One of my favorite things about living in Amsterdam is that I don't have to depend on public…read moretransportation or a vehicle. However, after driving to South of France for the holidays I decided that I wanted to get my Dutch license. So I did a little research and this is what I found out. "You can swap your license if you are from the EU, the EEA, Switzerland OR are from a country with a special agreement or you have the 30% ruling. Americans can not swap their license for a Dutch one. Have to do the theory,practical and register with a driving school." So, I made an appointment for my Dutch license through this driving school. Talk about back to the basics. When I first found out that I could not swap my American license for a Dutch one I was truly disappointed. I could not imagine going back to driver's ed and learning all the basic rules of driving all over. So, I lucked up on on this driver ed company website (alldrive.nl) which I found out when I had to start from scratch when it came to preparing for my Dutch license in the Netherlands. I am a fan of this company because the prices with this driving school is as good as it gets in Amsterdam! A few of my Dutch friends were surprised how reasonable the prices were for the practical and theory. This company is probably the best source to go for information when it comes to preparing for your theory and practical. I even bought a book from them, so I could be prepared for the theory exam at CBR. The only disadvantage is they only drive with a stick shift, which was a big one for me because I only knew how to drive an automatic. Most of the cars in Europe are stick shifts. Talk about going through life changes.Well I am happy that I lucked up on this company because they seam the best. Also, they speak English and Dutch so I thought that was a plus being the fact that I am an expat.

From the owner: Als je wilt slagen voor je rijexamen staat onze rijschool Amsterdam garant voor een uitstekende rij…read moreopleiding. Naast rijles krijg je bij ons ook persoonlijk begeleide theorielessen en mocht je faalangst hebben, dan besteden we ook daar extra aandacht aan. Als 1 van de weinige rijscholen in provincie Noord Holland mag Autorijschool Ayana zich met recht de rijschool Amsterdam noemen, omdat verkeerstaken en vaardigheden een belangrijke aspect zijn binnen onze theorieopleidingen. Dit vergroot het rij inzicht aanzienlijk waardoor veel cursisten minder rijlessen nodig hebben om met succes het rijexamen af te leggen. Wij werken volgens de boekje van cbr niet minder maar wel veel. We beginnen altijd op een rustige omgeving en vertellen we eerst een stukje over binnen de auto waarvoor de instrumenten voor dienen. Vervolgens krijg je uitleg over de bediening van de auto en dan begin je met makkelijke oefeningen. Tijdens je rijlessen ben je feitelijke bestuurder en je rijinstructeur is dan de juridische bestuurder dat wil zeggen dat je nooit alleen voor staat. De opbouw van je rijopleiding begint altijd bij makkelijke stappen en met je voldoende vorderingen wordt het elke keer ietsje meer er word altijd rekening gehouden met je niveau. Wij vertellen onze lessen altijd zoals het is beschreven in het boekje van de rij procedure B. Wij doen er echt alles aan om van jouw een veilig zelfstandige bestuurder te maken. Wij geven les in een nieuwe Volkswagen Golf dat door Cbr goedgekeurd

From the owner: Onze rijschool biedt kwalitatief hoogwaardige rijles in een gemoedelijke sfeer. Door de…read morepersoonlijke benadering van onze gemotiveerde instructeurs leveren wij maatwerk. Daardoor neem je geen les teveel. Dit is ook te merken aan onze hoge slagingspercentages bij het CBR. Je kan bij ons terecht voor bromfiets- , motor- en autorijles. Zowel voor beginners als gevorderden. Wij geven ook spoedcursussen, opfrislessen, rijangst- en faalangstbegeleiding. Ook geven wij theoriecursus voor auto en bromfiets.

I only did a trial lesson here before I ran away, far away. The instructor was using half…read moredutch/half english, even though the lesson was supposed to be in English. His 'assessment' involved nitpicking all sorts of small things he claimed that I did (but I didn't!) to demonstrate that I was really bad at driving and I needed lots of lessons. Afterwards I was handed off to a smarmy guy in a suit who pressured me into signing up for a 1300 euro driving lesson package. And that was a 'special offer' that I had to agree to the same day or else the price would go up. It didn't matter to him that I had driven for 15 years in America. He gave me the hard sell that he was "concerned about my driving success", and that involved signing up for a 35 lesson package, because you can't "just start driving and sign up for the test whenever. It has to be a coordinated effort." He also pressured me into buying their English study book set (for 40 euros!) that didn't even come with a practice test book in English. He gave me a Dutch practice test book and that was missing the section with the answers to the questions, so he had to mail me a photocopy of the answer set later. I of course lost the answer set from the book later when I actually needed it a few years later, so I had to do practice tests online instead of using the book I purchased. Their website claims they have a high success rate for their students passing the driving exam, but if they pressure everyone to sign up for giant non-refundable package deals then I can see how they do that. Their other selling point is that they drive the routes that the testers drive, but that is not unique to them. That area of Amsterdam is lousy with driving schools who all drive on the same roads as the exam is given on, so you can easily find an alternative school, and I encourage you to do so.

