Amsterdam Alternative Culture Walking Tour with Local Food Sampling

We were contacted the evening before to change the time of the tour. We arrived at the new time and the guide never arrived. The German guide arrived and could not get hold of the English guide. We are still yet to get a response, apology or refund. Terrible and complete waste of our time!!

The tour guide was friendly enough but he seems keen to finish quickly and there was no food. We seemed to dash from one spot to the next and only had 5 or 10 minutes in a shop to try some

Where to begin.. first, our guide was at least 15 minutes late. It was confusing trying to find them.. they didn't have an orange umbrella or anything that made them stand out from the rest of the crowd, which was extra tough because of the rain. Then once our German guide (don't remember his name) showed up late, we headed to a cafe where there were some snacks and interesting info about marijuana in Amsterdam.. the legal bits, permitting, regulation etc. Then off to the first coffeeshop. Of all the cute coffeeshops we have passed in our numerous walks around the city, it was a bit of a shock to enter a seedy/dive shop. The vibe was weird as we walked in.. and esp after everyone smoked a little as the guide didn't do much to keep the pace or conversation about the educational bits going. At 4pm, (2 hrs into the 2.5 hr tour and only 1 stop down so far,) people started to ask about heading to the next stop, as we were running out of time. Since this was a cultural tour as well, he took us around to point out various buildings, which if it wasn't pouring out and freezing would've been cool. So we were getting soaked for about 25 mins and freezing before we got to our next shop, which we didn't enter as a group. Apparently it's a place that doesn't allow group tours, so as we stood out in the rain, he said we can go in if we wanted. Just seemed weird. By the time we reached the 2nd shop, it was already 430p (when the tour was supposed to be finished) and he offered to still take folks to the 3rd shop which we paid for, but since all the time passed and we all had other tours to get to, we disbanded and went separate ways. Few things that stood out that made this a 1 star: 1. Over 15 mins late to even meet us 2. Spent way too much time at Cafe and first shop which made us run out of time 3. Not enough info to keep everyone engaged throughout the tour 4. Didn't get to finish the tour we all paid extra for due to reasons above 5. Didn't check in with folks to see how they were feeling after they partook. There was someone in our group having a bad/weird reaction that he didn't even notice 6. Didn't have a backup plan for rain... We were all soaked and freezing and he still wanted to quiz us on what we thought certain tiles on the side of the building meant. Even with people commenting on how cold it was, it didn't prompt him to switch it up to ensure people were comfortable. 7. Can't be sure but it seemed like maybe he partook at some point as his energy and pace changed as well Honestly, there are so many opportunities to make this a worthwhile tour, but they haven't worked out those details. You'd be better off researching highly rated coffeeshops and visit on your own time. Do a Google search on the history of it's decriminalization while you partake and you'll have a much better time than we did.

In the beginning I thought that this would be just a "get high" tour Boy was I wrong! Eric made sure not only did we know the values of what Amsterdam possessed but the overall culture as well along with "gettin high" lol He was so kind and helpful. A tour that you must take!!

The first hour of the tour provided the most value...an overview of the coffee shop culture, informative information about weed, etc. Then the visit to the first coffee shop is fine...a dive, but fine and helpful experience. After that, it almost seems like we were filling time and there was very little value to the remainder of the tour. And absolutely DO NOT purchase the 30 minute add on as it was a total waste of money. My suggestion for improving this tour? After the dive coffee shop, go to another coffee shop right away that is on the nicer side....and then call it a day.

The tour itself was alright, great insight into the coffee shop culture (the other detours were probably unnecessary) but I wish our guide gave more sufficient warning over consumption of the space cakes. We were initially told “one each”, but my husband insisted we shared one between us (thank god) and also insisted we head back to the hotel after consuming (thank god). We had the worst night of our trip. And I could not stop throwing up. We told our guide we hadn’t touched any of this for maybe 10 years and he still said “one each”. The reason we did a tour was so we could have more guidance around trying hash brownies, so pretty disappointed we wrote off a whole night out of our 3 nights in Amsterdam.

My flight was delayed I desperately tried to call the number they provided but no one ever answered ever!

Our plane was delayed over an hour. There were 10 of us in total. I called the vendor, they couldn't wait or accommodate us. Is a refund possible?

our guide was so sweet and nice...she really made this tour great! you get to stop at 2-3 coffee shops and get a little history lesson along the way...so interesting to hear how all this got started and why Amsterdam is the way it is today.

A good insight about the coffee shop culture, where to get the stuff from and how to manage its effects. Highly recommended for the coffee shop visitors.