I visited Keukenhof on 9 and 12 of April. A wonderful land!
It was not a lot of people at that time. Most of bulbs were blooming. I think a week or two later and I would not seen flowering tulips in the Willem Alexander Pavilion.

I used to come from Amsterdam via Schiphol.
On my second visit I had been waiting for an hour to buy a combi-ticket at the VVV office in the airport when the office women told the queue that the tikets is over and we need to wait for an hour more till they would be delivered from the Amsterdam office. So I prefered to pay for the bus by my strippen-card and buy a ticket at the park entrance.

This place had the potential to be very serene & relaxing...read carefully: the potential! I think that a good thing had the potential to be spoiled if it is not managed correctly. The Keukenhof 2008 was not managed correctly in my opinion. Imagine 100s (ie, probably about 300-350 tour buses total!) packed into a lot alloted to fit 100, and then about 500+ cars...and then approximately 500+ bikes...then, think about a small park built to hold approximately 1000 people...with over 5000+ people or more...and you get utter chaos. It was miserable. Too many people. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful flowers, but the misery of having to stand amongst a crowd so dense that walks less than 1 mile per hour was horrible. It was just too closterphobic -- and not what my husband and I were looking for...in addition, the public bus from Leiden had a wait over 3 hours long (there is only 1 bus from Leiden every 15 min). My suggestion to the Keukenhof is don't ruin something by overcrowding. Set limits on the number of people per day that are allowed in to the park. Other places have capacity limits worldwide, and this really adds to the enjoyment for all people. I had a few shoves here and there from some bad apples who were ticked off at the amount of people -- and this really leaves a rotten taste in your mouth when you are told online that there are "quiet secluded picnic spots." This is an outright lie. The woman's bathrooms were overcrowded (the wait was approx.1 hour), and so women started filing past the men at their urinals so that they could use the stalls in the men's bathroom. My husband and I also had intended to ride a bike to enjoy the tulip farms, as we are avid bike riders who are capable of biking long distances. This was also a joke. No bikes were available--- they were all sold out by 1 pm in the afternoon. Stay away from Keukenhof until the management comes up with some better ideas for crowd control-- as it is not worth the money!

Hi all,

I went to Keukenhof yesterday(26.04.2008). The tulips are very beautiful and designed professionally. There was so many people in there. You can't take a photo alone. In Keukenhof, there is a garden and there is a main road passing to the garden. When it is 2.30 PM, the parade is passing over the main road. Therefore everybody came out the garden and waited the parade. But parade started at 4.30. The organisation is terrible for that. Everybody had to wait in the sun meaninglesly. And when parade is over, everybody came in the garden again. So big amount of people. And Keukenhof was finished. At the end of the Keukenhof, we had headache because of crowd and heavy smells of bulbs and lilies.

We visited Keukenhof on April 16, which seems to be right at the beginning of the best time to go. Usually the last half of April and very early May is the prime time in this park's short season.

Most of the flowers were blooming, and we were most impressed by how colorful the whole park is, not just the tulips that come in all colors imaginable, but the lush green grass and even the flowering trees. It's particularly striking coming from the rather dark and dreary city of Amsterdam. At the edges of the park, you can also see the vast fields where the tulips are raised.

There were a couple minor downsides to our visit. We got there pretty early in the day, very close to opening time, so it wasn't too crowded then, but it soon got very, very crowded, and the busloads of school children on field trips were annoying. Also, while transportation around the Netherlands is typically very easy and convenient, getting here from Amsterdam is a little tricky, involving first getting to Schipol station, and then taking a Connexxion shuttle bus to the park. Even though the park is in Lisse, there's not really an easy way to get there from the Lisse train station.

Be sure to stop by the waffle stand to get a fresh waffle with hot cherries and whipped cream.

If you buy any tulip bulbs as souvenirs, you'll have to declare them when going through U.S. customs, but I'm not sure what their rules are regarding allowing them in.

All in all, we had a great visit.