The ship arrived around 7am but we didn't need to be at the Anne Frank house until 10:15 so we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before departing from the ship around 9am. We were routed around the terminal and deposited on the street with no taxies, map or greeting by any HAL or local personnel. I personally find it reprehensible that HAL and the Port would do this in such a large and developed city. Later in the day I spoke with the Hotel Director and he indicated they discovered the mistake and fixed it. Fortunately we're self-supporting travellers so we used the rudimentary ship provided map. We found signs pointing us to the 'City Center 6 minutes walk'. So we followed the map and wandered our way to the Anne Frank house.
We arrived a bit early so we looked around a bit and decided to purchase a combination Hop on Hop off bus / canal ticket for 28€ each. At the appointed hour we entered the Anne Frank house. The tour winds its way through the house with a number of displays and commentaries. The crowd moved through quietly and very respectfully. All too soon we exited the museum.
I will make one observation about acquiring a ticket to the event. Purchase it online a minimum of several weeks in advance and you can select a specific time. Or you can take your chances by standing in line in the afternoon for a ticket. On this day in the afternoon the line went around the block!
We then rode the 2 hour trip around the outer canal before getting off and finding a little cafe where we enjoyed a very nice local lunch. We then hopped on the blue line canal boat and did the hour loop after waiting an hour for a boat that's supposed to come every 20 minutes. We rode it around another partial loop to its nearest stop close to the terminal. We walked back to the cruise ship terminal by a different route that turned out to be more efficient and it will help us in a week when we need to navigate to the Central Station for our train ride to Heidelberg, Germany.
After a very quick dinner in the LIDO, we were shuttled to the Rijksmuseum for a night at the museum sponsored by HAL. It was a really nice event and over 1500 passengers participated in this free event.
Back at the terminal we enjoyed some really nice WIFI before reboarding the ship for a short night's sleep. It had been a really nice day in this port city. What would day two in Amsterdam bring?
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