Great Location - Bad Hotel (De Oranje Tulp Hotel)

Member Name: tracythomson

Product:	De Oranje Tulp Hotel
Date:	20/12/01 (472 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Close to City Centre, Didn't have to stay there long, Emm!!!

Disadvantages: Bad Service, Poor Rooms, Cleanliness

We booked our flights through Easyjet at a very reasonable price and booked a travel insurance policy over there web, just in case everything went wrong and we even ventured to book out hotel over the web. After studying the many 'areas' of Amsterdam we opted to stay as close to the city centre as we could. We found 'De Oranje Tulp' only a few minutes walk from Central Station in Amsterdam and thought an En-Suite Double room would be just perfect for a 3 night stay..... WE WERE WRONG!

Our flights were on time, Our journey from the airport to Amsterdam was simple, we even withdrew the local currency from the cash machines on our Visa cards but did not take into account that the standard of hotel in Holland is much lower than we would accept in Britain.

We arrived at the Hotel and we told that our room was not ready and to go downstairs for a coffee - we opted to go for a walk and return in a hour. When we returned we were asked to complete a rather complex form (mostly in Dutch) and were offered no assistance. We were led up to our room along a dirty unswept corridor to a room that would best be described as a 'Youth Hostel Type' room.

The bed was certainly the only comfortable thing about the room. There was no chair, a TV so high mounted on the wall I had to wear my glasses to see it, a 'dressing table (wall mounted) about 6" wide and 3 feet long ... the En-Suite was a joke.. you could just about turn around to dry yourself after showering but had to open the door in order to dry properly. The staff were less than helpful too. When we went downstairs to breakfast in the restaurant we were asked for our token - we were not given one and had to return to reception to request a token (we watched many other guests do the same) before we were allowed to eat. The standard of the hotel was very basic indeed - all lights were out in our room and we had to request that replacement bulbs were installed so that we could see were we were going!!
! The most basic essentials were missing (the room was cleaned each day but the staff did not leave enough toilet roll for two people and we found this was kepf under lock and key and had to be requested). The whole experience of this Hotel was rather poor and I would certainly not recommend anyone to stay there.

If you must use this hotel as your base ... get out as MUCH AS YOU CAN and see Amsterdam. Must sees include the Zoo ( at least 3 or 4 hours to get round it) and the local markets ... and off course a trip to 'the Dam' would not be complete without visiting a Coffee Shop!

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