Bilderberg Garden Hotel - Amsterdam, Netherlands     

The Bilderberg Garden Hotel is located in a lovely neighborhood to the south of central Amsterdam, within a 10 minute walk of the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. It is a pleasant location with lots of greenery, set among beautiful houses, lovely shops nearby, and canals to explore. The hotel’s brochures and website information describe the area of the hotel quite accurately. However, it is over-rated as a 5-star hotel and over-priced. Most of the rooms look like a typical 3-star hotel would look in the US with similarly modest furnishings. The room we stayed in was rather worn-out and needed updating, carpet-cleaning, etc. Staff at the desk were polite but not well-informed and not especially helpful. There is a rather spartan “Business Center” consisting of 2 computers and a printer in the hallway of the lower level of the hotel. There is no Fitness Center or pool. Several guidebooks described this hotel as a top-level hotel with beautiful furnishings, etc. Maybe this is true of selected rooms, but it seems that most rooms are not like this at all. Beware – guidebooks say that rooms have Jacuzzis. This is not the case for the average room here. One guidebook called the Lobby “spectacular.” We thought it was rather small and darkly lit --- not very inviting at all. We felt ripped off by the high prices of this place and left after 2 nights to move to a real 5-star hotel in the center of Amsterdam. We are not sure why the guidebooks have gone so far wrong on this place. Unless you stay in the very top-level rooms, you will not find this to be a 5-star hotel. If you want a quiet and pleasant suburban location, walking distance to the big museums, and a rather unspectacular and somewhat over-priced hotel, this is it.

If you're looking for somewhere which LOOKS swanky from the exterior, then this is not the hotel for you. Located 10 minutes taxi ride from the centre of the city, the BiIderberg Garden Hotel looks like an office block from the outside. But to be fair, this is perhaps the harshest criticism to be levelled at this hotel. Although it can feel slightly claustrophic due to it's low ceilings, it does in fact have attentive staff, and a better than average restaurant. The rooms look a little tired, but all in all, this is a good hotel if you want to stay somewhere slightly quieter in this city. It's a just a shame it doesn't look like a hotel, but more like an office.