Groot Valkenisse Holidays from AU$453

I had stayed in a Social Hub in Madrid and found it to be an excellent alternative to main stream hotels. The one in Amsterdam was not the case. The location for this hotel is not very good. We were assigned a handicap accessible room without requiring nor requesting one. They did change our room but unfortunately the air conditioning in that room did not work. When I enquired at the desk I was told that none of the rooms had air conditioning because it was illegal in Europe to have AC. This is of course false. The rooms were climate controlled except our room was about 25-28 degrees even though the thermostat was set to 18. They said they would send someone but never did. We survived by opening the window and luckily the fall weather kept the room comfortable for sleeping. We did not spend any daytime hours in the room. Overall, for the money we paid, we could have had a much better hotel room, closer to the city centre and in a safer, more friendlier area. I do not recommend staying at this location.

The entire experience at The Toren was exceptional. The hotel was cozy, comfortable and located in a great area close to restaurants, museums, shopping and the central train station. Breakfast food selections tasty and filling. All interactions with the hotel team members were pleasant and helpful.

We loved this hotel! The room for Amsterdam was a nice size. Very comfortable bed and nice hot shower. The have an elevator, which some small hotels in Amsterdam do not. The breakfast was just lovely, with plenty to chose from, all types of bread, meats, cheeses, eggs, jam, yogurt, cereal and of course tea and coffee. You can't beat the central location, very easy to walk to most everywhere. We really like that the street is closed to traffic as it keeps it nice and quite. The staff was very helpful with directions and local information. Very handy to have water available in the lobby to fill up your bottles. Other nice touches like umbrellas to borrow as there is always a chance of rain. We highly recommend this hotel and we will stay here the next time we are in this beautiful city!

First point of contention is the ‘self check-in’- As you always need staff to help you with the local tax payment and assigning a key card, I really don’t see the point in this and it always takes longer than traditional check in, Second was the room, on the first floor but the windows are so think that even when closed you could hear the details of conversations of passers by outside. The in room constant noise was another frustration, the extractor fan runs constantly rather than just when the bathroom light is on (as most hotels do). This is coupled with the air con which seems impossible to switch off, with a constant temperature of 20° was too hot to sleep. All this meant that despite the attentive and helpful staff, I didn’t get a proper nights sleep for any of the 3 nights I stayed - and that’s the whole point of a hotel room.