This is the fastest, but not necessarily the easiest way to travel to Holland. Often the cheapest way is with the budget airlines, such as Easyjet or Bmibaby depending on the location. It’s advised of course to book early as the fares increase as the cheapest seats are taken.  But now the budget airlines have incurred extra charges for every bag put into the hold and they even charge to check-in.

It is free only if you take a small bag onboard yourself and place in the overhead locker, this is great for a weekend trip or just for a few days, but a larger bag has to go in the hold. It is also free to check-in online, but be careful to check-in again online on your return with a printout.

The cheapest budget airline for the extra charges is Easyjet, followed closely by Jet2, Flybe, Bmibaby, but the most expensive by far is Ryannair. So with the credit/debit card charges added and payment for a seat preference if you want one, the price could be similar or even more than the major airlines, such as British Airways, BMI and Dutch KLM.    

There are still cheap flights to be had with the budget airlines it depends on the location required and one-way fares are an added advantage. But many cheaper airlines do not always have access to the city centres and have to use smaller airports on the outskirts. There can sometimes be other disadvantages, as in the case of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the parking bays are further from the main terminal without the usual facilities. This includes no coffee/snacks, no toilets once you have left the main terminal building, no seats and no overhead terminals to check flight boarding times and parking bay numbers which sometimes change without notification.

Schiphol Airport is an extremely well run with excellent train connections to Amsterdam and other main cities from the airport. There is a stop train or a hi-speed Inter-city train usually leaving every 15 minutes to most destinations, more frequently to Amsterdam. The other airports are at Rotterdam, Maastricht, Eindhoven and Groningen.

If you arrive at Schiphol airport and travelling on to Keukenhof, then get the shuttle bus 58, which runs daily and offers up to 8 services per hour.   

 

This is the second easiest way to get to Amsterdam, and the total amount of time it takes is probably only a bit longer than flying when you consider hotel door to door. The journey takes around 5 hours, give or take 30 minutes. Board the Eurostar train at St. Pancras Station in London, which then travels on the shuttle service through the channel tunnel, (allow 30 minutes to check in), taking around 1.5 hours all the way to Brussels. Change to the high-speed Thalys train which takes about 3 hours to Amsterdam or slightly longer with the Intercity.   

Eurostar departs from Brussels-South to London St Pancras International and vice versa 10 times a day on Mondays through Fridays and 8 times a day on Saturdays and Sundays. The cheapest round-trip is €99 return and they’ve even been as low as €69 during certain parts of the year. One-way fares are always way over €100, so you are better off just using half of one of these than buying a one-way. www.nshispeed.nl