Paul van Dyk,
chauffeured.
Trance at the Melkweg on the Saturday. A trance night in the Melkweg on the busiest Saturday of the Amsterdam year, drawing an audience that has been following this particular booth for decades and knows exactly what it came for.
Saturday 24 October, at the Melkweg.
Arena night. The largest room in the country is in use, the warehouses in Noord are full, and every road out of Zuidoost is busy at the same minute.
A trance night in the Melkweg on the busiest Saturday of the Amsterdam year, drawing an audience that has been following this particular booth for decades and knows exactly what it came for.
The Leidseplein on an ADE Saturday is as crowded as the city gets. Arriving by car is quick; arriving well is a matter of which street your chauffeur uses.
Minutes from the canal belt, half an hour from Schiphol by the A4 and the S106. Expect the square itself to be slow from the early evening and plan the drop-off a street back from it.
The Melkweg empties into a square already full of people from everywhere else. Dispatch names a pickup street — usually the Marnixstraat — and that is the whole of the problem solved.
Lijnbaansgracht, near the Leidseplein.
The Melkweg sits on the Lijnbaansgracht behind the Leidseplein, in the tangle of one-way streets, bridges and tram tracks that make the square slow at every hour of the day.
The car stops on the Marnixstraat or the Leidsekade, whichever is moving, and you walk the last thirty seconds. Late at night the square is closed to through traffic in places and the pickup point shifts a street or two — dispatch has the current one.
The Melkweg sits on the Lijnbaansgracht behind the Leidseplein, in the tangle of one-way streets, bridges and tram tracks that make the square slow at every hour of the day. Your chauffeur checks the roads before setting off rather than when he arrives, and the price is fixed when you book, whatever the traffic does.
The car stops on the Marnixstraat or the Leidsekade, whichever is moving, and you walk the last thirty seconds. Late at night the square is closed to through traffic in places and the pickup point shifts a street or two — dispatch has the current one.
Yes, and on this night it is the sensible way to do it. The Melkweg empties into a square already full of people from everywhere else. Dispatch names a pickup street — usually the Marnixstraat — and that is the whole of the problem solved. Book the return at the same time as the outward ride, or keep one car and chauffeur for the whole night by the hour, from €65 an hour in Business Class with a two-hour minimum.
Schiphol to any address in Amsterdam is a fixed €90 in Business Class, €125 in the seven-seat Van Class and €140 in First Class — taxes included, per car, with the flight tracked and a chauffeur waiting inside the arrivals hall. Going back to Schiphol the fixed prices are €80, €85 and €90.
The Van Class takes up to seven passengers and seven bags in one car, with captain chairs and walk-in headroom. For a larger party dispatch stages several cars to arrive together at Melkweg, with one contact for the whole group rather than a separate booking per car.
Message dispatch on WhatsApp and the pickup time moves. It is one number, answered around the clock in English, and once a chauffeur is assigned you have his line too. There is no surge pricing at four in the morning — the fare was agreed when you booked.