We did not have too much time in Rotterdam when we visited the region in late August 2020. My wife and I felt that watching the harbor city from above and enjoying a nice afternoon tea felt like a great starter. Thus, we headed to Euromast, one of the key icons of the Dutch city. Here is our view.

 

Euromast & Euroscoop – Some Facts

The Euromast Tower has been built from 1958 to 1960. It is more or less ending with the lower platform and is 101 meters high. The reason to built the tower was the Floriade, an every ten year gardening exhibition which is held in the Netherlands. Ten years later, the Euromast has been extended by a mast, which is also called Space Tower. This total height of the needle is 185 meters. Up an down the Space Tower, there is a rotating elevator platform. This part is called Euroscoop. Visiting the Euroscoop is always included in your Euromast ticket. The lower platform features a brasserie, where we had High Tea (see below), but since 2004 also two hotel suites. I was really considering this unusual overnight – but the price is 400 Euro roughly and Euromast visitor walk in front of your room window – so that you likely have the best experience at night and early morning hours only.

 

Euromast / Euroscoop – Location & Admission

Euromast is located Southeast of Rotterdam city center. It is a doable and nice walk from central locations, especially as the tower is located on the edge of het Park, the nice Floriade park. There is also a dedicated tram stop (called Euromast), which is served by line 8. From the tram stop, it may still take you some ten minutes to the tower entrance.

If you prefer individual travel, there are quite some car parking lots close to the Euromast entry. I haven’t checked the parking fees out, but I would expect that they are rather high to ridiculous as in most Dutch locations.

Euromast opens every day, 9:30 to 22:00 hrs. Adult admission is 10.25 Euro. Afternoon tea needs to be pre-booked and you are automatically booked an elevator ride as well. The afternoon tea is 19.75 EUR, but there is no discount on the elevator ride. Euromast offers various combinations like a cruise with the nearby pancake boat after your visit. They also offer a combonation with Spido harbor cruises. Due to the afternoon tea, we could not book the three items together online and had a separate cruise ticket, when we wanted to do these three things on our Thursday afternoon in the city.

 

Euromast – The Visit

We have booked a table for 14:30 hrs and arrived at the bottom of Euromast on 14:15. The experience on the ground was just terrible. There were not too long queues, but it took ages to bring the people upstairs. I cannot fully judge on the reasons behind that. It felt to me that the capacity of the place is much stronger limited by just having four people max in each elevator ride to Euromast level than by the capacity on that level itself. However, the check-in of some people took ages – and under certain circumstances (which I did not fully understand), you were allowed to pass the line. Overall, it felt very chaotic. We finally received our elevator tickets at 14:50 hrs roughly. Luckily, the weather was better than the rain predicted – I would have likely left in case of bad weather.

We first had afternoon tea, which I review below. From there, you could walk up to platform level. The view over Rotterdam and especially the harbor area was really beautiful. The wind, however, was quite chilly. On the second picture, by the way, you see the front windows of the hotel room suites.

 

Euroscoop – The Visit

There are either stairs or an elevator from Euromast level to the starting level of Euroscoop. The directions were chaotic (and were thus ignored by many people), especially on the way down. You had to queue for the Euroscoop for quite a while on a not too wide platform with strong winds – I absolutely disliked that. I was curious about Euroscoop, but did not expect too much from it. The rotation elevator thing is nice somehow, but I felt it does not add too much value to walking around the platform.

 

Afternoon Tea at Euromast Brasserie

As said after our elevator ride up, we went to the Brasserie for afternoon tea first. The place is beautiful, they had quite a lot of seats. Apart from “High Tea”, they also offer “High Wine”, which is savory and – obviously – alcoholic.

+

The restaurant platform is fixed (no rotation feature). Nevertheless, we had a lovely view over the harbor area – and a short walk around, e.g. to the toilets, gave some additional perspectives,

Hard to say what to expect from a roughly 20 Euro high tea in a touristic location like that. Our expectations were rather average, but the Brasserie really did a great job. Tea was unlimited – they brought hot water and you had a box of six different teas on the table. The quality of the tea  was not overwhelming, but reasonable. The afternoon tea had a lovely savory start with a warm bell pepper soup served in a cappuccino mug, partnered by a small piece of focaccia. After that, we were served the selection of sandwiches, sweets and scones. Yeah, there was even a scone for each of us. Mascarpone replaced clotted cream, which actually worked quite well.

 

Unfortunately, it at the took us some 20 minutes to settle the bill as the waiter, who did such a good job before, felt to ignore us. Overall, including rushing down the tower after Euroscoop, we left the place at the ground at 16:40 roughly with a 17:00 hrs harbor cruise reservation. Full of sweat, we just made it in time, which was purely caused by the terrible lacks of organisation on the ground and at the end of the afternoon tea at the Brasserie.

 

Euromast / Euroscoop – (Other) Services

Apart from the Euromast level Brasserie, there is also a Deli cafe on ground level. People who wanted to visit the cafe had to pass the line of waiting Euromast visitors, which might feel uncomfortable. On ground level, there is also a souvenir store.

 

Euromast / Euroscoop – My View

To me, Euromast and Euroscoop was like a rollercoaster rides: ups and downs – and maybe even a looping here or there: the afternoon tea was for example way better than I would have expected at a place like that, even though the service turned to be unfortunate at the end a bit. The view from Euromast is beautiful, especially as you can overlook the Rotterdam harbor area. You may have a very different opinion on it, but I feel that Euromast level is sufficient and that the Euroscoop did not add too much to your visit. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 concept between the two levels had lacks and felt to be confusing, so that people crossed each other. Waiting for the Euroscoop in a windy height over 100 metres was also not my favorite at all.

I least I do not have any doubt about my thoughts about the service and organization on the ground – the delays and strange organisation around reception area was simply disgusting. Bad luck – this place deserves better than average.

 

Everything about the Netherlands

Here are all postings related to the Netherlands:

 

Flyctory.com Views from Above

Here are all postings tagged as Views from Above, dealing with any kind up-in-the-air viewpoints: