Amsterdam Future plans
Heineken Experience reopening seems to be delayed
In late October 2007, Heineken gave almost no notice when they closed their iconic Amsterdam attraction known as the Heineken Experience for yet another renovation. At the time they announced they would reopen in June 2008 after a major upgrade that would also greatly increase the daily capacity. While corporations tend to do things like this more quickly and efficiently than governments do, they always seem to be overly optimistic anyway, and now the word on the official Heineken Experience website says the brewery tour/multimedia circus will open in “Summer 2008.”
(new sneak preview images of the future Heineken Experience are at the bottom of this post)
So don’t hold your breath if you are visiting Amsterdam in June, and July might be wishful thinking as well, but there’s no way to know for sure since they haven’t made an official announcement. Just for comparison’s sake, the nearby and spectacular Rijksmuseum closed most of its main display areas in December 2003 for a major renovation that was scheduled to last until 2008. A few years later the completion date had slipped to 2010, and in 2007 the date was revised again to “year’s end 2012/2013” although it appears that some of the main areas may reopen before total completion.
Date: April 30th, 2008 |
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Add your Amsterdam budget hotel or hostel to the Hostel directory
If you own or operate a hostel or cheap hotel in Amsterdam - or you know someone who does - you (or they) should enter the information into the new worldwide Hostel Directory. This will be a huge and global directory of hostels and other budget accommodations. You won’t get any spam from this, but you should get some extra bookings.
The site is new but it’s part of a big travel network so it should be worth your time. Go to this hosteldirectory entry page for Amsterdam to add your …
Date: March 31st, 2008 |
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‘Extreme Marco Polo’ World Championships coming to Amsterdam in 2008
“Marco” yells Peter Shewchuk. “Polo” returns a distant voice, as Shewchuk begins swimming in a determined beeline through New York’s East River toward his training partner. Some find it remarkable that these wetsuit-clad warriors train at least six hours every day, but in the fast-growing sport of Extreme Marco Polo there is no time to rest if you are the reigning US champion and you want to stay on top.
This summer the world championships of Extreme Marco Polo will move to the canals of Amsterdam for the first time since the event begun in 1982. The traditional home of the event has been in Venice, Italy, and officials there reacted swiftly to this week’s announcement of a venue change. “The biggest event in the sport of Extreme Marco Polo deserves to stay in Italy, and we will go to great lengths to bring it back next year, “ said Italian committee chairman Aldo Nova.
Date: April 1st, 2008 |
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Amsterdam’s future is underground?
While we were publishing our Amsterdam Coffeeshops FAQ over the last two weeks, we almost missed this fascinating story about a proposal to expand the city with a massive and futuristic underground network of facilities. However unlikely it might seem to ever happen, the proposal has to be taken a bit seriously since it’s from the huge Strukton Groep, which is the construction company owned and operated by the Dutch railway.
A spokesman for the company said the plan would cost about 10 billion euros and could take up to 20 years to complete, and if the global history of large public works projects is any indicator, both of those figures are very optimistic.
Date: February 6th, 2008 |
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