Warning! Don't choose this driving school! All the time during my lessons was a drivable car,…read morehowever last minute (15mins) before my exam, they ask me to drive another one which is almost broken! The boss only care about money, he doesn't care of whether u can pass the exam or not. Walk away from this school ASAP really

I bought a 10-hour package from this school, and ended up using 7 of the hours before I quit and…read moreasked for my money back for the remaining lessons. I got the guy that everyone says is super awesome according to their google reviews, Brahim. He was really nice during the free trial lesson, up until I agreed to buy the 10 hour package. After that the quality of lessons drastically declined. The most disturbing thing is that the guy was always on his phone during the lessons, probably 80%-90% of the time we were in the car together. Between all his text messages and phone calls and screenshots and web browsing, I felt like I was driving around this guy in his mobile office. It was pretty nerve wracking at first, driving without him giving me any input as to what I should be doing, but I eventually got used to it. It got to be aggravating though when he would say I wasn't looking in my mirrors, but I don't know how he could see that when he was constantly looking at his phone. He also wouldn't listen to my questions and would give me generic answers over and over again until he finally stopped and listened to what I was actually asking him. Sometimes this process would waste a lot of time, and left us both pretty aggravated. I signed up for lessons in English, but he didn't know a lot of the English driving terms, and either used Dutch words, or direct translations from Dutch to English. This caused a decent amount of problems. At one point he was telling me to "go in reverse" as I was driving around a corner. I was like "You want me to go in reverse? Here?" And he said yes, so I started to brake, and he said "No braking!" and again I asked "You want me to go into reverse without braking the car?" and he again confirmed that's what he wanted, so I started to put the car into reverse and he freaked out and told me to stop everything and pull into a company driveway, so I did that.Then he told me not to block the driveway, after he just told me to pull into it! Then he described that he wanted me to go into this driveway and then go in reverse while turning into the street, so that I end up pointing in the opposite direction. So I was like "Oh, you want me to do a 3-point turn?" And he said "Yes, that". So then I explained that "going in reverse" means putting the car into reverse and going backwards. (That's what the little "R" on the stick shift means!) Making a turn is called making a turn. He didn't care that he was using a literal translation of the Dutch term, which is a totally wrong word in English, and he just kept going on about what I did wrong. The fact that he doesn't know basic car driving terminology when that's how he make his living didn't bother him at all. This experience was the WTF that broke the camel's back. Before then I also had problems with him showing up 10-15 minutes late and then ending the lesson on time, even when I was his last student, so he could have gone longer if he wanted to but he didn't. One time was ok, but the second or third time he did it was annoying. I was also super annoyed that when I got in the car for the second lesson, there was a different instructor in the passenger seat than the guy I signed up with. I had heard this would happen at some point, so I could get a different perspective on my driving and what points I needed to work on. But doing it for the second lesson was kind of ridiculous, because I clearly wasn't ready for the exam yet. I didn't need another guy to tell me I wasn't ready and I needed work, I already knew that! And he didn't say anything the whole time about what I could do to improve my driving, or what I did wrong, he just made idle chit chat about where I was from and then at the end he ripped me apart told me I didn't know anything about driving, and that he was surprised I passed the theory exam, because I made so many driving mistakes. So he was useless and insulting! A winning combination. To their credit, they did agree to refund me the money for the lessons I hadn't yet taken in the lesson package, so I didn't need to stick it out with someone I was starting to dislike. After all these bad experiences I was glad to get my time and money back. Especially since I had to travel an hour each way by public transport to Sloterdijk because they wouldn't pick me up at home, I am more than happy to try another driving school.

From the owner: Rijschool, autorijles , motorrijles, Theoriecursusread more