BELIEVE THE HORROR STORIES!
I heard the horror stories but never paid much attention to them. Round trip amsterdam to berlin... On the outbound my train did not stop at my connecting point so had to connect in kolln instead, which would be fine except ALL trains from kolln to berlin were cancelled, so had to take another train which was delayed, ended up getting to berlin 3 hours late, and almost missed my airbnb host. On the return it was surreal. They were not even letting people onto the platform because of how insanely backed up ALL the trains were.... to top it off none of the escalators onto the platform were working, and the elavators were packed. When I finally made it onto the platform, the train kept getting pushed back in 5 minute increments until it finally left 73 minutes late, BUT SOMEHOW, it is arriving in Amsterdam 144 minutes late.... AFTER midnight, so I miss the last bus home. To top it off taxis never agree to take me from centraal because I live too close (2.5km). So now I am arriving in Centraal with a giant suitcase and not sure how I'm going to get home.