Our stay:
This is a real shocker. A wonderfully designed (small but very efficient) boutique hotel located right at the hart of the best known fashionstreet of amsterdam and holland. When build probably looked great but bad materials, bad construction, bad cleaning and general lack of management really took it's toll. It does smell a little funny as mentioned earlier, there's cracks in almost every wall and there isn't a piece of wall unscarred by run-ins with luggage. The room looked great but the wooden floors throughout the hotel weren't picked to withstand intensive hotel use, they look dirty now. They're stained by years(?) of usage. The bathroom looked wonderfully designed with large sheets of white marble but the seams were brown / moldy. An uncovered air-vent was overgrown with mold and in plain sight. Also there was no hot water in the morning when we wanted to take a shower. The bed was clean and sheets were nice but the bed-lights didn't work (one was missing a bulb, the other didn't work).
Checkout trouble:
At checkout, there was no staff at the reception. After 5 minutes i went to the lunchroom downstairs of the hotel (same name also connected by internal stairs) to ask if i could check out. I was told i had to go to the reception in a -figure it out yourself- tone. When i responded i was there for 5 minutes without someone showing, the waitress responded she (the waitress) had just been upstairs and the reception was staffed. She repeated this several times in an very nasty tone of voice implying i was lying. She added 'i don't know how to do a checkout' hoping i would go away. After i got really angry, got told a had a big mouth, i went upstairs to leave the key and prepared to just leave ( they had my credit card details). Another waitress came in and very franticly made a phonecall to get the receptionist back. I got a quick apology and was asked for my credit card again (something wrong with their administration- really?). I told them i thought it would be a good idea to have some things repainted and fixed i was told they knew that should happen. A quick apology and a request for my signature for the payment please. I don't know what's going on here but this is a disgrace to the name of the street. Please restore the original idea, change the staff and as i'm not the first to complain here probably the management as well. A boutique hotel should be great at it's design. Service can be very basic as long as it's with heart.
General impression:
There's too much wrong to overlook even at a fairly reasonable price for the location and intended ambiance. we will not come back.

The hotel is located on a shopping high street about a 25 minute tram ride from the city centre.

While the hotel is attached to a coffee area the entrance passageway to the hotel was cramped, the carpet dirty, we were welcomed to an open fuse box, and there was an unpleasant smell in the air (which continued throughout our stay – really putrid!). The lift was extremely cramped an opened up to a strange reception area, which was dark with a desk plonked 2 paces away from the lift. At first I wasn’t sure whether I had arrived in reception or one of the floors!

The customer service was ok.

The corridor leading from the lift to the rooms was extremely pleasant - really fresh, light and clean, nice décor a large mirror and there was a trendy locking system for the doors.

We stayed in the attic room which was quaint; I really liked that you could push the windows right open and get a nice breeze. The bed was really comfy - a really nice level of comfort! The room was a mixture of modern design, with a cosy feel and the wood beams on the ceiling were really pleasant. On the negative side - the bathroom was in need of some minor repairs e.g. cracked tiles a smelly sink and a shower that was blasting hot!!! The lighting system was a bit too cleaver - in fact the lights could not actually switch off, they just went to a lighter shade!! This resulted in me wearing an eye mask as I was too tired to take it up with reception.

We could not get a connection to the internet from our room which was frustrating, as that was a feature of the package which I was keen to utilize.

When we checked out 2 of us got in the lift and the carriage dropped significantly I was so freaked out and spend the next two minutes panicking as to whether the lift would hold out!!! I had never been so glad to enter the reception.

On the plus side the receptionist asked me if I was ok, and was savvy enough to offer to take our luggage down in the lift personally so we could use the stairs which I was really grateful for!

The hotel ordered a taxi for us which came on time and cost 37 Euros.

It was an experience….

From the moment we set eyes on it we knew it was a no-hoper. The entrance photograph on their website is of some other building, definitely not the shabby single door entrance existing. The small hallway about 10ft x 2ft had black filthy carpet that had not seen a hoover for months. Unsurprisingly there was no plug socket for a vacuum to function. Into a tiny lift that accommodates three at a squeeze, but two people plus weekend bag comfortably.

Communal hallways scuffed, marked, unvacuumed and scruffy. Room on first impression were modern and tidy, if small. But it was all form over function. The shower in white/grey marble were extremely narrow and perilously slippery when wet measuring only 59cm across so if you are on the large side ( which I am not) you will have a real problem entering the shower. The glass doors to the bathroom area were heavy and you had to manouevre to the sink whilst squeezing through the door.

Cleaning of the rooms did not happened over the three days we were there, Beds were made only. Breakfast food was left in the rooms all day and night and even after numerous requests they be cleared, we had to leave them in the hallway ourselves. Common areas had a few weeks of grey fluff/dust/dirt everywhere.

On the second night we were pursued halfway up the Hooftstraat by the restaurant manger who was filling in for the hotel manager if we could let in the next guests( who happened to be our friends on a late flight as there were no staff to check them in at 10pm!) If that was, we hadn't anything planned - like dinner for instance! Ho hum.

The location is fine if you want to be in Chanel all day, and close enough to the major museums etc, but not to hang around to let unwelcomed guests in especially as the hotel cafe/bar was closed all day and night Friday - so our friends had to come bags and all straight from the airport to the restaurant we were eating in some twenty minutes away. The alternative being to leave the restaurant to return to the hotel to let them in and return to dining later. Extraordinary to take bookings when you have NO staff to check in guests. First time I've ever seen that. The street is noisy every morning early though Sunday morning, unsurprisingly was quiet.

A great weekend on the sightseeing front, but the hotel really left a blot on the experience. Horrid. Horrid. Horrid. Although they explained this had never happened before (yeah right) and gave us a 40 euro discount per night, the damage was done. Shall not return.

We just returned from a way too short first stay in Amsterdam, and can't wait to get back! We found the Hotel Patou on another website and were quite pleased with the find. We stayed on the 4th floor in one of the attic rooms which had a nice window "seat" from which we could overlook the city and the location was very convenient with easy access to the rail lines, museums, and a fantastic bakery around the corner. The rooms were indeed very small, but very efficiently laid out and we found that opening the mirrored closet door and the bathroom door made the room feel a little larger and easier to manuever about. We traveled with our 3 year old son, and with all the accoutrements needed for travelling with a child we managed quite fine. The bed was incredibly comfortable, there was a nice flat screen tv, and the bathroom decor was very nice. Our bed was made and towels replaced each day, but I did note that the walls and floors were scuffed and could have used some freshening up. The reception area is on its own floor and, while we never needed any assistance, the only time we saw the receptionist was when we checked in. A few negatives - the wireless and cable modem internet service was sketchy and intermittent (although there may have been some sort of neighborhood wide outage while we were there), the refrigerator kept beverages lukewarm at best, and the shower was too hot even on the coldest setting. The elevator is indeed very small, holding only two adults (and a small child!) at once. With luggage, you will need to take multiple trips. Overall, I would recommend this hotel.