krazykanuck

I'm going to Amsterdam via Mexico including AM and KL Y

I forgot about this trip until about 5 weeks ago, and then remembered I had booked this silly AeroMexico error fare to Amsterdam for like $375 back in May. Well I suppose I'll go, and then I took half of the time to hop over to Budapest, a city I under explored last time I was there 2 years ago.

Segments:

The way to Europe (AM IAH-MEX-AMS)
Amsterdam
Budapest (including KL AMS-BUD-AMS)
Amsterdam V2
The way home (AM AMS-MEX-IAH)

Day 0

My flight to MEX was due to leave at 5:20pm, so I was already going to have to leave work a bit early, but then the shooting event at FLL broke out that day and Houston was having a fair amount of rain and near freezing temperatures, so I left work around 2.

After leaving my car at my preferred car park, it was a bit over an hour from door to checked in. AM participates in TSA Pre, but Terminal D security is still a mess, and has been for years. There is no actual Pre lane and while they advertise 4 lanes open, they only have 2 of the human X-ray machines so 2 lanes of people and bags go through 1 people X-ray.

After an hour in the Centurion Lounge making some calls and eating dinner, it was time to head back upstairs. The new menu is fantastic and I could eat the shredded beef for any meal. It doesn’t look pretty, but it sure was tasty.



AM 471
IAH-MEX

Operated as an AM Connect flight by an EMB190, it was quite funny to see it parked at D6 with an EY 777 next door, a UA 787 parked on the tarmac, and an LH A380 taxiing behind it. Baby plane in a sea of giants!



Flight was a bit late departing, but once at altitude, they had a snack and full complimentary beverage service. I pecked at the snack and had a tequila and Sprite. The plane was outfitted with streaming entertainment over wifi using the Gogo app, which was a pleasant surprise.



We landed at a bus gate and were taken to MEX T2 where we met a 1 plus hour queue for immigration. After an hour in line, and I estimate we probably had another 30-45 minutes wait, the Mexican passport queue became empty, so they split the foreigners queue in 2 groups. I was lucky to be at the front of the group that got moved over so was through immigration and customs within 10 minutes of that decision!


Amex Lounge T2

I've been to the Amex lounge in T1 before and this one was a bit different in that it's very open and loud, due to the high/non-existent ceilings in T2 and they were enforcing table service only for drinks and not letting people sit at the bar. Not sure if that's policy or just the people working, but the table service wasn't continual. If you ordered something, they had it to you in like 90 seconds, but then my glass sat empty for 10 minutes with anybody noticing.

So I wondered over to the AeroMexico lounge (Priority Pass accessible) and found it much more my style. They had a limited selection of snacks, like little sandwiches, ramen cups, chips, etc. but more importantly they had a bar you could actually sit at, or you could free pour liquor or beer from one side of the lounge.

After a couple generous tequilas, time to go to gate 58 to board.

AM25
MEX-AMS

I had been assigned a window seat upon online check in, but was able to swap that for an aisle at the airport. AM charges for seat assignments on their long haul flights, so while my flight looked 75% empty beforehand, it was actually full since so few people paid for seat assignments.

Sitting in 20C, I was thankful to have 2 normal sized and quiet row mates. Shortly after takeoff the FAs came around with dinner, which many people skipped, as it was well past midnight local time. I had the "chicken" and the other option was "pasta". You were on your own beyond that! The chicken was fine, nothing remarkably good or bad about it. I was still hungry so I asked the FA if they had extra pasta dishes I'd like one. He said he'd check and then never came back to tell me they were out, or to bring me an extra one, so a bit of a miss there.



Standard economy isn't too bad on the 787, but I quickly realized how spoiled I'd become as I haven't flown long haul Y since Sept 2015. I slept on and off for about 6 hours, and finally got up when they switched on the lights at T-2 to serve breakfast. Breakfast was offered with no options. The only option was scrambled eggs with black beans, which to be fair, was actually pretty good. With the fruit, yogurt, and mediocre muffin, it was a decent Y breakfast.




One thing I noticed, and not sure if it's because of row 20s proximity to the lavs, or it's the 787, but there was a pretty lengthy queue for the lav after breakfast.

Though for all of its shortcomings, AM has quite possibly the best/worst safety video of all time. It features a guy stowing a doll that one would use in a puppet show, and for the part where you put your one oxygen mask on before helping others, shows two teenage lovebirds kiss, in lieu of the parent child stereotype. And luckily for you dear readers, it exists on Youtube! Gotta love the internet. Also features a flight attendant who based on my flights is clearly an actress, and does not exist in the AM flight attendant pool. Start from 1:10 and watch to 2:00 for the best parts:


We landed and after a lengthy walk to immigration, I was through in only a few minutes and outside to catch the shuttle bus.

