CDTraveler

I would second the suggestion of Leiden. Short train ride, a couple world class museums within walking distance of the train station.

TravellingChris

Unless I was connecting at Sunan Airport in Pyongyang, I would never sit in an airside terminal for eight hours just to avoid going through immigration and security. Eight hours is plenty of time to take the train into the city, do a little shopping or light sightseeing, have a nice lunch and be back at Schiphol to go through security and exit immigration. We've connected through AMS many times both inbound from North America as well as from elsewhere in Europe to transatlantic when coming home. Sometimes our connection times were only two or three hours, in which case we stayed airside but when we have six or eight hours we ALWAYS go into a given city. Particularly when you're so near to one of the greatest and most unique cities of Europe, Amsterdam. For crying out loud, Schiphol is only a fifteen minute train ride from Centraal Station--how could anyone resist?

highlanderfil

It will likely be pretty cold and we'll be on our way home following a hectic 10 days. Honestly, relaxing at the Yotel between flights doesn't sound like too bad of an idea given, again, we've been to Amsterdam numerous times before.

But, the point is moot. Was able to switch the return flight to one with a four-hour connection, saving about $150 in the process (update: make that $39 between the two of us, thanks, inept Delta customer service for waiting a day to rebook me so that prices went up; update2, thanks Delta's phone (!) support that eventually refunded me the $220 difference as a single eCredit rather than split it between my wife and I), so we'll just hang out in the lounge (btw, which Amex lounge is most convenient to our connection?) for a bit.