Hotel Leiden is probably one of the best hotels in Leiden. Located in the heart of Leiden this is a hotel for all those who want to go around Amsterdam and also the city of Leiden. The rooms are quite spacious however I found house-keeping and room-service to be a bit below my expectations. You order for food over phone and it could take at least 45mins - 1 hour to reach your room. The hotel has a lovely restaurant names Restaurant Het Haagshe Schow. This is next to Leiden river and provides a great view. It is an ideal place for a quite dinner over candle-lights. The buffet lunch comprises western food and can be a bit difficult for vegans from Asians. I only wish the restaurant provided some option of Asian food. One good thing about the hotel is that it is located just next to bus-stand and travellers can easily reach the Leiden Central Station within 10 minutes. The Leiden University is also walking distance away so can be a preferred place of stay for those who have work in the University. However, I found the tariff to a bit steep.

Plus: Excellent restaurant on premise.

Minus: Very noisy because it is at a busy intersection. NO coffee make, no tea maker, no mini bar in room. None of the soda machines worked (for an entire week), so if you want something to drink outside the restaurant opening hours, good luck! Staff not very friendly. Also, the location is not very good, far away from Leiden (20-min by bicycle) and no supermarket or gas station anywhere near where you could buy a soda or snacks. The hotel lobby and restaurant are beautiful, but the room design is of much lower quality (cheap furniture, no pictures on the walls). Even though the food in the hotel restaurant is very good, it is expensive.

We stayed at this hotel for 4 nights and I can honestly say it was the worst hotel experience I have had in many years. We booked an inside room so that we would not have to put up with traffice noise from the nearby road, but when we arrived found that none were available so we were put in an outside room. It was very hot, and with no air conditioning we had the choice of opening a window and being woken all night by traffice noise, or closing the window and suffocating with the heat. We complained the next morning and were moved to an inside room. Our bags were supposed to have been moved to our new room during the day but we were told by reception that they didn't have time so we had to lug them up to te thrid floor ourselves. This room was better, but of course no aircon so still very hot. Also no fridge so we couldn't even have cold drinks. The balcony was covered in cigarrette ends so obviousley had not been cleaned properly. Thar evening we had a meal in the restaurant. We had to wait an hour for our main course, and twenty minutes for a bottle of wine. Our impression overall was that although the staff were polite and professional they basically didn't care about the guests.

Our experience with this hotel has been good on a number of visits. Our visits have been in the winter so we did not experience any of the air conditioning problems mentioned by other reviewers and location was actually a plus for us given where we had to be. Rooms are fine but if you have lots of - or heavy baggage, it is a bit of a convoluted haul to get there. And yes, you are on your own. No help. One negative is the choice of tile in the bathroom which gets VERY slippery when it gets in the least bit wet – right: in the bathroom!

Parking is sufficient and free – not always the case at other hotels in the area. No WiFi in the hotel but you do have reception of the regional KPN system (for a fee)

The food in the restaurant was good – not great – as well. All in, a good fit for our needs and a decent value for the price relative to what other hotels in the area cost.