Hampton Inn Schipol

In my likely fruitless quest to requalify for diamond, you're in for a year of Hilton stay reports!

Figuring I'd camp here for a night and head into the city, I booked it. Also free airport shuttle.

Overall a pretty quiet and memory less stay, but one quirk was the shower. I'll never understand these euro showers that look like they should close or have a curtain, and then don't. On the plus side they had a great breakfast for a Hampton inn. US Hamptons could learn a thing or two, if your Euro versions can serve eggs that look like eggs, you can too!

gaobest

Exciting TR! Fun flights. Which partner airline will you apply the AM flight, unless you are building status with AM

Bretteee

How did you find the error fare?

The food on AM is always mediocre. I had no idea they go to Amsterdam.

djjaguar64

I like that breakfast but serving beans on a plane, omg, the gases and snd the sounds.

krazykanuck

Thanks. These flights are all going to be credited to my AS account. Thought about putting them to DL but I find DL miles much easier to earn by other easy means and am working towards accumulating enough AS miles for another redemption.

Saw it announced here, as well as a couple blogs mentioned it. AM serves Amsterdam, Paris, and London (I believe).

krazykanuck

Day 1 in AMS

After having breakfast, I took the train to Amsterdam Centraal and then the ferry to the Doubletree to drop off my suitcase. My room wasn't ready at noon, so I left the bag and took off back to the city.

I had a couple hours to kill before by distillery tour and tasting at Wynand Fockink, so I walked through the old town, finding everything from my company's Amsterdam office only a couple blocks from Centraal Station, to the flower market, and way too many coffee houses! Sadly I doubt I can come up with a business reason to make a trip back here...







At 3 pm I had my distillery tour and the 2 other people no showed, so it was just me and the tour guide for 75 mins. He went over the basics of distilling, but we mostly worked my way around the various liquors and spirits they distill. I tasted everything from their sweet liquors, to a couple of the bitters that even my guide cautioned to taking a small taste of.



A specialty shot the guide made for me



I ran back to the hotel to check in and then went back to the city to check out the walkable portion of Amsterdam Lights festival, as well as walking through the city's infamous red light district, which aside from all the sex toy shops, was far less leud and out there than I'd have guessed. Many of the traditional red light Windows were not on and unoccupied and had for rent signs hung in them.

Look at how orderly they wait for the ferry!











Doubletree Amsterdam NDSM Wharf

From googling, this is a relatively new addition to the Hilton portfolio, and I'll say I quite like it though it's not without its oddities. I thought it was a good value at 75 EUR a night, booked during the Hilton Winter Sale.

Arriving at the hotel requires taking a free ferry from Centraal station that runs on the :15 and :45 of every hour, and more frequently during rush hour. There is very little near the hotel besides a couple restaurants. I was welcomed warmly and helped to anything I needed during checkin, though I did manage to decline the Doubletree chocolate chip cookie, now that I know the nutrition facts for it.

Room: In a word, let's call them fun sized. They're small and there is honestly not a lot of room. It feels like a NYC hotel room, in that it gets the job done in as little space as possible. Once in the room, they are well appointed. There is a mini fridge, along with a Nespresso machine and a kettle for tea. My only real complaint is that the bed in my room was two twin mattresses pushed together with no effort to bridge the gap between them, which seems like a very worthwhile expense.









Breakfast was provided in the hotel restaurant, Brooklyn, and was very good! ^









Day 2 in AMS (Monday)

After breakfast, I decided to go full Amsterdam and rent a bike for the day. The bike rental from the hotel is €16 for the full day.



First up was a visit to the Rijksmuseum





One of the exhibits that might appeal to this forum



I then rode over to the Anne Frank house which I enjoyed, but they herd so many people through there it is basically an assembly line of people and not much room to move around.

Late afternoon I went to a local brewery, Brouwerij 't IJ, for a few beers. It was a short bike ride from Central station and had a good variety of tasty beers for about €3-4 each, which is not too bad for Amsterdam. For dinner just ordered a sausage plate at the brewery.

By the end of the day I was riding my bike like a local and angrily ringing the bell at pedestrians that got in my way!

offerendum

Smallest piece of cheese they found

roadwarrier

I was also a bit concerned, but hey, it is at the end of the flight, so the poor PAX (and their friends / colleagues) can too share in their breakfast later on.

djjaguar64

Thats funny, lol

757

Great report so far! I'd love to visit Amsterdam. My mom has a good friend there and has been several times; it's definitely one of the cities in Europe I'd like to visit next.

camsean

Interesting TR so far. I'm looking forward to the rest.

krazykanuck

KL 1975
AMS-BUD

I had a 10 am flight to Budapest, so I was up fairly early and caught the 7am ferry back to Central station and was at AMS around 8am. There was a passable Priority Pass lounge on the Schengen part of the airport, but nothing worth going too far out of your way for. For breakfast they just had cold cuts, yogurt, bread and rolls, but nothing hot or particularly tasty. Also had a tap of draught Heinekin and a soda machine.

