Private or group tour? The actual maths

We sell private tours, so treat what follows accordingly — but the arithmetic is the arithmetic, and there are group sizes where you should not book us.

The comparison

A full-day coach tour from Amsterdam to the villages runs at roughly €55 to €90 per person depending on the operator and the season. Our equivalent eight-hour day is priced per vehicle, whatever the number of people in it:

• Mercedes E-Klasse or Tesla Model 3 — €575, up to 4 guests
• Mercedes V-Klasse — €750, up to 7 guests
• Mercedes S-Klasse — €875, up to 4 guests

At €70 per person on a coach, the comparison works out like this:

• Two people: €140 coach against €575 in an E-Klasse. The coach wins clearly.
• Four people: €280 against €575. The coach still wins on price.
• Six people: €420 against €750, since six needs the V-Klasse. €55 a head apart.
• Seven people: €490 against €750. €37 a head for a completely different day.

Note where the vehicle changes the answer: above four guests you need the V-Klasse, so the E-Klasse price stops being available to you.

So a private tour is almost never the cheaper option. Anyone telling you otherwise is choosing a flattering comparison.

What the difference buys

The honest case for private is not cost, it is these five things:

• Where you can go. A coach cannot enter Broek in Waterland or park in De Rijp. Roughly half of what we show people is physically inaccessible to a 50-seat vehicle.
• When you go. Coaches depart at a fixed hour, which is why everyone arrives at the windmills at ten. We start at half past eight.
• Hotel pickup. Coach tours meet at a central point. With luggage, small children or limited mobility that is a real cost.
• Changing your mind. If a village holds you, you stay. On a coach the horn goes at the advertised time.
• Nobody else. Whether that matters is personal.

When we would tell you to take the coach

• Two people on a tight budget seeing the standard route for the first time.
• A single destination where the coach drops you at the gate, such as Keukenhof at peak season.
• You actively want a guide's commentary all day. A licensed guide will out-narrate a driver.

When private genuinely wins

• Four or more people, where the per-head gap closes to something reasonable.
• Anyone with mobility limits, small children, or a cruise all-aboard time to meet.
• A second or third visit, where you want the places the coach route skips.
• Photography, which is entirely about being somewhere at the wrong hour for everyone else.