This airport was probably the most mixed part of our recent trip…read more
The airport itself is beautiful, modern, clean, and has great views from the platform outside of Aspire. That said, if you're connecting through Amsterdam after a long overnight flight, be prepared for a lot of walking. The airport is huge, and getting between gates can feel like a workout.
Our biggest frustration was immigration. When we arrived, the electronic passport control kiosks were not operating, but it wasn't immediately clear what passengers were supposed to do. Everyone from our flight ended up being redirected into the manual passport control line, which created a bottleneck and added stress to an already tight connection.
One interesting part of the trip was boarding directly from the tarmac rather than through a jet bridge. After being bused out to the aircraft, we climbed the stairs and boarded from the ground, which offered a completely different perspective of the airport operations.
The funniest part was our connection. After walking what felt like miles through the terminal, we boarded a bus that drove us all over the tarmac and even got stuck in what I can only describe as tarmac traffic. When we finally arrived, our next aircraft was parked directly across from the plane we had just gotten off. After all that, we couldn't help but laugh. It felt like we had taken a sightseeing tour of the airport just to end up almost back where we started.
Overall, Schiphol is a nice airport with good facilities. Just wear comfortable shoes, allow extra connection time, bring patience, and expect to get plenty of steps in.