Need to spend a long layover in the airport? Well no better place to be than Amsterdam Schiphol! I spent 17 hours in that place on my way home for Easter and I felt like a queen rather than the usual tired, achy, dirty mess that transatlantic travelling brings.
Schiphol actually has a hotel beside the gates after security called Hotel Yotel. I planned ahead and made a reservation and I was SO thankful that I did. The place reminded me of a futuristic mix between berths on a train and a Japanese pod hotel. Everything was incredibly compact, but very functional. Our flight arrived at around 22:30, and by that time all the shops and restaurants in the terminal were closed. The only food available in the airport were hidden sandwiches at Yotel's front desk!
(Clockwise from the top: very comfy bed tucked away; flat screen tv at the foot of the bed with both Dutch and English programming; toilet, sink, and shower with only a curtain separating the rest of the room.)
I awoke in the morning feeling refreshed after a proper sleep and a shower. I even felt a little guilty knowing many people slept in the floor by the gates. Oh well!
With still another 6 hours to wait, I moseyed on over to the spa a few steps away. I booked a full work up of treatments and sat in their premium leather massage chair while I waited. The quality of the treatments was not the greatest... I got the feeling that the esthetician working on me did not have a lot of experience (she gave me the world's worst wax and cut my toenails too short, which stung for a couple days). But I was not too upset. Here I was getting pampered in an AIRPORT.
I even wish I had had more time to kill because I missed out on exploring the museum. It is a permanent exhibition of ten works from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and changes throughout the year.
In summary, volcanic ash cloud got you stranded? Unexpected delays? Planned layovers? Amsterdam is the place to be!
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