The excursion was only booked for the afternoon so we decided to go no our own in the morning to the places which were close to the Ship. We ended up going in pretty much the same places as the tour we took later on. Desapointing and time wasted. Read Less

having docked at Rotterdam this had changed pre booking ,we had to take a shuttle bus to Amsterdam this only gave us 3hrs instead of around 8hrs, arranged to meet old frends & both parties very sad of such a short stay Read Less

We got on the hop on hop off bus which stops outside the cruise terminal, it's a lot cheaper than MSC trips. We went on the observation tower it's about €10 each, worth it if your not afraid of heights. Read Less

Superb outing on our own within the city of Amsterdam. Read Less

Easy walk into town. Read Less

Spent our pre-cruise night at the Hotel New York (old Holland America headquarters renovated into a hotel). Best note would be - Beware of stairs. My other half forgot about them in the night during a trip to the boys room and we ended up in the emergency room getting stiches, boarding he boat black & blue. Read Less

Moored very close to the centre of Rotterdam approx 20 min walk. Shuttle bus also provided. Read Less

We toured the SS Rotterdam which is permanently moored nearby. Took the free shuttle into the historic canal area. Liked the long sailaway on departure. Read Less

Walked off and around the town. Would have been nice to have had more info on things to do local to the ship....such as bike hire etc......it is Holland after all Read Less

From the port it was quite easy to walk into the city. Nothing very special about the city. Read Less

Lovely people with a great city centre, walk across the bridge beautiful Read Less

Trip to the Delft Porcelain factory. Read Less

Great experience Would do this again. The guide was very knowledgeable and took time time to explain things in the bus and off. Read Less

Food Hall is across the street from the port terminal Read Less

Great city but have been here many times before. Time was spent on our own with friends. Read Less

This was an incredible experience and was an included excursion! Read Less

Rotterdam was badly damaged in the war, so has been mainly rebuilt since then. Hence no old town, but very interesting to see and enter one of the 'cube houses', which is part of an unusual development of houses built in a modern 'wacky' style. Still had a good time wandering around the town as well. Read Less

An easy 15 minute walk into the city centre from the cruise terminal. The walk takes you over an impressive bridge. Frequent trams also stop near the cruise terminal. Read Less

Went to the excellent Boijmans Museum and walked around a bit. Read Less

Visit the Cube Houses and thje magnificent Market Read Less

We took a private cab, very beautiful city Read Less

Sounds like the Dutch are pissed off. I couldn’t figure out why, for our first stop the morning after we got on this ship, we didn’t arrive into Rotterdam until noon. Southampton to The Netherlands is a rollicking 250 odd miles... cross the English Channel, hang a left, boom! You’re there. But...we’re on a boat full of 3,500 jet lagged Americans. At the here’s-how-you-put-a-velcro’ed-life-jacket-on demo, they asked people to cheer for their home country. Oh, hell, yes, buncha Yanks. And all of them dragging their tail feathers from the red eye to get here. So finally, the noon arrival made sense. Why make our Colonial Cousins cranky by getting into port early and depriving them of primo jet lag shuteye time? Let’s wander around the North Sea for the morning, entice them into snoozing in (“after all, honey, there’s no reason to get up early...”) and they’ll wake up happy and ready to take the overpriced tours and spend them greenbacks! Enter the Dutch. As I recall, there’s a certain politician who hasn’t been particularly neighborly to anyone lately. Tariffs, insults, general unpleasantness. The Scandinavians are nothing if not unfailingly polite. They’re Canadians in Viking hats. Just...do not piss them off. I think...but this is supposition, mind...they’re a little annoyed. For the first time (ever), for clearance into the Schengen Area (those European countries with reciprocal visa agreements), we gotta have our passports peered at. Soooo...starting at 7am, everyone outta bed, let’s have a lookit theese pahspohrts, shall wee? Wilkohmen au The Netherlands! As we pulled into the shipping lanes (Rotterdam is one of the biggest ports in the world) we saw Dutch windmills! Wait. Aren’t they supposed to be wood and cute? These are kinda ugly and look like the ones near Tehachapi, California. Giant metal monsters. So the other nice thing is the Rotterdam port authority arranged for free busses to run almost the entire time the ship was in port from the ship to the city center, to the marketplace then back to the ship. Yaaay we didn’t pay for a tour at this port...we got to see what we wanted for a €2 tip each way. Life is good. We had lunch at a little bistro with free WiFi - all in all, one modest cost day, aside from Sheri’s Donutella shake. Mini donuts blendered into ice cream and Nutella. It was too much for me. The next day a sea day, so sleeping in and bingo and no stress. Read Less

Took ship shuttle into town Read Less

I had not been here since my teenage years and my husband had not been at all. It is a lovely city and we thoroughly enjoyed our excursion which was a full day, with lunch. Read Less

My reading did not do this city justice. It was beautiful and friendly. We took the ferry to Kinderdijk - wonderful. Read Less