cardsqc

Regarding the Anne Frank House, I recognize that my opinion could easily be in the minority, and that some people have reasons why it might mean more to them, but personally I'd put it on the lists of things to avoid at all costs in Amsterdam. To me, it's simply a money grab, and it's being operated in such a way as to try to grab as much money as they can from people. As such, you spend the entire time going through the house in one long line of people, shuffling forward a few inches every now and then. The place is all but completely bare of anything, and I found it very difficult to get any real feeling of context, because the whole place is just one long line of people shuffling through. Personally, I think they need to cut the number of people allowed in by at least 60-70%, although that'd mean turning people away. Without the crowds inside, I think it'd be possible to get more out of the experience. If you don't have advanced tickets, well, good luck. The line outside was long enough that the day we visited I'd be willing to bet that those at the end of it weren't going to be admitted because it would close before they ever got close to the front.

Now, we were there in the middle of summer, which undoubtedly isn't the best time to do things. Is it better in May? No idea. But if there's a long line outside, my guess is it's going to move at a crawl because the inside is going to be packed so tight that it moves at a crawl. If there's not a long line, then maybe things would be better inside, which would go a long ways towards resolving my problems with the site.

I know a few years ago they were being ordered to return a bunch of the documents and stuff they had on display. I honestly don't know how that ever got resolved, but if they did lose those items, there'd be even less at the house to recommend it. (And when I say on display, this stuff was largely confined to one room, I think it was near the end of the tour, and was probably one of the reasons things moved so slowly through the house - everyone was lined up to basically walk slowly past the documents on display, and basically the rest of the house was one long queue for that.)

I know my opinion doesn't match a lot of others, and these days may not even be socially correct, but I'd still maintain that it's not high on my list of things one should see in Amsterdam. And if you don't have advanced tickets, I definitely can't recommend wasting a couple of hours in line outside waiting to get in.

(Hmm, it looks like they have changed things somewhat on the admission since I was there, and now general admission without prebooked times is only after a certain time in the day. Although I still see people complaining about it being crowded, so don't know if that's helped or not.)