Mademoiselle Fifi:

Je n'ai jamais souffré à CDG comme à Schiphol.

Amitiés,
DerViking

Keep checking for schedule changes. My return flight just got changed, and Delta hasn't bothered to email me. The 9-hour layover in Amsterdam turned into less than 6 hours. I assume that's no longer enough time to go into the city as I did 2 months ago?

Six hours is probably enough time to go into the city, but you wouldn't have a lot of time. I would think it would take just over 1 hour to go from the airplane to the city center. If you are connecting onto a US-bound flight, then you would probably want to leave the main station a bit more than 2-1/2 hours before your departure. Let's call it 4 hours of out of the 6, leaving you a couple of hours to head into the city for a bite to eat. You might also try one of the escorted tours that leave directly from the airport.

Good morning, charnees. Here is a just posted thread by our Fodorite Palenque who just returned from AMS yesterday and what he experienced. I thought I would post it here FYI in case you haven't seen it on the Europe Forum.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...long-waits.cfm

I actually think Palenque's experience doesn't change much. The strategy is the same as always - wait until the line is almost gone before getting in it. Whether Palenque showed up 2 hours before or 20 minutes before, he would have taken off at the same time.

The point of Pal's thread is that he was told he HAD to show up at 12:30 in order to board the plane that had a departure time of 14:10 so he did consequently.

I wasn't there, I am NOT going to debate the subject, I just posted Pal's thread for charnee to read if she chooses to do so.

<i>The point of Pal's thread is that he was told he HAD to show up at 12:30 in order to board the plane that had a departure time of 14:10 so he did consequently.</i>

I know that is what they tell you, but that doesn't mean you need to do it, and I was trying to shed some light on how the process works in practice. I fly through AMS maybe 15-25 times each year, and there are some tricks to making your trip more comfortable. Chief among them is not going through security for US bound flights until the last minute.

As AMS does security at the gate, once you pass screening, you are stuck in a little room until you get on the plane. It becomes a big game of hurry up and wait. Since you can't take water or any other drinks through, showing up 2 hours early kind of sucks. Even if they let you board early, as they did with Pal, you are still stuck in a cramped airplane.

The better strategy is to wander over to the gate and gauge the line. If the line is as long as it was in Pal's case, why get in it? You aren't going to get to your destination any faster. Just wander around the airport and wait until the line only has a dozen people or so before joining it. You will spend less time standing in line and less time in the holding cell or on the plane.

They tell you to show up early because they need the time to clear all of the people on the plane. There is no reason, however, why you need to be the person taking one for the team and being at the gate 3 hours early.

One more thing, even if you are really late, they will call you. It is quite a thrill to hear your name in the ubiquitous late boarding call:

Passenger travelgourmet, traveling to DTW, you are delaying the flight. Immediate boarding, please, at gate D47 or we will proceed to offload your luggage.

All in that flat Dutch accent that makes it seem like it is being spoken by a computer.