What‘s Included

What To Expect

Reviews

• No guided tour, overly priced

  ValenciaDickens,

  Apr 30, 2025

  - Viator

  2.00

  The 2 locations are a must see; however, the cost is overly priced. The tour drops you off and picks you up. Nothing more than less. In addition, when checking in, you're advised one time but the bus driver set an earlier time to be on the bus. I would recommend other tours for a guided tour that will tell you the highlights/history of the location. Plus, you get extra tours within the tour, ie the cheese history and going inside the windmill. Lastly, you would get discount on purchases.

• This is not tuplip farm....

  Srikanth H,

  Apr 25, 2025

  - Viator

  2.00

  This is not tuplip farm experience. It's just tulip garden. If you want to walk in the tulip field this is not the trip.

• Beautiful windmills and gardens but tour suffers from lack of communication from organizer.

  Reusser T,

  Mar 22, 2025

  - Viator

  3.00

  Overall experience was good, but lack of communication and some timing issues detracted from the experience. We arrived at the This Is Holland building at 7:40 for the 8:00 start only to find a long line forming as the door was locked and all the staff were inside having a meeting. There was a picture of the Zaanse Schans windmill that is used on a different tour that we almost booked and everything was labeled as the Amsterdam Hop-On & Hop- Off, which is also in the description of the other tour, but not this one so that led to some confusion if we were in the right line. No one came out to let us know that they'll be opening soon or give us any indication if we were in the right place. Once the doors did open just after 8:00, the line did move quickly and we were able to get assigned to the right desk based on the tour that we had selected, but then it was a very quick turnaround to get on the buses which left pulled away at 8:15, so there was barely time to use the restroom. Once we got to Zaanse Schans, we just pulled over into a public bus loading zone in sat there. It was probably 5 minutes or so until someone from below came up to the upper deck of the bus and said I think we were supposed to get off here. There was no communication from the tour organizer or the bus driver. After we all did disembark, the bus driver said to meet him back here at 10:45 and then we had to walk down the street and into the parking lot for the museum. Everything at Zaanse Schans was still closed and wasn't going to open for under the 30 minutes to an hour. We wandered around the closed down village for quite a while and then made our way down to the windmills. It turns out the windmills cost extra to go in for each individual one. It looks like there is usually a ferry that takes you across to the other side where there are more shops, but the ferry was not in service. We decided since we were there, we must go in the windmills, so we pay the admission fees but there was nothing going on inside them. No one to give us an explanation, or tour, you just wander around in silence looking at things you don't understand, and that's all. At this point the shops had opened but we were short on time, so we went to the cheese store and bought a couple blocks of cheese and then had to go to the bus. We got there at 11:45, and there was no bus to pick us up. A couple public transit buses came by and asked if we needed a lift, we told him we were waiting for our tour bus and they were surprised thinking that no tour buses stopped off at those public bus stops. The bus came at 11, so we could have quickly looked into one other shop instead of waiting on the side of the road awkwardly for the bus. From there we traveled down to the Keukenhof Gardens. The bus driver dropped us off in the bus lot and it was nice to have up to 6 and 1/2 hours at the gardens because they were beautiful. We were told the buses depart from the gardens every 30 minutes, which gives you the freedom to stay as short or as long as you like. However, when we attempted to catch the 6:00 bus, and got there at about 5:45, the bus was already gone, we were told that it was already full and had left early so we had to wait for the 6:30 bus. Again, we could have used that time to enjoy more the gardens or had more of a meal before we left. I will say the bus driver was very good, probably the smoothest bus ride I have had, ever, and that's despite having to deal with cyclists, construction, roundabouts, and tight spaces. Overall a positive experience, but would have been much better if there had been clearer communication. Zaanse Schans is free to enter, so you're basically only paying for the bus ride and the Keukenhof Gardens admission tickets. There is no guided tour. There is no tour audio on the bus. We weren't even told we'd arrived and it was time to get off the bus. There was no communication that everything at Zaanse Schans was going closed when we got there and that we could make better use the time by going to see the windmills first and then coming back and to look at the shops after they opened. There was no communication that certain departure times from Keukenhof were more popular and fill up fast so plan accordingly. Also, if you're a red meat Texan like I am, be prepared to be extremely disappointed by the food selections at Keukenhof. Almost everything is vegetarian or vegan, with meat substitutes for almost every meat dish. The beef burger that I have for lunch was probably only 25% meat at best and the rest was vegatable filler. The pepperoni pizza I had for dinner was imitation pepperoni but they didn't even bother to heat up or crisp with the pizza. The brownie was vegan and made with soy milk instead of eggs. "Ground beef" in the pasta bolognese is imitation as well. A couple of the restaurants are purely vegetarian/vegan with no "meat" offerings at all. Turned out the muffins were made with eggs so I ordered two and ate those.

• Windmills

  Laurence L,

  May 13, 2024

  - Viator

  4.00

  We both enjoyed walking around the Zaanse Schwan's village viewing the windmills and cottages - time well spent We were disappointed with Keukenhof some tulips were still in bloom while others were dead and left in place. Unfortunately the warm weather was the cause. Go the first two weeks of planting to get the entire effect.

• Past it’s best by 4th May

  Evangeline M,

  May 6, 2024

  - Viator

  3.00

  Keukenhof is definitely past its best by the time we visited on 4th May, and as such was very disappointing. Zaanse Schans is beautiful, and we enjoyed it much more.