Amsterdam to the IJmuiden Cruise Terminal: Which Lines Use It and the Drive Out

Felison Cruise Terminal is at Cruiseboulevard 10 in IJmuiden, in the municipality of Velsen, on the North Sea coast; several lines sell it as “Amsterdam (IJmuiden)”.

Regent’s Seven Seas Mariner ends a Copenhagen voyage at “Amsterdam (Ijmuiden)” on Jun 30, 2027, arriving 7 AM — the same line uses both terminals.

MSC sells Rotterdam as “Rotterdam (Amsterdam)”, terminal at Wilhelminakade 699; a ticket that says Amsterdam can mean Rotterdam — our Rotterdam rental page covers that one.

Princess calls its stop “Amsterdam (IJmuiden)”, describes “a scenic 28-mile coach ride from port to the city” and says the port location is subject to change. The 28 miles is Princess’s figure, not ours.

The PTA’s 2026 calendar lists 60-plus calls, marked only “Cruise call”, so it doesn’t say which ones start or end a voyage.

Read the terminal on your boarding documents, then plan the car around that building, not the city name.

From Centraal our routing runs about 18.4 miles to Cruiseboulevard 10, 37 minutes with no traffic.

From the PTA it’s about 19.0 miles (30.6 km) and 39 minutes — the extra is the drive back across the centre.

Schiphol is the quickest start: 19.9 miles (32.0 km) and 31 minutes — longer in distance, shorter in time, since you skip the city altogether.

Landing at Schiphol on sailing day for an IJmuiden ship? Collect at the airport, not in town.

We didn’t check this route for a toll tunnel either, so no toll is in the sum below.

Felison takes parking reservations for cruise passengers up to 48 hours before departure, with no refund once booked, and an IJmuiden information site (not the operator) lists €15 (about US$17) a day, €225 (about US$255) for two weeks in an article dated 2023, rates subject to change; you can pay at the terminal desk on the day if spaces remain, per that site.

Confirm the price in the booking form before you pay; the operator’s own page doesn’t print it.

The IJmuiden information site lists Enterprise car rental at the terminal “available spring 2026”; we found no Enterprise branch page for it, so treat it as unconfirmed.

If it’s running, a desk at the terminal changes the sums on this page — until a branch page confirms it, plan as if it isn’t.

An information site says a second, smaller Felison terminal near the DFDS ferry berth is used by very few ships — your documents name the berth.

Felison says ships up to 295 m can dock there. IJmuiden has no train station, per the same information site.

Amsterdam’s day tourist tax on cruise passengers applies only to ships moored in Amsterdam itself, not IJmuiden, per the Port of Amsterdam.

Ask your line about Felison parking when you book, and get the price in writing.

The IJmuiden information site sells a direct bus from the Felison terminal to De Ruijterkade Oost, by Centraal, in packages: €40 with a one-hour canal cruise, €42 with a hop-on bus, €49 with bus and boat. We saw no bus-only fare. That €40 is about US$45 a head — with a canal cruise thrown in, unless a bus-only ticket exists that we didn’t see.

A travel blog (updated Sept 2026) describes bus 382 from IJmuiden to Amsterdam Sloterdijk, roughly every 15 minutes and about 45 minutes, then a train or tram on; about an hour port to centre.

The IJmuiden information site says €125 to €150 to downtown Amsterdam; a travel blog says €80 to €125.

Run the 2026 taxi ceiling over our routing and Centraal to Felison comes to about €117 (about US$130) on empty roads — our arithmetic, below the info site’s low end. From Schiphol it’s about €122.

Traffic only raises the per-minute part — a quote far above those figures deserves a question.

A rental for the run is €40 plus fuel at our assumed rate. Then comes the problem of where it goes — with no confirmed desk at Felison, it sits.

For two people, the direct bus package or a metered taxi is the plan. Rent only if the car is coming home with you after.

Amsterdam’s low-emission zone restricts diesel cars; petrol cars enter without restriction, and the zone starts when you leave the A10 ring road for the city, per I amsterdam.

Since Jan 1, 2025 the national scheme sets diesel cars at emission class 4 or better in green zones and class 5 or better in blue ones, and it applies to foreign plates too. Amsterdam is one of four Dutch cities with a diesel zone for cars, with Arnhem, The Hague and Utrecht; Rotterdam has none for cars.

We couldn’t read Amsterdam’s own zone map, so we can’t confirm its colour from the city. Dutch zones are enforced by plate, not a sticker, so Sixt’s line that its cars “include the necessary environmental badges” reads as marketing to us.

Ask for a petrol car and the zone stops being your problem — a diesel is the only kind it stops.

We didn’t find a Dutch page explaining how a zone or speed-camera fine reaches a renter, or any brand’s handling fee for passing one on.

I amsterdam says 80% of the city’s roads have a 30 km/h limit. From 6 AM to 7 PM almost every Dutch motorway is held to 100 km/h, says the national government; after 7 PM it’s 100, 120 or 130 as signed.

The statutory limits are 50 km/h in built-up areas, 80 on ordinary roads outside them, 100 on main roads and 130 on motorways, per the government’s road-sign guide. The State Department says speeding, drink-driving and using a phone while driving are illegal, and that fines are high — so watch the km/h signs, not your mph instinct.

Turning drivers yield to cyclists and pedestrians going straight on, and traffic from the right has priority at junctions. Check the bike lane on your right before every turn — mirrors, then shoulder.

Holding a phone while driving is banned outright; hands-free only. The government’s traffic guide says Dutch law sets blood-alcohol limits without printing the figure, and we couldn’t load a Dutch page that does — so we print none; don’t drink and drive. Passengers under 18 and shorter than 1.35 m must use a suitable child restraint.

Whether your US licence is enough is on the should-you-rent page. Dollar figures: the European Central Bank’s rate on Oct 2, 2026, about $1.12 per euro. Your card won’t land on exactly the same number.

Search from wherever you’ll start, then check the drop-off. A car you can’t return at Felison is the snag.

Sixt allows one-ways between Dutch stations by category and says a fee “may apply”; Enterprise charges one on every one-way and shows it as you book. Our one-way guide explains how those fees show up. Our Discover Cars review covers deposits.