Beware of the mattress
by - Written: Jul 20 '02 (Updated Jul 20 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: very convenient location; large and nicely decorated suites at low prices
Cons: small bed with an unacceptable mattress
The Bottom Line: If they have rooms/suites with decent beds and mattresses, then the Amsterdam Hotel can be a great choice.
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| gw0143's Full Review: Amsterdam Hotel |
Location
The Amsterdam Hotel (http://www.amsterdam-hotel.com) is very conveniently located in Earl's Court, a residential neighborhood west of the center of London that has many hotels in the low to medium price range. Earl's Court is on the Piccadilly Underground Line which means that one can get to and from Heathrow Airport without changing trains, and the trip takes only about 30-35 minutes. The hotel is located very close to the Earl's Court Road entrance of the station. There are many little shops and restaurant on Earl's Court Road and the adjacent streets, although Trebovir Road itself is relatively quiet and almost purely residential (apart from several hotels). From Earl's Court it is only two tube stops to the museums in South Kensington, one more stop to the shopping area in Knightsbridge (including Harrods) and another three stops to Piccadilly Circus and the theaters of the West End. One can also take the District Line to Victoria and Westminster, High Street Kensington or Wimbledon.
Exterior
The hotel is in two (or three?) nice-looking townhouses next to each other. There are in fact separate entrances to the different parts of the hotel, and only the main entrance has a reception. We were told that there is a connection between the two houses, but only on the upper floors (our room was on the first floor).
Facilities and Service
The lobby area is tiny. The receptionists were moderately competent and friendly. When we had an issue with the room (see below), someone came quickly, but couldn't fix it immediately. There is a dining room for breakfast (which we didn't try because we got up too late for breakfast each day due to the time difference), but not much else to speak of. This hotel is not for people who are looking for a big hotel with several restaurants, room service, or fitness clubs.
Room
I stayed at this hotel with my wife and daughter last year. I'm writing this review now because I just returned from another trip to London where we tried a different hotel this year, the Lowndes Hotel - see my other review.
We decided to get a suite, which at around 97 pounds per night was still cheaper than what many first-class hotels would have charged for a simple and often tiny room. The suite consisted of a very large living room with a kitchen on one end, a rather small bedroom, a bathroom and, interestingly, a corridor to connect the rooms - so this was truly a one-bedroom apartment. The living room and bedroom were both facing the back of the hotel (a small garden), so it was quiet.
The living room was very nicely decorated and had several pieces of furniture in it, plenty of places to sit and still a lot of empty floor space. The kitchen was clean and modern, but had one rather strange and irritating feature - a step up from the living room, but a step that was too small for an adult foot. So one had to lean over the step to reach the cabinets and the sink.
Unfortunately, the bedroom was really too small, and the same was true for the bed which was perhaps double-sized in width (less than queen-sized for sure) and definitely shorter than any standard American bed size. Perhaps the worst part about the bed was that one could feel the metal springs through the mattress - I actually ended up putting two layers of towels over the worst parts.
The bathroom was ok, except that the shower did not work when we arrived. Showers in England often seem to be an afterthought and have been added, in various bizarre ways, to existing bath tubs. It is often not very clear how to activate them and it wasn't at all clear in this case, so we called help. Someone came relatively quickly even though it was pretty late at night. But even after getting a screwdriver he couldn't get the shower to work. He said he would have to call a plumber who would come the next day. So no shower on the first night. The second night the shower was indeed working - one had to turn a screw somewhere, and this screw had not been turnable the night before. I wonder whether anybody had used this shower before.
Price
I made a reservation online through Active Hotels and got a better price than on the hotel's own web site. That appears to be still true - see http://www.amsterdamhotel.activehotels.com which right now seems to have pretty low rates for some dates in August (I saw 54 pounds for the suites, although for some other dates they are 90 pounds).
Conclusion
It's a tough call whether to give this hotel a "recommended" or "not recommended" rating. The tiny bedroom, the small bed, and the horrible mattress might warrant a "not recommended" rating and, after all, I decided to try a different hotel this year. But apart from that (and the initially not working shower) everything was really quite good, there was a lot of room in the living room, the kitchen was useful, and the suite prices are low compared to other hotels' room prices. So I'm going to say "recommended" - but I also strongly recommend to check out the mattresses first.
Recommended:
Yes
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