I stay in one the Krasnapolsky Junior apartments the majority of the time when I'm in Amsterdam. They are quite spacious. The bedroom is seperated from the living room. There is also a kitchen with refrigerator. Guests can use all the facilities of the hotel. Room service is available for delivery to the apartments. These apartments are a great deal in comparison to a hotel room. The living space is what does it for me. They are located at the edge of the Red Light District behind the main building of the Krasnapolsky at Dam Square.

This hotel offers apartments at half the cost of a hotel room with ability to still use the hotel facilities. I believe this is because maid service more than once a week is extra. For the week we were there it was fine. This was a wonderful find -- we had LOTS of room; living room, bedroom, little kitchen & laundry facilities. While the front of this hotel is on "Dam Square" and overlooks the Palace across the way, the back side overlooks a canal. The apartments are located in buildings on this side of the hotel, just very short distance from the hotel itself. A grocery store behind the Palace and a bakery on street beside the hotel meant we could have breakfast and late night snacks overlooking the canal from our room. Great area for walking to everything.
We cannot say enough about the concierge...when our prepaid "official" airport car did not show up to take us to the airport, this could have been a BIG problem as it was the morning of the "Queen's Birthday"celebration and all traffic in the palace area was to be closed down early so we had arranged for an early pick up. With the no show, the concierge contacted the car service who said they didn't plan on coming; he then arranged for a taxi and, most impressively he wrote a letter for us to take to the airport to see that we got an immediate on-the-spot refund of our prepaid amount.

My wife and I took a first-time trip to Amsterdam from the U.S. for a 7-night stay during the week leading up to Christmas, 2004, and through Christmas Eve. We settled on taking a Junior Apartment at the Krasnapolsky, with a great off-season price of 89 Euros per night (not including a 5% city tax). This is TOTAL, not per person. All in all we were thrilled with it, and it met our needs perfectly. It was very much what we had anticipated, both as to the main hotel itself and the actual apartment. I had researched Amsterdam in general and the apartments at the Kras quite a bit online before we went, including some experiences by a few that had stayed at one of these units, so there were no bad surprises, only good ones. Do NOT book one of these if you're expecting old-world furniture and the look of the apartment interior. Our unit was pretty much mid-scale motel/hotel type furniture. And yes, there were a few cigarette burns on some of the tables, etc., since I'm sure this is party central for the younger crowd during warm months. It was larger than I expected for a "Junior" unit, and included a sizable sitting area (with a cool canal view), small kitchen area with microwave, stove top, and small refrigerator, toilet, separate room off the bedroom with small shower, lavatory, and washer/dryer, and the bedroom. Amenities included all basic plates, dishes, glasses, and eating/cooking utensils, an iron and ironing board, TV with VCR in the sittting area, TV in the bedroom, small stereo unit with CD, hair dryer, and the small washer/dryer. Both TV's included an info menu that allowed several in-house features like viewing the bill, checking for messages, and wake-up calls via the music channels. Nice beamed ceilings in sitting area and bedroom, with at least 12-foot ceilings in the bedroom. We had the first floor unit up the usual Amsterdam small, winding steps, and there were two more units up the stairs above us. I would strongly suggest to anyone that they ask for a lower level unit if choosing one of these (or any unit in the city) to avoid the treacherous climb. A very nice security feature was having a door key to access the building door (separate, private entrance from the main hotel) and an electronic card lock on the unit door. The building door opened onto an alley, with a few steps out the back side leading right onto the canal street, and the other way leading into the hotel walkway, with the room door card needed to access the main hotel at night. A wonderful setup. Two minutes out the door and you're standing in the middle of Dam Square. All the windows were very large, and opened for fresh air. Although ours was a "first-floor" unit, it was actually what I would consider the second floor, another security concern alleviated since no one could access the unit via the windows. As to cleanliness, the entire apartment was squeaky clean.

The main hotel lobby area was duly impressive, and the staff perfection. We called housekeeping once to have some lamp bulbs replaced when we first arrived, and again when we discovered the electrical outlet for the bedroom TV had been damaged by someone probably shoving the additional roll-away bed into its nook. Both times a maintenance guy responded within ten minutes, and did the job quickly and courteously. Note that room service and all main hotel amenities are available with the apartments, at the usual high hotel prices.

