To not know what to do re. hiring a car in Amsterdam?

[WhitePhantom]

Hi, I'm going to Amsterdam shortly and am looking at hiring a car. I've never hired a car before and am reading all sorts of mixed reviews about the various car hire companies / brokers and don't know what to do / what to believe - they're all starting to sound awful!!

Can anyone who is familiar with hiring a car (in Amsterdam or elsewhere) give me some tips as to who's good to go with, what to watch out for, etc? I've no idea where to even start!

Thanks!

The opening door thing is a load of nonsense - yes look out for cyclists when in a town but there is no such thing as a 'dutch reach' and it is for sure not 'the law' to reach across yourself to open a door - how would that even work? As for merging on motorways - match the motorway speed and merge towards the end of the (prefectly normal length) lane - in NL we indicate to show we are going to move RIGHT NOW not that we plan it in 5 mins - and you will be fine. Cyclists in Amsterdam are a shower of entitled arseholes, otherwise they are mostly law abiding. You won't see them on motorways of course.

Rent a car from any desk/company at Schiphol, they mostly have cars in the P6 these days so no shuttle, and please, do NOT rent a car for Amsterdam city, even if your nerves can handle it you will be killed with parking charges.

I know I mentioned them already above but SunTransfers are huge big mercs that can take 6 or even 8 people, they only charged me €50 to bring our whole family from Amsterdam to where we were going and we got bikes for the week then.
(They are the big van things that the celebrities go around in)

It’s amazing over there with regard to the bikes, the children learn the rules of the road from a really young age and have to have a flag on their bicycle until they pass a test! It’s very strict altogether.

No way would I be driving 2 separate cars just because you have an elderly relative, even if you got individual transfers to locations it would probably still be cheaper and a lot less stressful.

I hope you have a great time anyway.

hire from a company you've heard of. I hire cars a lot in Europe and have found the international chains (marginally) better. Definitely take out excess insurance, either annual or for your trip. If you want an extra driver check the cost carefully. sometimes you get it 'free' on a slightly more expensive deal but when you work out the cost of paying for it on a cheaper deal (10 € per day on one car I had) the more expensive headline cost works out better.
Check the car out carefully when picking it up. Make them note any damage on the form.

I like full to full fuel policy the best. Prepay/return empty are frankly a pain in the arse. And keep in mind that when filling the car you don't have to do it at the airport. The fuel gauge won't drop if you filled up 10km down the road where it's probably cheaper.
If you can insist on having the car checked in and inspected on return. If not take photos of car and fuel gauge.
I have driven a lot in the Netherlands with no problems at all. Watch for bikes all the time especially in towns and you'll be fine.

"It’s amazing over there with regard to the bikes, the children learn the rules of the road from a really young age and have to have a flag on their bicycle until they pass a test! It’s very strict altogether."

Again nonsense. As lovely as that sounds it is simply not true. No flag and no test. Where do these tales come from?

Echo a lot of the others that you might not need a car. I’ve been on multiple trips there to Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other towns on the same trip and never needed a car, train service is excellent out there.

That’s not to say you don’t, I might think twice if I had kids in tow, but may be worth looking at the specific trips you need to make and checking trains because it’s so much better out there than here.

Thanks again everyone. As I've said, we WON'T be driving in Amsterdam!!

The car is only for when we're leaving Amsterdam to go on day trips around the rest of the country. With 6 of us, including 3 kids, we're just not going to try and tie in with trains for every journey we want to make.

I think we're going to go with BB&L, and def going to take out car hire excess insurance.

Good advice. Another thing to think of, if you haven't already, is that you will need a credit card for the deposit when you pick up. I have stood behind people in car hire queues many times before who have suddenly found out that they cannot hire after all because they have a visa debit not a visa credit card.

Well when I was there, that is what I was told. (That children did a cycling exam) but I am not an expert and have only been on holidays there, so I could be totally wrong.

www.google.ie/amp/s/bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/bicycle-training-in-the-netherlands/amp/