King for a Day – KLM fly winners to Amsterdam for Koningsdag party – words Andrej Wahlberg
King’s Day is a big deal in Holland. There’s a carnival atmosphere and there’s street parties galore as locals and tourists alike enter into the spirit and toast the King.
The party goes on for two whole days and there’s music, food and drink and of course lots of the colour orange. In fact many of the locals paint themselves from head to foot in the colour. It’s a great time to visit Amsterdam where the spirit of the celebrations seem to hit fever pitch each year at the end of April.
To join into and get into the spirit KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines got together with the brewer Heineken to launch a most amazing competition that could only be won by some especially chosen people. They were on a mission to find people who shared the birthday of the King and worthy of a special trip to Amsterdam to join in the Koningsdag party. The ones lucky enough to be chosen were from Beijing, London, Rio de Janiero and San Francisco and were flown from the four corners of the globe to Amsterdam to take part.
They had quite a time of it as you can see from the video clip. They were then taken by the Orange Experience Boat team to the new A’DAM tower (http.//adamtoren.nl) and taken to the loft where they could look out over Amsterdam down at the revellers far below dancing away to renowned DJ Martin Garrix. This is special treatment of the first order only usually enjoyed by the King himself. Quite a trip I’m sure you’ll agree.