Since I was up super early for no reason, I quickly fell asleep on the plane, woke up for the snack and a beer, and back to sleep until approach.

Throwback KLM livery



Beautiful day flying over Eastern Europe.



My AirBnb on Sip st

With my preferred Hilton creeping too expensive as I debating booking it, I went for an AirBnb that was $150 for 3 nights.

It was a nice place with everything you could want for a quick stop in town. It's right near 2 key Metro stops and close to tons of good bars and restaurants.

The owner dropped by a few minutes after I arrived to show me around the place. Couple pics stolen from the Airbnb page since I didn’t take any of my own.



Day 1 in BUD

I took a shared shuttle service to the apartment because the line to buy a metro card was super long, operated by 1 person who was going at a stereotypically slow public employee speed, and didn't accept Euros and I didn't have any HUF yet. It wasn’t too long of a wait or drive. At about $13 was way more than the bus/metro combination, but as I walked out of the airport, noted that line was not moving anywhere close to my speed.

After saying goodbye to the Airbnb host and feeling a bit peckish, I wondered a few blocks down for a late lunch and a beer. Had a delicious goulash and pasta dish along with a local beer for only a few bucks. Beers were about $1.50 thanks to the price and FX rate.

For the rest of the day I took it easy and figured out the next 2 days to find the places I missed last time in Budapest.

Day 2 Budapest

I had a tough time dragging myself out of my nice warm bed and by the time I got the breakfast, I had to settle for lunch because I got there after 11. Oh well.





I walked past the opera house as it was a block away…



…and then quickly found the bus stop. The weather today was chilly, with the high registering only ~30 degrees F. Over to the Hungarian state house





And then to the Hungarian National Museum







I began to get thirsty so I headed off to Jonas Craft Beer House, so I took the tram from the museum to Fovem Ter, which is the final stop on this tram before it crosses the Danube. The bar was a short walk down the river, or you could take the tram which runs along the river.

The Danube facing façade of one of the universities, adjacent to Fovem Ter station.





I don’t have any good pictures of the bar, but the beers are all local and good, and run about 1000 HUF, or about $3.

I had secured dinner reservations at Zeller Bistro, one of the top rated restaurants in Budapest. So let’s go there, via the tram with a stop at a nearby craft beer bar I loved on my first visit.

This was about the time I had a throwback to FlyIgglesFly’s Minsk TR and his interactions with “way too hot to be a ______” women. I saw her, “way too hot to be a police woman”. She was walking the beat with her partner, her long shiny brown hair glimmering in the cold winter sun, and managed to make the standard Soviet military style fur hat look really cute! No pictures, because, well obviously. Sorry.

Oh right where were we? Csakajósör. Or supposedly, “Only Good Beer” when translated to English. This place seems to have expanded ever so slightly since I was here last. It’s a spartan space with bottles of beer lining all the walls and about 6-7 beers on tap to drink there.



Over to Zeller, which was a short walk



Appetizer; smoked duck breast salad



Main; 3 weeks later I don’t exactly recall what this was. It was a special as I don’t see it on the menu, I believe fish with risotto. It was amazing though.



The bottle of Hungarian Pinot Noir that I may or may not have drank most of



After a fantastic dinner, it was back to the Airbnb to crash

Day 3 in Budapest

We woke to a dusting of snow overnight (as seen in the courtyard of the building)



I made it to breakfast this morning to a restaurant a couple blocks away for their €5 special. It wasn’t anything special, but the coffee was on point.





Alright, off for the day! Very much like the bus, I too get sad faced when I’m not in service….



A very frigid looking Danube, as seen from the Chain Bridge



Making a return visit to the Castle Hill





Walking back down to the street



No sooner that I was back at ground level, decided to go back to the Citadella







Budapest seems to want to host the Summer Olympics in 7 years, as these signs were visible in multiple parts of town





Now somewhere I had not been on my prior trip was one of the many baths in Budapest. Tonight I went to one of the largest and best known, the Szechenyi Bath, which is in City Park. I didn’t take any pictures as I left my phone in the locker, but man was it relaxing. Except the hustle from the locker room to the 40 degree Celcius water when the air is below 0 celcius.

After the bath, I had a repeat dinner at Café Kor, a favorite from my previous visit. But to get there, a ride on Budapest’s Metro Line 1, which as I learned from a fellow FTer is the oldest operating subway line in Europe as it was built in the late 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_1_(Budapest_Metro)



Caprese salad to start (though presenting the butter for the bread in the middle of the salad is a bit )



Sirloin goulash for the main. OMG. That sauce. The steak.



