So you’ve booked a cruise. Now you’re staring at flights, trying to work out how many days to spend in Amsterdam before you sail. You can fly in the morning your cruise starts, go straight to the ship, and begin your vacation there. Or you can come in a few days early, spend some extra time in Amsterdam, and step aboard already rested and on the right side of jetlag.
I’ve come into Amsterdam for river cruises more than once, and I’ve been here for a conference too. What I’ve figured out is that what matters is knowing which of those days are actually full sight-seeing days you can plan around.
And while I’m writing this from a river cruise perspective, the math works the same if you’re joining an ocean ship. Deciding how many days in Amsterdam before a cruise comes down to the same things either way: jet lag, what excursions you’ve already paid for, and how much cushion you want if a flight gets delayed.
Why the Math Isn’t What You Think
Most of us count nights on a calendar and assume each one gets us a full day in the city. And that’s where planning really falls apart, because when it comes to cruising, two of those days are already spoken for with your embarkation and disembarkation day.
Your first day isn’t really a full day of exploring. You’ve flown overnight, you land somewhere between breakfast and lunch, and jet lag is going to have an influence over your afternoon whether you like it or not. I’ve tried to push through this more than once and it has never worked out the way I planned. Now I just accept it and that first day typically includes a slow walk to get our bearings, an early dinner, and bedtime at an hour I’d be embarrassed to admit. But this flow does get us to wake up rested and ready for the city the next morning, instead of just trying to squeeze it all in on a flight day.
And even if you do arrive a few days earlier, cruise embarkation day isn’t a full day either. You’re checking out of your hotel, getting yourself and your suitcases across town, boarding the ship, finding your cabin, and sitting through the safety briefing. Some cruise lines schedule a canal tour or a welcome excursion that afternoon, which is lovely, but it’s not a lot of time in the city. So take at least a half day off the front and one off the back before you start planning your visit to Amsterdam.
How Many Days to Spend in Amsterdam? Three Nights.
Three nights is what I book now, and here’s what that looks like as a tentative itinerary. You land on day one and let it be a gentle, easy-going day. Days two and three are yours, and two unhurried days in Amsterdam is enough to see a lot of things instead of speed-walking past them. Then day four is when you check out and head to the ship, and you feel like you’ve already had a little vacation rather than like the trip is only just starting.
If you just book two nights, that leaves you with one real day to explore. And one day in Amsterdam is how people end up saying they didn’t love the city (mostly because it was rushed and they didn’t get a real chance to see it). And four or five nights is wonderful if your schedule allows it, and that’s when you can add a day trip out to Haarlem or the windmills at Zaanse Schans. But three nights is the point where I don’t feel like I’m rushing to do it all and can enjoy our time in Amsterdam.
Should You Add the Days Before or After?
When people ask me how many days to spend in Amsterdam, they almost always mean before the cruise rather than after. The reason to arrive early has almost nothing to do with sightseeing, though. If your flight gets delayed or canceled and you were planning to land the morning your cruise sails, you miss the ship, and it’s hard catching up with a river cruise. Two or three days of cushion gives you peace of mind, and it turns a potential travel disaster into an annoyance.
The case for staying after the cruise instead is that jet lag hits hardest at the front end, so your Amsterdam days might be your foggiest ones. If you’d rather see the city with a clear head, put the nights on the back end, or split it with two before and one after.
And if you do have to fly in the day of the start of your cruise for any reason, most cruise lines will make it feel seamless with a pick up directly from the airport and a place to store your luggage while you go for a walk and wait for your cabin to be ready. But that first day is going to feel like a blur.
First, Look at What Your Cruise Already Includes
Before you plan a single thing, though, pull up your cruise documents and read through what’s excursions are already covered. This is the easiest money you’ll ever save. A lot of lines include a canal tour on embarkation afternoon or the next morning. If you’re sailing in spring, a full day at Keukenhof may already be on the schedule. Some also include a walking tour of the city center. Then plan your own days around the gaps. If a canal cruise is already included, don’t book one. Use that time for a museum, a walk through a neighborhood you’d otherwise never get to, or a memorable meal (recommendations on where to eat below!).
Book the Anne Frank House Right Now
This is one you’re going to have to set a reminder in your calendar for, because the ticket system catches almost everyone and there’s no way around it once you’ve missed your window. Tickets are online only, at annefrank.org. No tickets at the door, no standby line, no legitimate resellers, and the I amsterdam City Card won’t get you in. They go on sale every Tuesday at 10am Amsterdam time, and each release covers the full week that falls exactly six weeks later. The good time slots go in minutes, and tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable, so you’re committing to a specific date and hour.
