Day 14 - Keukenhoff Gardens

Hi friends. This is future Kara writing to you from July 2025 - exactly three months to the day from when we returned from this trip. Posting these blog posts has been a labor of love that has taken longer than either of us would like. And, now, as we have reached the end of the trip, we've realized that we didn't write anything for this day or our trip home (which thankfully was mostly non-eventful with just the usual horrific wait to get through customs in Chicago and catching the last seats on a flight home since we missed our original flight).

We again did two tours today. Here is the information on those from the Disney website.

Keukenhof Gardens Excursion

Stroll amid the Keukenhof Gardens, an enchanting backdrop for 7 million spring-flowering bulbs, as well as a stunning location for the park’s fountains, streams, sculptures and indoor pavilion.

Amsterdam Canal Cruise

Cruise along the scenic canals in the city known as the “Venice of the North.” During your cruise, you’ll see some of Amsterdam’s iconic sites, historic buildings, magnificent bridges and so much more of this beautiful city.

The Canal Cruise was an underwhelming end to our tours, but that's mainly because we'd already spent a day and a half in Amsterdam doing that amazing food/walking tour with Roman and going across the canal on the ferry. There was nothing wrong with this specific canal cruise, but I won't even share any photos of it. Instead, let's finish up our last post about this incredible trip of a lifetime with lots and lots of Tulips.

If you're not familiar with Keukenhoff Gardens, it is a massive 79 acres featuring over 7 million flowers. Keukenhoff means Kitchen as the land was, at one time, a hunting ground and this part of the ground was the actual kitchen garden. The various exhibits are made up of bulbs donated by over 100 growers. They are planted in a way that allows them to bloom over about an 8 week period to make the garden appear quite beautiful across the entire growing season. The Gardens get over 1.4 million visitors per year - during that short 8 week period! It has been referred to as the Disneyland of flowers.

Which is a good segue to our main concern for how today would go which was - could we beat the crowds. (Which is also our main concern when being at the Disney parks!)

We were originally scheduled not to arrive until about 30 minutes after opening. Several cruisers (including us) had mentioned to the Adventure Guides that this was concerning and we hoped we could adjust and arrive at opening. Thankfully, the guides took our feedback and moved the schedule up so we did leave to arrive right around opening. This was such a relief.

Entrance to Keukenhof just as they open. Note the sea of humanity already streaming into the garden.

We headed straight to the far "back/side" to see the iconic windmill that is on one edge of the property.

We then went on a few other quests as we took in the gardens:

1. We journeyed through the orchid building (gorgeous!!)

2. Gayle found the tulip that was christened by Mickey Mouse back in the 1960s.

3. We found one of the lakes, complete with fountain, on the property.

And, so, we're going to just close our posts about this trip with loads of pictures from one of the most beautiful gardens on Earth. And, in case you're wondering, this is about 1/5 of the pictures we took at the gardens.

Thanks as always for sharing this journey with us and reading about our adventure. This was truly the trip of a lifetime.

Gayle P.S.: As happened last time, clearing Customs at O'Hare took so long we weren't going to make our connection to Indy. (MPC helped, but the process here is SO slow!) This time we didn't even try to make it and immediately rebooked on a later flight to Indy. (We saw a few "younger" people think they could make it, but by the time they got to the gate and talking with someone about rebooking all the later flights were full!)

Here is Kara's video from this day!

Next up: When we came home, our answer would have been uncertainty with just a sailing on the new Disney Destiny booked for Jan. 2026. However, with vacation days about to expire and finding a great deal just five days after returning I booked us on a 5 night Disney Dream. AND we left just 16 days after that! Phew!

On that note… Disclaimer: I (Gayle) am a travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Planner agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!

As to Disney artwork, logos, and properties: ©Disney | Ship Registry: The Bahamas | CST# 2090317-40 / Fla. Seller of Travel Ref. No. ST37203