Rail travel Netherlands help please

[Missthedog]

Hi. We are looking to go to Amsterdam next month and would really appreciate some guidance if anyone has good experience of the area. We will arrive at Schiphol Airport and want to use the trains from there.

We need somewhere to stay that is near to a train station so we can get to Efteling and Walibi theme parks.

Preferably somewhere I can get back into Amsterdam as well, as I won't want to be at the theme parks so much.

The hotels in Amsterdam are so expensive. Hoping someone can recommend a place that's central and easy to travel around from please.

Ps, if its near restaurants and a shopping centre, there'll be brownie points 😀

We stayed in a hotel just along from Centraal, but wouldn’t hugely recommend it.

What I would say is that the trains were excellent. Highly recommend downloading the apps, which also function in English. The trams were and underground were easy to use too, so I think you’ve got a bit of flexibility with location if you wanted to stay more in the middle of Amsterdam, and get to a station easily.

Don't know about getting to Walibi, but Utrecht is a nice easy train journey from Amsterdam and then on to den Bosch for Efteling. Big shopping centre next to the station and plenty of restaurants and bars along the canal.

There is a really nice reasonable Double Tree Hilton in close proximity of the central station, and near the Sea Palace Chinese restaurant. Have had lovely stays there in the past.

Thanks both. I think it'll be easier when we get there, but hard to work out where on earth to book! I just looked at Utrech as that has a busy main station, but the prices are so high there, too.
Trouble is, there's 3 of us, and we need 2 rooms.

@Whatineed , I just checked, and for 4 nights, the hotel alone will be over £3000.

Download the NS app and you can plan all your journeys.

The hotel at Efteling has family rooms so that may be cheaper than two rooms in Amsterdam.

If you want to be in the centre of Amsterdam then you can't really get a nice hotel that's cheap. You'll have to leave the centre and then have to take the tram/bus.

Check out Rotterdam too as something different (less touristy). Utrecht is really nice.

Basically unless you leave it to the last minute and find a good deal, or take a family room, or find hotels with good priced singles, you'll need to compromise on price or location I think.

When I stayed in Amsterdam I stayed at the great western near the airport and got the free shuttle to the airport to get on the trains into Amsterdam. Shuttles were every half hour or so.

When next month?

We struggled to get a cheap-ish hotel in NL - in the UK we often use Premier Inn, in France F1 or Ibis Budget, but we couldn’t find anything similar in NL. We booked through AirB&b in the end which worked out well. You can then search to be close to a train station. Public transport works well over there (when they are not on strike! )..

We've stayed in the Best Western Dam Square a couple of times. Ten minutes walk from Centraal and nothing like that price.

We also booked Utecht for Eurovision in 2020 and 2021 (Rotterdam was sold out). Obviously didn't go but again the prices were pretty reasonable (gives Liverpool the side eye).

Good luck!

Try Haarlem or Leiden. Short journeys into Amsterdam and very nice in their own ways too.

Or Zaandam, very close to Amsterdam and there's a few large hotels there. You could also check www.spoordeelwinkel.nl, that's the national rails offer site and they have train and hotel packages, could work out cheaper although maybe not with an odd number of people.

We are in Delft for two nights and Amsterdam for two nights in May and we've ended up staying in the same chain of hotels in both locations purely by chance, they're The Social Hub. They also do family rooms.

We got a deluxe suite in both locations and it cost £450 for the 4 nights.

Thanks everyone. Have booked ibis in ultrecht. Hopefully easy to get everywhere from there!

Glad you've sorted it out and yes it should be easy.

We stayed in family room at Meininger which was next to central train station. Room was nice. We got discount as we had a 12 year old with us. Think it was €90 a night. Clean & nice vibe.