Amsterdam Hotel in London - Great location, good prices!
by - Written: Aug 28 '03 (Updated Jan 04 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great location, entirely non-smoking hotel, nice rooms, full English breakfast available
Cons: Early morning vacuuming in the hallway outside our room.
The Bottom Line: An excellent choice that offers a good value. We'll definitely check availability there on our next visit to London.
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| lyagushka's Full Review: Amsterdam Hotel |
For our recent long weekend visit to London, we found ourselves in need of a room for three nights on rather short notice. Using the laterooms.com website, we found Amsterdam Hotel in Earl's Court, London and chose it for its non-smoking policy, its proximity to a tube station, its small size, attractive prices and the availability of a cooked breakfast. We were also impressed with the fact that the Amsterdam is the current holder of an award for best B&B in London.
We booked the day before our three-night stay at this property, asking for the studio apartment we saw on the laterooms.com site. We were told that it was unclear whether or not the studio was actually still available, but that we could have a double room with ensuite facilities. We agreed to this and accepted the manager's assurances that we would receive the studio if it was in fact available. On arrival, we were told the studio was not available, but that they had an executive suite to offer us for the same price as the standard room we had agreed to take. We didn't hesitate. Thus, we enjoyed an executive suite for £75.30 per night.
The Amsterdam Hotel comprises two adjacent townhouses, renovated to include just 28 rooms and suites, each one uniquely furnished and decorated. A lift is available for guests staying on the upper stories. Continental breakfast is included with each room and guests can also order a cooked breakfast the night before for an extra charge of £2.75. I opted for the cooked breakfast and found it worth the small extra charge.
The hotel manager showed us to our suite (carrying my overnight bag without being asked) and showed us a switch on the wall which she told us not to turn off since it connected to a water heater that provided our personal supply of hot water. Then she left us to admire our very spacious living room and kitchenette and the rest of the suite.
The living area had two large and very comfortable couches facing each other across a glass topped coffee table and flanked on one side each by end tables. There was a phone on one end table and a letterbox television on its own stand. Floor to ceiling scrims covered the tall wall-to-wall windows in this room, which looked on to a green but not especially attractive tiny yard. Along the opposite wall was a tiled counter with a sink, microwave, electric kettle, coffee pot and everything needed to make tea or coffee, including individual servings of milk in the small refrigerator. Cabinets and drawers held plates, bowls, mugs, glasses and flatware, but there was no heating element other than the microwave, nor was there a teapot.
The bedroom of the suite consisted of a rather narrow, oblong room with just a queen sized bed, a standing lamp, wicker dresser, a chair and a small closet with hotel hangers. There was just enough room to scoot along either side of the bed to close the heavy curtains that hung at the tall windows of the bedroom. But there was ample room between the foot of the bed and the door.
An entranceway gave on to all the other rooms and contained a large rectangular mirror in a heavy gilt frame. The bathroom was carpeted, like the rest of the suite. It contained the usual bathroom fixtures, but only wall-mounted soap dispensers instead of courtesy toiletries. There was plenty of hot water, but the pressure was somewhat anaemic. Not that we needed hot water; we were in London during a near-record heat wave.
Breakfast was served in an attractive room on the lower floor of the main building, where we'd checked in. The complimentary continental breakfast buffet included orange juice or grapefruit juice, a variety of cold cereals and a few different kinds of canned fruits. Tea or coffee, and a basket of toast and croissants with butter and preserves was brought to each table. My cooked breakfast came with a potato waffle, a fried egg, grilled tomatoes and two small slices of cooked ham. The tea was served in teapots and the baskets of toast and croissants was very generous.
Near the breakfast room there was a computer with an internet connection for guest use. This room also gave on to the small private garden behind the hotel. We didn't spend much time there as we always wanted to get out in the morning before the temperature got too high, and it was hotter outside than in our suite when we returned in the evening. Actually we were very pleased by how cool our suite stayed without any air conditioning.
The Amsterdam is not the most centrally located hotel, but it is within a one-minute walk of the Earls Court Underground station. This station is on the District Line as well as the Picadilly line which runs from Heathrow Airport through the center of London to many of the biggest tourist attractions, such as Covent Garden and British Museum. The District line can take you from Earls Court to the Tower of London. Despite its proximity to the station, the hotel is on a very quiet and pleasant looking street. We were never disturbed by any street noise at all and felt very safe in that neighborhood.
My only complaint about the hotel has to do with the housekeeping. Each morning we heard a very loud vacuum cleaner being run in the corridor outside our room at around 8am. I thought this was too early for such activities, since many people like to sleep in a bit when they're on vacation. Even though we were usually up by then, it still wasn't a pleasant thing to listen to before breakfast. Also, we noticed that housekeeping didn't clean our suite until quite late in the day while we were there. Normally this didn't matter because we were out all day. But stopping back at the hotel briefly around 3:30 pm, we saw that nothing had been cleaned. On our last day, it was so hot by this time of the day, we decided to have a shower and a nap. Once again, the room hadn't yet been cleaned and when the maid arrived, I had to tell her we didn't want the room cleaned at that time. She apologized and offered us fresh linens for the bathroom. Our suite was normally tidied very well though.
Overall, we felt we got a very good deal with Amsterdam Hotel. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a pleasant room at a good rate in London. We will certainly check their availability on our next trip to the city.
Recommended:
Yes
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