Review Topic:  Overview

My wife, daughter, and I stayed in Amsterdam this past July enroute to a cruise of the Scandinavian capitals on the Celebrity Millennium. We arrived in Amsterdam and the airport is a distance from the city center and about a $28 taxi ride. The airport is huge but well organized.

We checked into the Crowne Plaze City Centre which is a very spacious and modern hotel. No problems were encountered at the hotel in any way.

We walked to the Ann Frank House and did some general sightseeing and I was dismayed to see how Amsterdam had gone downhill in the few years since I had last been there. There are now "coffee shops" that advertise what types of hashish and marijuana they sell inside. There are sex shops that openly have adult porno displayed in the windows. There is the smell of marijuana drifting out of the stores onto the streets. These are not in the red light district but in the main shopping areas of the city. I would understand if it were confined to the red light areas but this was terrible.

We walked into the Central Train Station and it was full of teenagers and early 20's laying all around on the floors. The city streets were also full of young people sprawled over the storefronts in the evenings either drunk or passed out on drugs. There was garbage everywhere in the city - on the sidewalks, in the gutters, in the canals.

Churches have been made into shopping malls and museums. I did not see one active church in the downtown Amsterdam area. Do not get me wrong and think I am a religious fanatic but Amsterdam was a leading religious center for many years. What happened? I think the answer is the legalization of drugs such as hashish and marijuana and the legalization of prostitution.

The streets of Amsterdam are full of young people strung out on drugs and American parents should know this before allowing their sons and daughters to go there for a summer break.



Recommended: No