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What a perfect time to count the cost of weedfest
Flights @ £47
Hotel @ £305
Airport parking @ £31
Travel insurance @ 12
Petrol to Liverpool and home @ £35
Spending money @ £400 was £500 but brought £100 home
so all in all it was approx £850 which includes booking fees over the Internet and worth every single penny

ive been twice now and normally its about 65 for flights 55 for a room for the night stayed in 2 different hotels so its a rough price next month im staying in voyagers for the night and its the same price 300 euros for weed 60 for food and 50 for safe keeping just incase

This had me thinking. Drive, train or fly are much the same at about £100 return. Three nights hotel/apartment about £200. 72Hr travel card about £15. Three days smokeables about £150 (bleedin lightweight ). Food and drinks around £150. Incidentals bring it up to around £650 for three fun filled days and nights. Absolute bargain.

Well lets see what I can come up with to better my last entry...
Transportation - 98 Euro return trip with train... free if catching a ride with someone going that way (promise them gas money but when time to pay, claim the little bit of cash was lost at the last rest stop when using the toilet...
Accommodations - Free; I'll just crash with someone else, use an excuse not yet heard for why I don't have a bed...
Meals - Free; I'll hang around the back of select restaurants, when food is thrown away, I'm there for the fresh catch...
Weed/Hash - Free; I'll hang around a few select coffee shops and smoker friendly establishments... someone is bound to offer, but if not, I'll find a way to mooch a little, just enough to get me through til morning...
Total: 98 Euros, possibly free if timing is right...
...

Getting there and back: £40-£100 depending on season, route, method.

Hotel room: €25-€50 per night.

Topping up chipkaart: maybe €10-€15 if I'm there for a few days.

If I'm on my own, I wouldn't generally go out to eat, so not more than €10 a day for juice, bread, meat, cheese, whatever looks exotic in comparison with UK supermarket offerings.

Coffee (usually, sometimes juice) in coffeeshops: €10-€15 or so a day.

Smokeables: probably the hardest to work out, though it's what I'm there for. I'm looking at having maybe an ounce or so follow me back home, but what it's composed of will vary from €6 a gram basic Afghan to whatever the Birdy's jelly works out as. Weed generally works out more expensive than hash per gram, but I get less of it, because of the bulk. So it depends on what's available and takes my fancy on any particular visit. A few hundred euros, obviously.

One-off purchase of museumkaart at €50, which means most museums are free for a year. Well worth it, if only for the feeling that you don't have to get your money's worth every time you go into an overpriced museum – you can do whatever you want and come back the next day or in a few months' time.

Buying tobacco here is a kind of negative expense for those of us in the UK; even with recent price increases, you're paying less in the Netherlands. So you might as well.

I keep meaning to see a film in that cinema that everyone says you have to experience, but they've never had anything on I wanted to see. Films, theatre, music, or that sort of thing – it would depend on what happened to be on, so it's more miss than hit if you don't plan it. The same with shopping; in theory I might buy something that caught my eye that I couldn't get back home, but in practice it's rare.

Uncle Ron wrote:Well lets see what I can come up with to better my last entry...
Transportation - 98 Euro return trip with train... free if catching a ride with someone going that way (promise them gas money but when time to pay, claim the little bit of cash was lost at the last rest stop when using the toilet...
Accommodations - Free; I'll just crash with someone else, use an excuse not yet heard for why I don't have a bed...
Meals - Free; I'll hang around the back of select restaurants, when food is thrown away, I'm there for the fresh catch...
Weed/Hash - Free; I'll hang around a few select coffee shops and smoker friendly establishments... someone is bound to offer, but if not, I'll find a way to mooch a little, just enough to get me through til morning...
Total: 98 Euros, possibly free if timing is right...
...

Tart

n/t

$3,500-$5,000 for a week. Like Treetop, food is my cheapest expense.

Where do you guys find such cheap hotels? I can't ever seem to get less than 100euro/night. I'm okay with 3stars, but no less (and even then there are some three star hotels which shouldn't even have 1 star). I usually use Booking.com, hotels.nl, or the Lindburgh Tours guy at Damrak 26.

Can't speak from experience for Dam in particular, but hostels/guest houses are a lot better than you'd think. For most of Europe I've used hostel review sites (like hostel world) They are cheaper, usually better located, and have all the essentials. The star system doesn't exist but reviews tend to pick up the cream of the crop and rank them highly. I've stayed in some hostels which would rival 3*+ hotels at a fraction of the cost.

nooris wrote:I can't ever seem to get less than 100euro/night.

I don't see how. Even for the upcoming bank holiday weekend, when you'd expect things to be pricey at short notice, there are three and even four star hotels available for that sort of money on Trivago or Booking.com. But if I want stars, I look at the heavens; in Mokum there are places where the lack of lifts, say, will keep the stars down, but that's character, isn't it? Lifts always seem to me to be cheating over there.

Made me think of what one wants from a hotel. I'd like a clean room, either central or in de Pijp, with breakfast, the facility to have a smoke and a television, because I never watch it at home and eurocrap is a guilty pleasure for me on holiday, the way dope is for some lightweights. But depending on what's available, I might sacrifice some of that. I didn't want a TV in Leeuwarden enough to pay over the odds for a room with one, and being allowed to smoke trumps ensuite toilet at a pinch, as at Bema and Abba, as long as the shared facilities are reasonable.

The worst place, from my point of view, was EasyHotel. A double for €25 early last year was a bargain, and they've got a lift – but the sodding windows don't open, and there's no breakfast, only a drinks machine (which I refused on point of principle, but my Dutch companion of the time surprised me by getting coffee from.) I'm not human without morning caffeine, and in A'dam I want my wake 'n' bake. It wasn't until we'd staggered out for coffee at a café on Zieseniskade, and shortly afterwards to Noon for some blueberry and more coffee, that I was set up for the day.

The worst place, from my point of view, was EasyHotel. A double for €25 early last year was a bargain, and they've got a lift – but the sodding windows don't open, and there's no breakfast, only a drinks machine (which I refused on point of principle, but my Dutch companion of the time surprised me by getting coffee from.) I'm not human without morning caffeine, and in A'dam I want my wake 'n' bake. It wasn't until we'd made our way for coffee a café on Zieseniskade, and shortly afterwards to Noon for some blueberry and more coffee, that I was set up for the day.

+1.

£19 a night for two nights was a bargain. Spotlessly clean, basic, but all you need apart from the sodding windows not opening. Plenty of cafes about though and some choice CS.

I have had some stupidly expensive trips to the dam in the past. These days me and the mrs usually do 3-6 day trips which ranges from £2k - 5k. We usually just stay somewhere cheap that is clean and lets you smoke. Hotel Internationaal is a new fav.

We get through a lot of smoke and usually have 1-3 nice meals out. I seem to spend a fortune on drinks. Can't resist the 5E hot chocolates and milkshakes