[PamelaC]

Another question: The hotel at the Amsterdam airport is booked for 4/1. Does anyone know how to get a transit visa from the airport. Our agency just said we could get a visa.

Thanks
Pam

[leeinmemphis]

when you go thru immigration that you can get like a 24 hour visa for your child.... we went thru Amsterdam on trip 1 and saw where you could get it but my DH wanted to take a direct flight home to reduce the possibility of any "ordeal" with two small kids in tow.

I liked going thru Ams. because it gave you a little more time to acclimate the old body clock but it didnt seem like too big of a deal if you had to do the short term visa thing.

good luck!

alli

[LindaBel]

We went to the Dutch immigration desk/office in the terminal (just to the right of the control area you pass through to clear immigration). They will issue your child a transit visa as long as you will be departing again within 24 hours. The whole process took about 10 minutes.

A couple of hotel suggestions - there is a Courtyard Marriott offsite but with a free shuttle that you catch just outside the terminal. Shuttle runs on a regular schedule. There's also a Sheraton right at the airport - no shuttle, a short walk from the terminal (there's a pedestrian bridge). You can book either on line. there are lots of other hotels in the area, check out http://www.schiphol.nl/ and search on "hotels"

The airline (NW/KLM) checked our bags all the way through in Moscow, so we didnt need to claim luggage in Amsterdam (just kept an overnight bag with us). They also gave us our boarding passes in Moscow for our flight back to the US, so we were able to skip the check in line in Amsterdam and go straight to security when we were leaving