SteveWe’ve been to Amsterdam many times, mostly because it is so easy to get to and is a great all-around city break. On our last visit, we booked the trip with BA Holidays flying from Heathrow. Prior to Covid, BA flew multiple times a day and the flight time is just under an hour. We could have flown from a closer airport, but we could not make the numbers work. It was actually cheaper to travel to Heathrow, grab a hotel for the night before, and fly the next day!
We chose to stay at our favourite Heathrow hotel the night before we flew. Our go-to hotel for Heathrow flights is the Radisson Blu Edwardian Heathrow Hotel & Conference Centre, located on the A4 Bath Road just north of the airport. We love this hotel for a number of reasons, which I’ll review in a separate blog post in the future.
After a 90-minute or so drive to the hotel, it’s great to be able to relax in the bar and have a decent meal before jetting off the next morning. There are hotel Hoppa buses that stop regularly at the hotel, with a different one for different terminals. One thing to note is that if you are a group of 4, it may be cheaper to get a taxi. At the time of writing a single trip on the Hoppa bus is £5.50. From my recollection, our one-way taxi cost circa £18. We chose a taxi ourselves for the speed of the journey and so we did not have to wait for the bus (we’re impatient cats!).
Once at Heathrow (T5 for British Airways flights), it’s usually an easy check-in and bag drop. Then it’s straight off to the Club Aspire lounge to be fed and watered. I have a priority pass card that allows entry here, although if you are flying business class with BA you can use their Galleries lounge instead. Aside from the free booze and food, the lounge offers free wifi and comfy chairs. The allowed us to negate the noisy departure area and avoid the hunt for uncomfortable chairs to sit on.
After the short flight, we arrived at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport. Getting to the city itself is a doddle. Whilst there are buses and taxis available outside the arrivals area, we took the train as it is the most convenient and cheapest option. Inside the arrivals area at the main concourse, there are escalators down to the underground train station. We purchased our tickets at one of the yellow and blue machines (English language option) and then headed off to the platforms. Oddly, the machine I used only accepted coins and credit cards, no notes! A point to note is that the ticket must be validated prior to boarding. The validation ‘poles’ are close by the escalator before you head down to the platform.
The train journey itself is around 20 minutes to Amsterdam Centraal Station (written as Amsterdam CS or Amsterdam Centraal on departure boards). If you’re lucky, you’ll get to ride on one of the Dutch railway’s double-decker intercity trains for the journey! You can find more about departing Schipol by train here.
On arrival at Centraal Station, we popped into an AKO newsagent to buy a 3-day GVB travel card. This allows unlimited travel on trams, metro and buses within the Amsterdam region. It’s possible to buy travel cards from the store outside in front of the station. The only thing is that this is where everybody else buys them! The current price for the 3-day card is €19. From then, it’s straight out of the exit using your train ticket to open the barrier. Once outside, we quickly found our tram and headed off to our hotel. This post will go into more detail about using the trams in Amsterdam.
We’d love to fly from a closer airport to where we live, or possibly even get the Eurostar service to Amsterdam one day! For now though, as long as it works price-wise we’ll continue to travel to Heathrow and fly from there. Starting off in a hotel the night before may seem like overkill, but it really sets the mood for the start of the trip. We’ve always found it cheaper to do it this way, so why not?
As you’re here, why not take a look at my other Amsterdam posts?
