

Couple of websites here should help.

http://www.amsterdam.info/parking/

This is the link that was mentioned earlier:

http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/touristinformation/gettingaround/parking

If I remember correctly the Heineken factory visit is quite early in the morning (Well early if you've had a heavy night the night before anyway) and was only available on certain days of the week (not weekends for instance, no use if you're only there for the weekend) so best to research when before hand.