From the moment we arrived, we did not have to touch our baggage from the time it went on a Connexxion shuttle van from the airport until it was in our apartment. A formally-dressed doorman at the hotel assisted the shuttle driver with getting it into the hotel lobby, and a porter loaded it onto a cart and wheeled it out to our unit off the alley and carried it up. I'm sure they provide the same service when leaving if asked, but we chose to do it ourselves when checking out, only a short walk to the lobby. A quick call to reception the night before leaving had a Connexxion airport shuttle waiting at exactly the agreed-upon time when we checked out. I would strongly suggest to anyone traveling to the city center hotels from Schiphol Airport to use the Connexxion shuttle service. You can buy a one-way ticket, or round trip for your return (good for one year), at stand A4 when you exit the airport at ground transportation. Only 36 Euros total for round trip. Comfortable, clean minivan type units with professional drivers and a 25-minute or so ride to Dam Square. We were the only passengers going in, with only one other fellow going back. We felt sorry for all the people we saw dragging luggage down the streets everywhere we went.

The neatest thing about the apartment was that after two days my wife and I both agreed we felt like we lived there instead of "staying" there, and that's a huge difference. Plus feeling as safe and secure in our unit as one can while being in a city 4000 miles from home. I probably would NOT book one of these if looking for total peace and quiet. There was a fair amount of noise, mainly people talking in the streets, until the wee hours on weekend nights, but that was part of the charm for us. I would imagine it's quite a riot in the summer. Note that some of the units are probably much quieter, since they appeared to be located at all angles and positions in the buildings, with different building entrances. Apparently the Kras folks bought up the canal houses, apartments, or whatever they were adjoining the hotel at some point in the past, and converted to 36 apartments total. Info on these units is a little hard to find, since I did not see them listed on the main hotel info Websites. Go here to check it out: ------------------------------------------

If you want to be right on Dam Square, with close proximity by foot to shops, restaurants, coffeeshops, bars, the Royal Palace, New and Old Churches, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, the Magna Plaza shopping "mall", an Albert Heijn supermarket for munchies and other needs, and tram line access, this is a great location for it. Highly, highly recommended. It made our first visit to this amazing city all the more enjoyable.

A frriend and I were spending a long weekend in Amsterdam before flying home on Monday afternoon. Had been in Holland the last 2 weeks including the first 2 nights in Amsterdam (The rest of the trip was spent in Maastricht. Wanted to stay near the Dam Square and saw on the internet that the NH Grand Krasnapolsky(A five star hotel that is directlry across the street from the palace/Dam Square) had "Jr" apartments for 130 euro/night. I stayed in a double room at the Bulldog Hostel the first 2 nights in Holland and paid 80 euro a night for that (It was nice, just down the street from the Krasnapolsky, but it was small and didn't have a TV, phone, etc.). We reserved the apartment that was supposed to have a livimg room/kitchen comb and bedroom. I figured for that price one of us could sleep on the sofa, but boy were we pleasently surprrised. The apartment was in a building of 4 apartments on the back side of the block the Krasnapolsky is on. It was on the 3rd floor, there was no elevator and the steps were a mother, as all steps in Amsterdam are, very steep, tiny, and curvy. However, for a modest tip (5 euro will be plenty), the bellhops will kart all of your luggage for you! When the bellhop opened the door, I though they must have given us the wrong apartment. It had a HUDGE living/dinning/kitchen combo. The kitchen was fully furnished, even had enough coffe for our 3 night stay. Instead of 1 bedroom, we had 2 bedrooms, and one of those was HUDGE. There was a ladder that led to a large loft over the bed of the hudge bedroom. There was third bed (A full sized daybed), in the very kool loft. There was also another kitchenette in the larger bedroom. No stove, but a small fridge , kitchen sinks, and cabnets. There were 3 baths. a half bath in the large bedroom, a half in the hall, and a full bath also in the hallway.
The full bath had a hudge tud, a seperate shower, two sinks, and a washer/dryer. The living room overlooked the first cannal from Dam square. It was kool to open the windows and look down at the people walking along the cannal or sitting by the cannal drinking coffe in the mornings. The apartment was righ on the edge of the red light district and walking distance from the central train station and the main tram termional. GREAT location, apartment, and the best value I had the entire 16 days I spent in Europe. This apartment could have easily acco0midated 6 people. It was as large as my 3 bedroom house! I'll definitely stay there again!