Zaanse Schans Windmills Private Tour from Amsterdam Airport
Airport pickupLeaves the cityPrivate
Three hours, clog-making and cheese in front of them, and a village they can run about in.
From $183 per person
An Amsterdam Layover With Kids
Short answer. Yes, with the right product. Most of these departures are stroller accessible and several carry infant seats on request. The windmills work far better with children than the canal ring does. Do not attempt it under seven hours on the ticket.
A layover with children is a different calculation from a layover alone. The upside is larger — a few hours out of a terminal is worth a great deal to a six-year-old — and so is the downside, because the failure modes involve carrying somebody.
Is it worth doing at all?
On a seven-hour connection or longer, usually yes. On anything shorter, the border queues and the buffer eat the day and you spend it managing rather than enjoying. The honest threshold with children is about an hour longer than it is without them.
The one thing that makes it work here is the geography: nine kilometres, seventeen minutes, and a station under the terminal. Nobody has to be carried to a bus. That is also why a private Amsterdam layover tour is worth more with children than without them — the vehicle takes the walking out of the parts that are not worth walking.
Which departures take a stroller
Each listing states this for itself, and it varies more than you would expect. These are the three that suit a family best.
| Departure | Stroller | Infant seat | Group cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zaanse Schans windmills, 3 hours | yes | — | up to 15, from 2 travellers |
| Windmills, clogs and cheese, 4–8 hours | yes | yes | up to 7 |
| Half-day private tour, 3–5 hours | yes | yes | up to 8, one flat fare |
| Schiphol city loop, 3 hours | yes | yes | up to 7 |
Every departure compared here is private, and that matters more with children than with anything else. There is no coach to hold up, no group to apologise to, and no fixed departure time to run for. If somebody needs twenty minutes on a bench, they get twenty minutes on a bench.
What none of them is, with two exceptions, is wheelchair accessible. If that applies to your party, say so before booking rather than at the kerb.
What children actually like here
- The windmills. They turn. They are enormous. You walk in under them.
- The clog workshop. A block of wood becomes a shoe in about ten minutes, in front of you.
- The cheese farm. Tasting is involved, which settles most arguments.
- A canal boat. Sitting down, moving, with a roof. After a long flight that is worth more than any building.
- Poffertjes. Small pancakes with butter and icing sugar. There is no recorded case of a child refusing them.
What they do not like
Canal-house facades. Two hours of walking on cobbles. Queueing for a museum with a timed ticket. Being told about the seventeenth century. Zaanse Schans has none of those problems, which is most of the reason it works.
Which is a fair summary of why the countryside products work better for families than the city walks do — and why the city-or-windmills question usually resolves one way when there are children in the party.
Ask for the infant seat at booking. Four of these listings offer one and none of them will produce it on the day without notice. Put it in the booking form along with your flight number. More on what to ask for.
The practical problems, and what to do about them
The bags
With children you are carrying more, and less of it can be left. The car-based departures solve this outright: everything travels in the vehicle. If you are on a walking tour, lockers at the airport are €8 per 24 hours.
The border queue, twice
Out and back. There is no way to shorten it and no priority lane for a pushchair. Build it into the plan rather than hoping.
Food
Dutch street food is unusually child-friendly and unusually fast. Stroopwafels, poffertjes, chips with mayonnaise, and cheese in any quantity. None of it needs a reservation.
The return
Leave earlier than you would alone. Everything takes longer with a four-year-old, and the one part of the day with no slack in it is the end. The timing rules.
Which to book, by age
| Travelling with | Book | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under-fives | A private car, three hours | Short, seated, bags in the boot, and it can be cut short without anyone noticing. |
| Five to ten | The windmills and cheese day | Things that move and things you can eat, and a village to run about in. |
| Teenagers | The city, with a museum booked ahead | Under-18s go free at the Van Gogh Museum, which makes the ticket cheaper than it looks. |
| A mixed party of four or more | A per-group fare | At four travellers the group prices undercut every per-person option here. |
The unglamorous logistics
Changing a baby
Schiphol has baby-care rooms landside and airside, which is the easy part. In the city it is harder: cafes are small and old, and stairs are steep. Museums are the reliable answer, and so are the larger department stores on the Kalverstraat.
Prams on cobbles
The canal ring is cobbled and the bridges are stepped. A buggy with small hard wheels will fight you the whole way. This is another argument for the countryside, where the paths at the windmill village are flat and wide.
Bikes
Amsterdam's cyclists have right of way in practice as well as in law, and they move faster than visitors expect. Hold hands at every crossing, and keep off the red asphalt — that is the bike lane, not the pavement.
The honest answer
With a long connection and a private vehicle, a layover with children in Amsterdam is one of the easier versions of this anywhere in Europe. The distances are short, the food is fast, and the windmills do most of the entertaining for you.
With a short connection it is a bad idea, and no product changes that. Two border queues, a security channel and a small person who has just been on an aeroplane is not a combination that rewards optimism.
If the hours are there, the departures that carry a stroller and an infant seat are marked on every card at Amsterdam Layover Tours, the fares by party size are worked through in the costs guide, and the long-layover page covers what six hours or more opens up.
Tours that work with children along
Private tour from Amsterdam, windmills, clogs & cheese..
Leaves the cityTastingsPrivate
Four to eight hours with a stroller-accessible vehicle and infant seats available on request.
From $263 per person
Half Day Private Tour in Amsterdam
Leaves the cityWi-Fi on boardPrivate
One flat fare for up to eight, so a family of five pays what a couple pays.
From $631 per group of up to 8
Read next: what a long connection opens up, the windmills in detail, or the fourteen things that change the plan. For fares by party size, see what a tour costs.