After one final breakfast at the Apollo Hotel in Amsterdam, we checked out and headed over to AMS for our flight back to IAD in the US.
Apollo Hotel Amsterdam
One final morning at the Apollo Hotel in Amsterdam! The sun was just starting to rise at 6am, the time when the hotel restaurant opens.
We went for one final quick breakfast!
Overall, we’ve had a great stay at the Apollo. The hotel is in an older building that frankly looks a bit plain and shabby on the inside. But our canal facing Design Suite was excellent and modern. Unfortunately in the winter, daylight hours are quite limited so we didn’t get to enjoy the canal view as much as we would have during the other seasons.
The location was pretty quiet as the area is mostly residential. That does mean there isn’t much nearby. Everything requires a minimum 10 minute or so walk to one of the nearby tram stops. Tram service is frequent and convenient though. Although we could have stayed in a more central location, we would have paid significantly more for a room of equal quality and size. It was a worthwhile tradeoff for us.
As for Amsterdam and the Netherlands, it was a great trip. The colder winter months with their short daylight hours probably aren’t the best time to visit but we still enjoyed it quite a bit. We still have many places that we wanted to visit but did not, there just wasn’t enough time! There’s also that whole other part of the country to the north and east and further down south past Den Bosch that we didn’t touch at all.
Schiphol Airport
After checking out, we schlepped our bags over to the Gerrit v.d. Veenstraat tram stop where we caught a line 5 tram to Amsterdam Zuid. From there, one short train ride took us to Schiphol Airport.
It didn’t take long for us to check in and pass through security and all that.
There were some Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling in the terminal!
There is just one Star Alliance lounge at AMS, located in the Schengen area. As we were flying outside of the Schengen area, we ended up going to the Aspire Lounge, a lounge that United contracts with for Polaris business class passengers. We made it there at around 8:45am. It wasn’t particularly great, better than the average United Club, but that isn’t really saying too much. Luckily, we had time to have a quick breakfast at the Apollo before leaving so we really just sampled the food to see what it was like.
Flight
Today’s AMS-IAD flight, UA946, was operated by a 767-300. We boarded at a remote stand, something I haven’t experienced on a wide body aircraft in many years now.
The remote stand experience is usually you queue up at the gate just to get on a bus and wait for the bus to fill up. Then the bus drives to the plane where there’s some delay before you actually can board.
This little KLM transport vehicle was for live animal cargo. Dogs, sheep, chickens, cats, ducks, rabbits, pigs, and goats!
Soon, we were up in the air. One final glance at the extremely flat Dutch terrain below! And of course, where one might expect to see a highway in the US, there is a canal in the Netherlands!
United’s catering is nothing to write home about. At least most of it was edible today.
The ice cream has been pretty consistent recently though!
I opted for the Wellington burger for the landing meal. Not sure what Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and hero at Waterloo, would think about being associated with this food item.
We flew over the Hudson River around Poughkeepsie, which I absolutely can’t spell without looking it up. The bridge upstream, or to the upper right, of the lighter appearing bridge is the Walkway Over the Hudson. This is a former railroad bridge that has now been turned into a park. I visited once and walked over the bridge, as well as the other one next to it, back in 2011. I even have a hoodie from the bridge as it was way colder that day than anticipated!
We also flew by the Delaware Water Gap where I-80 crosses the Delaware River. It has been a long time since the last time I drove over the bridge down there.
Soon, we were getting much closer to Dulles. We flew over Frederick, MD, which we visited about two weeks ago to see the fall foliage at the nearby Catoctin Mountain Park.
Arrival
Although we should have been able to beat DC rush hour traffic with our arrival a bit after 1pm, we didn’t. That’s the big downside of a weekday afternoon arrival at IAD!