The dessert was like $2 so I said why not



In an attempt to walk it off, I went to shoot some night shots of Castle Hill, the Bridge, and the Gresham Palace (formerly an SPG Luxury Collection hotel, now a Four Seasons)

farbster

Did you book the Anne Frank House ahead of time? We did and were glad that we did. The line was pretty long...

krazykanuck

Back to Amsterdam

While my time in Budapest was over, I felt that I had done the city more justice than my first time through. Though in my original TR I said I would come back when it was warmer. Well that clearly did not happen as January is materially colder than November. Just FYI.

I took the metro to the airport, which not unlike getting to LGA from Manhattan, requires taking the subway to some far flung, in this case a literal end of the line station, and then a transfer to an airport express bus. From my Airbnb total time was about an hour.

BUD is a very simple airport and despite a slight queue for security I was at the lounge probably 20 mins after getting to the airport.

Much like AMS, the Priority Pass lounge is not going to win any accolades, but then again it is BUD and the PP lounge is the same one most airlines outsource their elites to.


KL 1976
BUD-AMS

Not surprisingly this flight was a carbon copy of the inbound. I slept. I drank a Heinekin. I ate a cheese sandwich.

Now had I known what I know now, I would have just booked my last night at the Doubletree again. Unfortunately for me I booked at a Hampton near the Arena that required a paid metro fare to and from Central station. It was cheaper than the Doubletree but in hindsight I probably paid just as much in additional metro fares to get to and from the hotel than if I had just booked the DT to begin with.

Amsterdam Again

I woke up on the last day and arrived downtown to THIS!





SNOW! Ok time to head back to Texas….

I wondered around for a bit just seeing parts of the city and stopped in at Singel 404 for a sandwich. Fantastic for about €7.

A couple hours later, the snow had disappeared and the sun came out making it a pleasant day





To quench the afternoon beer thirst, I took a different ferry back across the water to Oedipus Brewing. Tasty and unique beer for about €4 each.





AM26
AMS-MEX

When I went to OLCI, it redirected me to KLM.com, which is fine. So when I arrived at the airport I went to drop my bag at the KLM area and was told, no no, you have to go to the AM desk. Alright, I figured they wouldn't have a desk for a 3x weekly flight and OLCI directed me to KLM, but whatever.

Go over to the Departures 3 wing of AMS and at T-4 there it is, the AM desk being set up by a squad of bright blue KLM uniforms. They even had the authenticity to the home country to roll out a cart with little potted cacti on it! The few guys with Mexican passports that were by me saw this and just started laughing and taking pictures too.



Also I can neither confirm nor deny that flashing my regular old Amex Plat worked to gain access to the business class checkin line, which includes any variety of skyteam elite, purchasers of AM Plus seating, Amex AM Platinum card, and some Santander card.

After breezing through check in, security, and immigration I found my way to the Priority Pass lounge, which is down a few hallways, up some stairs, and might have been in another terminal. Not really sure about that last part, but I do know it’s all connected airside and was a decent walk from the outstation that AM’s check in desks are relegated to!

While the lounge had a fully mediocre selection of food, they had decent liquors available, such as Jack Daniels. Of course they only had Heineken on tap. Pretty sure this entire country (other than micro breweries) doesn’t realize anything else exists.

The gate lice! AM doesn’t appear to try to board by any real system on the long haul flights, though they use zones on short hauls.



Dinner: not pictured, but I had pasta. It was decent but nothing memorable.

Breakfast:



I slept as much of the flight as possible but I had a really broad shouldered Hungarian dude next to me that took up more than his fair share of space and I didn’t sleep well, so I powered through about 50% of Stranger Things on Netflix that I had downloaded to my iPad.

We left AMS like 2 hours late for little known reason. The captain blamed it first on needing to deice, but then announced over an hour later that we were 30 minutes away from our turn for deicing.

Back at MEX, another crazily long immigration line awaited us. Thankfully they had more people working now than on the prior leg, but it still took over 30 mins.

I skipped the Amex lounge and headed straight for the AM lounge. They have chilaquiles for breakfast, which I enjoyed ^





After that it was time for the short hop back to Houston on a very tired looking regional jet. Since I didn’t sleep well on the overnight flight, I slept the whole way back to Houston and was through with Global Entry in a matter of a couple minutes and then got to wait what felt like forever for my bag.

And this brings the trip to a close! With the exception of a couple weekend trips I’m more or less house bound until April. But thankfully that trip will be to Japan via ANA J.

krazykanuck

Yep. Bought the tickets for both museums online.