As with London, we did a ton of research on what to do with Nolan in Amsterdam. Here’s our list of all the things we did with Nolan while in Amsterdam and honestly, there was so many other things we didn’t get to. I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed our time in Amsterdam!
KinderKookKafe
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I think I had more fun than Nolan cooking. Kids get to pick a recipe from a list and then make the recipe themselves. There’s a great little play area outside and lots of fun toys, books, etc inside. Definitely built with little people in mind. It was a cool experience and glad we went, but not sure it will make Nolan’s top 5-list.
Amstelpark
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Great park! Nolan loved it and we visited this park several times. There’s a great playground area, a train that takes a tour of the park, ice cream stand, animal petting area, and a little section with carnival type rides/games. Games were reasonably priced, but we were surprised to learn the toilet was €0.60.
Vondelpark
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This is a really big park. There are a couple play areas — Nolan really enjoyed the tree house and we really enjoyed just riding our bikes around the park.
Amsterdam Forest
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The Forest deserves its own blog post we spent some much time here. The Forest was literally right across from the house, so we spent a lot of time here. Some highlights;
- Rent A Canoe and enjoy the water. Nolan and Jim rented a canoe and took a picnic lunch with them. Nolan talked about it for days.
- Splash Pads are a litigant play area for kids. The water was about knee deep on Nolan and the play area was huge. We went on a really warm Saturday, so the place was packed. We took a picnic lunch and stayed for about 4-hours. I sat in the shade and read my book, while Nolan made friends and played. The pools are open from May to August/September, provided temperatures reach 20° Celsius or higher.
- Goat Farm is basically a goat sanctuary and all things Goats. We walked by it a couple times, but never had a chance to really go in and explore.
- Fun Forest is a really cool obstacle course in the trees, very much like Go-Ape from back in the states. I really, really wanted to take Nolan, but he was a bit too young.
- Bike Rental is almost a no-brainer in Amsterdam. We rented bikes literally all the time. Tandem bikes, bucket bikes, bikes for me, bikes for Nolan, we were always on a bike in Amsterdam. There are bike rentals all over the city, but we found a Bike Rental in Amsterdam Forest that was really reasonable, so we rented from them anytime we needed a bike.
Pizza Cruise
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Pizza, ice cream, and a cruise around the Amsterdam canals sounds amazing right? It was fun, Jim and I enjoyed it, it was actually one of our favorite activities we did together. Nolan, however, he was less impressed. He enjoyed it and we had fun, but if you asked him, I don’t think he’d say — “yeah, let’s do that again.”
Plastic Fishing
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Nolan really wanted to go back out on a boat and I wanted to find something to do that was a little different, so I used AirBNB Experiences to do a little research. I found this activity on AirBNB Experiences and Nolan loved it.
NEMO Science Museum
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If there was a 6th star the place would get it. This museum is basically 5-floors of interactive exhibits for kids. Nolan loved it! We were there for about 4-hours and Nolan was busy the entire time. We had lunch at here as well. The food was good and too unreasonably priced. Before we left, Nolan played for another 30-mins or so outside on the sky-deck patio. Jim purchased tickets ahead of time online.
Amsterdam Zoo
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We loved the zoo. The Amsterdam Zoo is rather large actually, it’s very well maintained and they have come really great exhibits. I was actually surprised at how close we got to some of the animals. My favorite by far was the elephants and Nolan’s favorite was the Aquarium.
TunFun
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This place was really impressive. It was underground, it what seems like an abandoned subway, but it was really cool. It was huge, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an indoor play area so big. There were several different areas and each was dedicated to an age range, so it made it nice. I didn’t have to constantly tell Nolan to look out for the little people. It was super cheap to get in – 5 Euros for Nolan and I was free. We played for almost four hours, we only left because Nolan was starving. If we had packed a lunch, we would have stayed longer. Did they have a small food/snack concession, but none of it really looked good.
Outside of Amsterdam, but well worth a mention,
Maritime Museum, Rotterdam
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During our weekend trip, we made a stop in Rotterdam. Really cool city. Nolan and I went to the Maritime Museum. The 2nd Floor was an exhibit just for kids and Nolan loved it. We were there for about 3-hours and I had to pull Nolan out of the Museum at closing time. He would have stayed longer for sure. It was a little pricey, but after realize how much there was to do, it seemed reasonable.
Railway Museum, Utrecht
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During our weekend trip, we also stopped in at Utrecht. Jim and Nolan visited the Railway Museum.
Madurodam, The Hague
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During our weekend trip, we also stopped in at The Hague. We went to Madurodam as a family, it was really cool. It’s kind of like an amusement park without rides, it’s full of beautiful miniatures of all the things that make the Netherlands an amazing place. They also have a couple really awesome play areas. Nolan loved it!
