Stayed 2 nghts at Stempels to attend a wedding. The hotel and staff were all really good.
I had a large room on the top floor which was spacious and clean, had a lovely view over the square and good air con. The bed was extremely comfy and the room was very quiet - even though the hotel was full. Because the hotel was full of my family for the wedding I got to see four other rooms and they were all really lovely.
I had breakfast one morning and it was a good choice of the usual continental fare - meat cheese, cereal, yoghurt. eggs and pastries. The coffee was excellent and you could have as much as you wanted from a self serve machine.
The staff were friendly and efficient. We were a large group that tended to meet, wander off and reappear and at some point someone would pay eventually but the staff took this all in their stride!
Other reviewers have commented that the hotel smelt of fish. I went in a variety of rooms and never noticed this. And they'd certainly been cooking fish as we had it at the reception.
The only reason I decided to give 4 stars rather than 5 is that although I had a superior room it only had a shower (which was excellent) no bath - and there as room for one, and no tea and coffee facilities in the room. Usually I take a kettle with me but as I was travelling with handluggage only this hadn't been possible so it was an inconvenience but only a small one.

It's a little while ago (a year to be precise) that we have stayed in hotel Stempels in Haarlem but as I've just started writing reviews, I felt I should tell about Stempels. We married in the nearby town of Heemstede in 2008. We live in the UK and chose Haarlem as the town of choice to assemble our guests from around the world as Haarlem is a beautiful old Dutch town and not far at all from Schiphol airport. We came back for our first anniversary and found the quality unchanged (excellent). There is a restaurant and a bar used by locals as well as guests.

The night before our wedding we slept in Stempels which we chose as it has lovely old features mixed with contemporary design, beautiful breakfast rooms, nice bedrooms and VERY comfortable Hastings beds. I used the beautiful old staircase to meet my husband to be and the guests that were already in Haarlem. So good memories all around.

The staff was so kind to refrigerate some off the left-over cake which we shared with guests in the morning. I've seen some whinging about breakfast in other reviews. I've been in Stempels twice now and once for lunch and the food is of an excellent quality. Great bread and lovely toppings is more important than a quantity of factory yoghurts etc. Trust the Dutch for breakfast!

Our guests that stayed in the hotel with us liked it as much as we did.

The place does stink, of food also. Their main business is being a restaurant. Also they ripped me off for a nights stay because they did not get my cancellation via email, much like another traveler. Otherwise very nice place, unless you get a room where you cannot open the window, or you get one of the rooms over looking their kitchen where you can become one with the smells.

We stayed in a superior room which was very large and had beautiful beams and a lovely view of the church beyond. In fact the place has tons of charm and character. Stempels is based right on the Grote Markt in Haarlem and is in a perfect location to see the main city as its so central. Almost below the hotel is a public car park which you need to use if taking your car. The hotel doesnt have any parking facilities and parking is very expensive not to mention that finding the hotel is not fun with lots of tiny little one way roads. My advice is take the train, the station is a short bus journey or 10mins walk away.

The room was clean with a spacious and moderately comfortable bed. Despite being so central close to tens of bars/restuarents, we had a quiet and paceful nights sleep. Checkin was slow. We had a computer on a proper desk in our room but no tes/coffee making facilities. Downstairs there is a restuarent, the food was nice enough. Prices are around 10euro for lunch but much more for dinner.

As for the smell of the room which quite runied our stay, I can only guess that cleaning stuff used our toilet prior to our having the room or there is a serious drain blockage issue. There is no ventilation in the bathroom so the smell stayed with us for the first night and lingered for the second. The hotel was all booked up so changing rooms wasnt an option.