In full disclosure, I have never actually been inside the Anne Frank House. Every single time I’ve been in Amsterdam I’ve been beaten by that six week window, but I’ll get there eventually! The Rijksmuseum is much easier to get into, but still worth booking ahead, especially in spring. Same with the Van Gogh Museum.
Getting In from the Airport, and Where Your Ship Docks
Schiphol is about 15 kilometers from the city, which is 20 to 25 minutes in a car. We take an Uber straight to the hotel, because after eight hours on a plane I don’t want to think about where we’re going or solve any problems. There’s also a direct train into Amsterdam Centraal that’s faster and much cheaper, though you’ll be hauling luggage on and off it.
Most river ships dock right by Centraal Station. On both our Tulips and Windmills sailing and our Rhine Christmas cruise we were tied up a short walk from the station, which makes embarkation morning about as easy as it gets. One thing to keep an eye on: the city has been talking about moving the passenger terminal further east over the next several years, so check your cruise documents closer to sailing instead of assuming your berth will be where mine was.
Where to Stay
We’ve stayed at the Apollo Hotel Amsterdam and would book it again. It sits where five canals meet, so ask for a canal view room. The interiors are modern, the rooms come with robes and slippers, and they keep bikes on site for guests, which is the most Dutch possible way to get into town.
One honest note on the location. The hotel calls itself “city center,” but I’d phrase it a little differently. I’d say it’s just on the outskirt. It’s about a twenty minute walk to the museums and a nice distance from the busiest streets. For me that’s a plus, because you get canal views and a quiet night at rates that are kinder than anything inside the ring. Just know you’ll walk or tram to most things.
If you want to be right in the middle of everything, the Jordaan neighborhood and the canal ring put you closest, but at a price. Three I’d point you toward, all of them on the water:
The Pulitzer is twenty-five connected canal houses from the 1600s and 1700s, strung together into what’s now the largest canal house hotel in the city. It’s a bit of a maze, in the best way, and it’s a four minute walk from the Anne Frank House. They also run canal tours on their own restored 1909 salon boat from a private dock, which is worth knowing if your cruise doesn’t include a canal tour.
The Hoxton sits on the Herengracht with rooms close to the water. They range from attics tucked under original beams to larger rooms with herringbone floors, and one of the buildings used to be the mayor’s residence. The lobby restaurant fills up with locals as well as guests, which is always a good sign.
Rosewood is the splurge. It borders the Prinsengracht on two sides, and the canal view rooms on the upper floors look straight down the water.
Staying near Centraal Station is the most convenient for embarkation morning, though it’s also the busiest part of the city.
What to Do With Your Two Days
I’m not going to give you an exact itinerary, because part of the fun of Amsterdam is walking the canals. And sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, so what we do changes every trip.
One spring visit it rained most of the time, so we spent our days in the museums. Another trip closer to summer gave us nothing but sunshine, and we barely went indoors at all. Both trips were great! The trick is deciding what you’d do with rain and what you’d do with sun, and then letting the weather decide.
If it’s raining, this is your museum day. We spent one wet spring trip almost entirely indoors and had a wonderful time. The Rijksmuseum deserves at least half a day on its own. The Stedelijk is the modern art and design museum and it’s the one I’d point you to if the Rijksmuseum feels like a lot, or if you just want something different after a few hours of Dutch Masters. The Van Gogh Museum is right there too, and the Anne Frank House if you managed to get tickets.
If the sun is out, go for a walk. The canals are on of the most beautiful things about Amsterdam and they’re free. We’ve spent entire afternoons doing loops through the rings with no destination, just stopping when something looks good. Amsterdam rewards that kind of leisurely stroll more than almost any city I know.
Two things we do every single time, though, rain or shine. We get a stroopwafel fresh off the iron, which bears no resemblance to the packaged kind. And we take a long walk along the canals.
Where to Eat and Drink
You’ll probably be in Amsterdam twice if your cruise starts and ends here, so there’s no need to cram it all in on the front end. Here’s where I’d recommend for food.
Hans Egstorf on Spuistraat for the stroopwafel. They’ve been baking since 1898, call themselves the oldest bakery in Amsterdam, and they still make them by hand. The building alone is worth the walk, with painted tile panels out front showing the stages of breadmaking. Get one warm and eat it while walking the canals.
Cafe the Schreiertower for bitterballen and a Dutch beer. Our friend Keith recommended this place and we loved it. Bitterballen are crisp breadcrumbed spheres with a molten beef ragout inside, served with sharp mustard, and they arrive far too hot to eat. The cafe is inside a medieval defensive tower on the water across from Centraal, all brick and old wooden beams, with a terrace that’s a perfect place to land on a jet-lagged first afternoon. The bathrooms also feel like they’re under the canals, so the old architecture is interesting too.
