Golden Tulip Apollo Amsterdam - Amsterdam, Netherlands     

We (husband and myself) arranged a last minute, short break in Amsterdam. We read a few reviews of this hotel before booking and can confirm the positive ones. This hotel is well-kept with pleasant and helpful staff. It is in a quiet location, within easy walking distance of the lively neighbourhood of the Pjip, where there is a range of restaurants and shops and a market. We ate dinner in the hotel and the food was good. We found a lovely little tea-room 5 minutes walk away (de bakkerswinkel in roelof hartstraat) where you could eat well (breakfast through to high tea). The museum quarter is close by, too, and you can take a canal boat from just outside the Rijksmuseum into the centre of Amsterdam, or right round the city. With hindsight, the only thing we might change would be our means of booking this hotel. You can go direct to the hotel website and get discounts on rooms pre-paid with booking. This means that you could specify a room with a view over the canals - definitely worth it!

Having stayed in some nice places on the outskirts of Amsterdam, including another Golden Tulip, I had high hopes for Golden Tulip Apollo with its advertisement of being on the convergence of five canals. I prepaid for a 'deluxe room with guaranteed view of the canals'. So I was prepared to accept the receptionist was dyslexic when I opened my curtain to a view of the carpark. Upon my complaining, he said that there was no way to guarantee a view of the canals, despite Golden Tulip saying otherwise to me for ten or so extra euro. He reassigned the room, which ended up being on the canal with a lovely view of the nearby service station. If I craned my neck, I could see another canal converging. It's only a view. I was more perturbed by the room smelling like it had been recently fumigated and the already high inroom dining prices being exacerbated by a ten euro 'delivery charge'. For a single diner, a 16 euro hamburger turns into 26 euro. Clearly they can't be bothered. The receptionist was also of the opinion that the hotel was too expensive for me. When I asked about a shuttle to the airport, he said it was 14 euro and perhaps I was better off walking to Amsterdam Zuid station (about half an hour away). I hadn't complained about prices, and I don't look like a student, so whatever the cause for his snootiness, I still found his attitude unprofessional. The receptionist the following morning was better.