This place is not a bad choice at all. It will provide you all you need - clean bed with nice sheets, simple furnishing and decent breakfast. I booked it just to be on safe side, to have some place reserved while I intended to continue searching for some nice yet affordable place on grachtengordel or Centraal area to show it to my friend who was travelling with me. Unfortunatelly and stupidly, I clicked on nonrefundable rate when booking via booking.com and though Booking was indeed very hard trying to convince the hotel to change for refundable rate, the hotel denied. It did not sound very guest-friendly to me so I was awaiting anything but nice stay since the reviews varied from satisfied to disgusted but in the end, it was not bad at all.
It is outside of the center but it is well reachable by several tram and bus lines and in interesting, nice and safe surroundings of Rivierenbuurt (no De Pijp as the hotel claims on its website though). It is within good reach of Museumplein as well.
The heating heated more than well and you could stop or switch it on as and wenever you wanted. Sheets were clean and towels were changed. The furnishing is modern, very simple and basic and due to the year of refurnishing slightly worn out but not too bad. There was a hairdryer in the bathroom and seemed to be pretty efficient even for long hair. There was also safe box but seemed not to be working. The shower might be weird for the rest of the Europe but fine for Dutch standards - it lacks the basin and the glass walls, you simple take the shower standing on the floor in between the concrete walls behind the courtain). Probably also thanks to this fact the bathroom has a bit wetty smell but nothing serious - some odorizer would cure this quickly).
What I hated was the strong cigarette smell in the room although I in the order clearly insisted on non smoking but really non smoking room. Well, the room had the sign banning the smoking in the room AND it had the old tobacco odour as well. I more and more think that this is rather problem of us, guests. Many people request non smoking rooms then smoke in them and the hotels in busy locations simply do not have chance to get rid of the smell in between. There is also very poor isolations between the staircase and the rooms, you hear everybody climbing up and down the typical Dutch (narrow and steep) staircase, laughs and also even water dropping into the bathtub in the room above of the ours (we had 203) so bring your ear plug-ins along.
The breakfast is included in room price and is served in the pleasant breakfast area with a range of products including bread, knackebrot, corn flakes, croissants, ham, cheese, salami, very good white yoghurt, hageslag, cocoa, coffee, tea and box juice for free, while it was also possible to ask for some additional treats such as scrambled eggs, toasts, basic fruits such as bananas and apples, fresh juice and espresso against payment.
There is little supermarket just next door, and there are several other shops including another grocery, chemists, tobacco, flower shop and several restaurants by the tram stop on the square. I strongly recommend you to try out the Thai Indonesian place by the tram stop Viktorieplein. We went there, had degustation menu of maybe 25 courses and the meal as well as the stuff was lovely. The old guy was as nice, friendly and wise as the old shaman on Eat, Pray, Love. We had really nice evening there.
- Victorie Hotel Amsterdam