Lot61 for coffee. They roast their own, and the shop on Kinkerstraat feels like a neighborhood place rather than a chain even though there are a few locations around the city. It’s small with limited seating, so don’t count on settling in for an hour. But it’s worth going out of your way for if you care about coffee.
Winkel 43 for apple pie. It sits on the Noordermarkt in the Jordaan neighborhood and the apple pie is the whole reason to go. Thick, chunky apples, a crumbly crust, and a pile of whipped cream. They bake it fresh and it goes fast, so if it isn’t available when you walk in, ask, and go earlier next time.
Temple Bar for a pint and more bitterballen. It’s an Irish pub on Kloveniersburgwal, which is not the most Dutch recommendation I’ll ever make, but it’s a good room with a big beer list and it hits the spot after a long walking day.
Kapitein Zeppos for dinner. It’s down an alley called Gebed Zonder End, which means Prayer Without End, named for a monastery that once stood there. The building is an 1880 warehouse that spent fifty years as a cigar factory and had horse stables on the ground floor before that. Now it’s a music cafe with plants everywhere and a garden the owner tends herself. The fish of the day comes in from IJmuiden on the coast. A friend who lives in Amsterdam took us, which is the only way anyone finds it.
One Thing That Will Stop You Getting Lost
You’ll notice when you look at maps of Amsterdam that the canals don’t sit in a grid. They curve and arc around the old center in half circles, so the whole city is shaped like a horseshoe with the open end facing the harbor and Centraal Station.
Once you can picture that, you stop being confused and it’s easy to get around without staring at a map the whole time.. Walking away from the water means you’re heading out through the rings. Walking toward it means you’re heading back in toward the station. Every few blocks you cross a canal and move one ring in or out. It’s a very walkable city and you’ll get your steps in, so bring shoes you can be in all day.
A Note for Ocean Cruisers
Everything above holds if you’re sailing an ocean ship out of Amsterdam rather than a river one, and plenty of Baltic and Norway itineraries start here. Three nights is still what I’d book, and the reasoning doesn’t change.
The one practical difference is where you’ll board. River ships tie up right by Centraal Station, close enough to walk from a lot of hotels. Ocean ships use the passenger terminal on the IJ, which is a short ride rather than a stroll, especially with luggage. Build in a little more time for the transfer on embarkation morning, and if you’re weighing how many days in Amsterdam before a cruise makes sense, that’s an argument for arriving the day before at minimum rather than cutting it close.
If Your Dates Line Up With With A Holiday
Your sailing date probably decides how many days to spend in Amsterdam for you, but a few things are worth knowing either way.
Spring visitors get the tulips twice over. The Amsterdam Tulip Festival runs all of April, with displays at more than 85 spots around the city. It’s free and self-guided, so you can see tulips on the days you aren’t out at Keukenhof.
King’s Day is April 27, or April 26 when the 27th falls on a Sunday, and the whole country turns orange. It’s a lot of fun if you’re up for it. Hotels sometimes require minimum stays around it and prices climb, so check your dates. The big museums stay open, which makes an indoor day a good escape.
And if you’re doing a Christmas market sailing that starts here, save an evening for the light festival, when illuminated art goes up along the canals and you can see it walking along the water.
What to Bring Home, and What to Skip
Our souvenir every single time is a jar of Calve peanut butter. It’s the Dutch supermarket brand, but it’s very good and so different than what is typically available in the states. It costs only a couple of euros at any grocery store, though the Schipol airport will charge you double if you find it there. If you like peanut butter, trust me.
The Bloemenmarkt, the floating flower market on the Singel, is a nice walk and good for photos, but don’t buy the tulip bulbs. We learned this from a guide on one of our cruises and it turns out to be well documented, since a Dutch news investigation found that bulbs bought there rarely if ever flower. Spring isn’t bulb-buying season anyway, that’s a fall thing, and bringing bulbs into the US requires the right paperwork on top of it. Enjoy the flower market, take some pictures, but buy the peanut butter instead.
If You’d Rather Not Plan Any of This
All of this is easy enough to do yourself, and I like sharing it because figuring out a trip is half the fun of taking one.
But you have two easier options. Most cruise lines sell a pre-cruise extension that bundles the hotel, transfers, and usually a tour right into your booking. It costs a bit more than doing it yourself and it takes every decision off your plate. Or talk to a travel advisor, who can match the hotel to how you actually travel and make sure your extra nights connect cleanly to embarkation day. If the planning is the part you dread, it’s worth a conversation.
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