Hotel Nieuw Slotania - Amsterdam, Netherlands     

Firstly Everyone has different reviews of this place but I think you need to look at the whole picture, would there be so many bad reviews if it was so good. Secondly I travel a lot and have to say this is right up (or down) there with the worst of them. So we arrive in amsterdam 14 of us and get the taxis to the hotel no problems about 20 mins from airport. We arrive at the hotel and are told that we cannot check in until 2:00pm, fair enough we are only 10 minutes outside the center of amsterdam (or so we are led to believe) so we decided to go for a walk some asian guy outside the hotel points out the direction to walk in, looking round the immediate area it looks rough and is predominantly turkish, all the women are in hijabs, anyway we walk for 20 minutes and Im thinking where are the canals and great architecture? its basically all pre fab concrete buildings and the turkish area is big. Eventually we spotted a bar and went in. The lady behind the counter seemed surpised to see us and was quite happy to help us out and made us welcome. So we asked for directions to the main area of the city, Dam square is a good place to start, she told us another 15 minutes on a tram. Nice. After eventually getting to the middle of amsterdam we spent a couple of hiours there and managed to get back to our hotel to check in, taxis ranged between 20 - 45 euros to where we were. We went to book in and gave our booking reference, the guy behind the counter said he had no record of it even though we had paid 230 euros deposit, he said we should have had the confirmation sheet, upon producing this he still denied we had paid any deposit so basically we lost our deposit and all had to pay an extra 15 euros each per person taking our original price from 80 euros for two nights to 95, I have never met such unhelpful people in my life. Our hotel rooms were cramped little dorms with pillars in the middle of the room, the sort of room you'd pay around 15 to 20 pounds for in the uk, beds were metal bunk beds, no wardrobes or storage and the tiniest window ever so it was like a sauna. I checked hotel rates in the middle of amsterdam and I'd say this even at peak time you can get cheaper than this place for 2 people 4 people or more, also you will save cash on your travelling. 3 star is a joke for this place and it gives a bad first impression of the dutch people. If you are in a small group i would avoid this place after daylight hours, unles you get a taxi right up to the front door, at least 2 of our taxi drivers asked us why we were staying so far out and one, a very helpful iranian guy said the place was rife for muggings and stabbings he told us a bunch of rowdy blokes that we should be careful, so girls and smaller groups take care.