DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Centraal Station was the hotel I chose to stay at during my time in Amsterdam.
Hilton has a large number of hotels in Amsterdam across multiple brands: Hilton, Waldorf Astoria, Hampton by Hilton and even Doubletree, I chose this one as it is a modern hotel is probably the most Central locations of all of them, accredited as a "four-star" hotel, it is literally a stone throw away from Central Station. This means that nearby there are multiple train services to the airport, international destinations such as Brussels, as well as tram and metro services.
It is a large hotel with 11 floors, a nightclub called Sky Lounge is on the top so it is worth avoiding rooms on Floors 10 and 11 because of noise. I was situated on the 5th floor, the most noise I appeared to get was slightly from the corridor and outside, which got worse at peak times, especially in the early morning where I was woken up at about 9 am through loud banging and sirens (despite the windows being shut), with my room is situated near the cupboard which I presume the cleaners use.
The hotel is actually quite confusing to get in, the signposted entrance is actually through the Lobby Bar, but you can also enter at the top through revolving doors, or through Starbucks (one of their cheaper branches in the city) at the bottom of approaching the hotel from Central Station.
On check-in, after waiting considerably longer than I'm used to, to check in I was greeted with a warm cookie, this is a nice gesture but sadly I couldn't eat it as it contained gluten. The staff were really friendly and complaint handling was good.
There were some policies which made my stay start off on a negative note:
- A deposit of 100 euros was required on check-in, in cash or on a credit card, this was really annoying and frustrating considering my mini-bar wasn't even loaded, and they have my card details on file anyway - I struggle to understand what the charge is for!
- Breakfast would be charged at around 26 euros per day unless I booked in advance straight away, then I'd have to pay 20. As hotel breakfasts can be pretty much hit and miss for me, I ended up opting for the latter. I'm glad I did as the breakfast was woeful in all regards: quality, service and selection.
You can see photos of my breakfast and the separate review here - https://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/city-cafe-amsterdam-3
City Cafe is one of the hotels' restaurants, which serves breakfast.
The hotel did try to fix the situation by offering me the chance to come back but the food was still awful, and only the service improved!
There is a large Starbucks in the hotel which has its own wifi, to go alongside the Hilton wifi which disconnects every 24 hours for you to reconnect again, I don't understand the need for this. It's inconvenient.
My room was quite nice and spacious, the bed was quite comfy, however, I didn't like the duvet (comforter in American English) as I didn't like the material, but it was typical of most European hotels.
Another issue with my hotel room was the TV, the main problem is there wasn't one as the iMac in the room doubled up as both, while I find it amazing, cool and modern to have an iMac in the room, I found it a bit disappointing not to have a television as well, meaning it was hard to see from my bed, with the desk it was located on being at an angle, however, the view in front of me was nice considering it was made up of glass windows with curtains.
I also liked how the hotel had so many plug sockets, with 2 at the desk, 2 bedsides and a good couple more dotted around the room.
The room has hot drink making facilities with take-out cups.
I also found the service at the hotel to be excellent - when a problem arose such as needing help with an iMac after an update, needing new pillows, essentials for the room and the time I stupidly couldn't find the keyboard and mouse for the iMac (which was right in front of me), they seemed to come up really quickly.
The hotel also has 4 lifts - they were spacious and fast. The hotel is slightly pricey too, but with the Central locations close to most of Amsterdam's attractions and Central Station (tram, bus, train, ferry, metro) this has to be expected.
Cleanliness of the hotel could also be improved - some marks remained before and after housekeeping visited so the cleaning of the room should be more thorough. Essentials such as mouthwash and toilet paper weren't replaced!
My main issues with this hotel were:
- The wifi was slow at peak times and I had to log in every 24 hours.
- €100 hold deposit - Do they not trust me?
- Breakfast (as explained)
- There was a lack of English TV channels in the room, meaning I had to keep going from my bed to the iMac to connect it to my SkyGO.
- Decor in the lobby is old and out-dated.
Sadly due to Yelp's character limits, I couldn't write more (I had to delete a lot of content to add more!) but this hotel is worthy of a four-star rating despite many flaws. read more