A Zaanse Schans and Giethoorn day tour is the long version: ten hours, two provinces, two hours at the windmills and an hour in a boat on the canals of a village with no roads. Four of them run, and the differences are the vehicle, the cap and whether the Afsluitdijk is on the route. Zaanse Schans windmill village tour include the half-days as well; the four below are the full ones.
Ten hours in a minibus of eight, hotel pickup at eight in the morning, two hours at the Zaanse Schans with the guided visits included, a photo stop on the Afsluitdijk and four hours in Giethoorn.
From $152 per person
The coach version: check in at 07:45 on the De Ruijterkade, back around six. Two hours at the windmills with the cheese and clog factories guided, then Giethoorn and an hour on its canals.
From $136 per person
Hotel pickup, nineteen travellers at most, and a photo stop at Zaandam's Inntel hotel between the mills and Giethoorn. Two hours at the Zaanse Schans, three at Giethoorn including the cruise.
From $152 per person
Free hotel transfers from eight, eighteen travellers at most, and bottled water and power banks on board. Two hours at the Zaanse Schans, the Lego-style hotel at Zaandam, then Giethoorn and its canals.
From $140 per person
Zaanse Schans Tours lists the shorter days alongside these, and the comparison guide works through which shape suits which traveller.
Ten to ten and a half hours, of which roughly three and a half are driving. The morning is two hours at the Zaanse Schans, with the cheese farm, the clog workshop and a diamond demonstration guided and included. Then north-east across the province boundary into Overijssel, for three to four hours in Giethoorn.
Giethoorn is a village whose lanes are canals and whose bridges are wooden footbridges, and the hour on the water is the part people remember. Two of the four also stop on the Afsluitdijk, the dam that closed the Zuiderzee.
All four give the Zaanse Schans two hours, with the guided visits in the fare. That is double what the four-village coach days allow, and enough to go inside a mill.
Not an optional extra: a guided hour cruising the Giethoorn canals is in every one of these fares, and on the small-group days the driver takes the tiller.
Two hours each way by road, with no direct public transport worth the name from Amsterdam. This is the difference between seeing it and not.
Thirty kilometres of dam between the North Sea and the IJsselmeer, with water on both sides and nothing else. It is a genuinely strange piece of engineering and almost no other tour from Amsterdam includes it.
Both are full days out of Amsterdam. They go in opposite directions and buy completely different things.
| A Giethoorn day tour | A four-village coach day | |
|---|---|---|
| Fare | From $136 a person | From $42 a person |
| Length | 10 to 10h30 | 6h30 to 8h |
| At the Zaanse Schans | 2 hours on all four | 45 minutes to 1h30 |
| Other stops | Giethoorn, and the Afsluitdijk on two | Edam, Volendam, Marken |
| On the water | An hour of canal cruising, included | An optional Amsterdam cruise on one |
| Driving time | About 3h30 | About 2h |
| Group | Eight to fifty | Fifty |
| Best for | A full day, and Giethoorn | A first trip to the Netherlands |
Compare the Zaanse Schans tours
If you have one day and want the classic North Holland villages, take the coach day and accept the short stop. If you have one day and want the best of it, these give you longer at the mills and a village most visitors never reach.
The four are closer than they look. All give two hours at the windmills and an hour on the water; what separates them is the cap, the pickup and whether the Afsluitdijk is on the route.
| Tour | Fare | Length | At the mills | Cap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giethoorn, Afsluitdijk, Zaanse Schans Day Tour Incl Hotel Pick Up | From $152 | 10 hours | 2 hours | 8 | Book |
| Giethoorn, Zaanse Schans Windmills Guided Day Trip from Amsterdam | From $136 | 10 hours 30 minutes | 2 hours | 50 | Book |
| Zaanse Schans, Lego Village, Giethoorn Day Tour Incl. Boat Cruise | From $152 | 10 hours | 2 hours | 19 | Book |
| Day Trip to Zaandam Lego Village, Zaanse Schans and Giethoorn | From $140 | 10 hours | 2 hours | 18 | Book |
Book a Zaanse Schans and Giethoorn day tour
The eight-seat minibus is the pick if you can take the fare. It is the smallest group, it includes the Afsluitdijk, and an eight o’clock hotel pickup puts you on the dike ahead of the coaches. The fifty-seat coach is roughly the same day for less money, and takes longer to move.
Book several days ahead in the high season. The minibuses capped at eight and nineteen fill first.