Well I live in america and would love to save so money to go here. My questions or...

1. is it easy to get around the city in a wheelchair?
2. or the coffe shops handicap accesible. since this would be were id be enjoying my stay?
3. or the people nice to people in chairs?
4. the most important how much money would i need to take?

thanks(:

A few things:

Coffeeshop Directory: http://www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/index.htm
---Wheelchair Accessible Coffeeshop Listings from Coffeeshop Directory

Regarding is it easy to get around in a wheelchair - depends. Are you in a manual, or an electric? All trams are (supposed to be, and in my experience were) wheelchair accessible. Getting around - there are tons of cobblestones, tons of little hills, and tons of people. If you have an electric, you might be able to get away using the bike lanes - it'd be cute though to put a bike bell on! As for building accessibility, again I'd say it depends on your chair. You've gotta figure that the majority of older Amsterdam is not really built for accessibility. An electric chair might give you a hard time. A slim manual (and one you can do wheelies up vestibules) is going to be okay sometimes.

Regarding if people are okay to folks in chairs - I dunno, per se - but as long as you stick to Amsterdam or other large cities, you should be okay. They're used to literally all kinds there, and are happy for the tourist euros coming in. As long as you're not rude to them, they'll be okay to you. Exceptions might be around Christmas and the Royal Celebrations - simply because everyone gets a bit frustrated and harried from the influx of people.

Regarding how much money to take - it's hard to say. How long are you staying? What else do you want to do? How posh/decrepit of accommodations are you looking for? One thing to start saving up for is airfare. For me, I usually go during off-season (it's rare that it ever snows there, so whatever the weather, it's usually more mild than MN!), and I've gotten airfare as low as $450 rt, but I usually get it for about $650-$850 direct, via Detroit, or via Newark. Remember when looking at airfare - try to do any transfers within America on the way back - just makes life easier. Having said that, I got airfare via London (Gatwick at the time) and Iceland for around $550-600.

We went there a few months ago and found it pretty easy to get around. It's really flat and there are bike tracks everywhere so street gutters weren't a problem. The trams we caught were all accessible and if you enter through the door in the middle where the ticket seller is then they pull the ramp out for you.

We found most people to be great, but if you are planning to stay in a hostel, I would steer clear of the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. They advertised as wheelchair accessible and confirmed all my questions via email, but when we arrived the only thing that was accessible was a ramp at the front door. The bathroom doors are too narrow get into so it was a lost cause there.

Also, The Blue Boat Company does canal tours and they have a lift and ramp on board and this was AMAZING! They were the only accessible canal cruise company and were great (Night tour is awesome!).

As far as money goes, it really depends on what you want to do. We had a budget of 200 euros a day for the both of us and out of that we paid our accommodation. We stayed at the Ibis hotel right near Centraal Station and close to the city centre (about 70 Euros a night) and during the day we went to museums and stuff, ate out all the time and even had a couple of nights out. It seemed to equal out in the end. Although if you don't want to break your budget I would recommend steering clear of the casino *guilty*.

All in all, it was great and it's one of the places we would definately go back to. Hope this helps...

I went to Amsterdam back in May for the weekend.
There are cobbles everywhere but i am getting better at back wheel balancing. I have suspension on my chair which made the ride more comfortable. The coffee shops were generally ok, most of them spill out onto pavements and you take a seat at a table and the waiter will come and serve you.

If you want to get into any of the sex shops forget it, most are in basements down 5 or 6 sleep uneven stairs i found one i could get into and some were upstairs. I guess if you didnt care the shop owners will bring stuff out for you to see, they think nothing of displaying vibrators and other toys in windows. We also found a condomery which was interesting with about 300 different ones in the window.

Food is expensive (really expensive) so is accommodation. I found a hostel place called i think st martins right in the centre of town and like most of the accommodation they provide a buffet breakfast so it was eat as much as possible at breakfast and then buy a dinner. We found some good noodle bars.

The biggest issue i had was with the train, they have 3 steep steps getting off and on, you have to have the guard come with a ramp to get you off, he didnt show so some other passengers bumped me off the train. The trams are accessibe, not every stop is accessible but since stops are mainly less than 200m apart this isnt an issue, it just means you have to cross the road to get on etc.
I had a nightmare with the airport, there are stairs down to the planes so you have to have assistance to go down in a lift (it needs a key to access it), i checked in as soon as it opened 2 hours before the flight, i managed to get on the plane with about 2 mins to go, it took that time to get to the plane, the service people were rubbish, the insisted in putting me in a minibus to drive me about 20m to the plane door, i could have wheeled a lot quicker, they were really reluctant to lift me onto the plane.

Had a good weekend in general, hated the van gough museam, i'm just not cultured!

can ya get into the hooker's rooms ?

Hookers got rooms !!
In Hamburg they had caravans......

Being female getting into a hookers room wasnt on the top of my list but there were certainly lots of hookers in glass boxes. A lot of the boxes were at street level so i am guessing you would get in there in a mannual chair. There are always a lot of bouncers about that negoitate with the girls and you who i am sure would help get you into a room if you were paying money.

Me, i was just looking for the biggest viabrater i could find to see if anything works down there for me!