Luckily, We Got the Room Without the Squeegee Mop

Where: Oostelijke Handelskade 34, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1019 BN

December 1, 2006 at 10:31 AM | by juliana | 1 Comment

At behest and via the courtesy of the Netherlands Board of Tourism, HotelChatter is currently in Amsterdam reporting live on our trips, travels and travails. Enjoy.

This is the view from our second room we were given at the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam after the one-star we "rested" in early yesterday morning. Room 604 is a pretty big three-star room overlooking the water. It looks pretty bleak but things are actually quite cheery here.

What's great about all the rooms on the sixth floor is that they are essentially the attic rooms with slanted wooden beams that provide a sort of rustic feel.

Also addding to the rustic feel is the cement floor. It's the original floor from 1921 and when the building was renovated into its reincarnation as the Lloyd Hotel in 2004, the owners decided to keep the floor as it was. So what that means is an old, bare cement floor running through the hallways and in the rooms. There's one rug but it's pretty tiny. Just to be sure, we cranked up the heat on the huge radiator which works very quickly.

The furnishings are minimalist to the max. There are two nightstands, one chair, a luggage rack and a simple desk and chair. All of these are without drawers, which is fine because we're not sure we even use drawers when we stay in other hotels.

More on the Lloyd after the jump

The bathroom is separated from the rest of the room by this blue glass partition. You open the blue glass door which has no knob, just a circular cut out, and you are greeted with a sink, mirror, toilet and a shower, but no shower curtain. Yes, this is weird but we are one of the lucky ones. Other rooms have the shower in the middle of the room against the wall, locker room style, with your own squeegee to mop up the water.

But despite all the quirky rooms, we really like the Lloyd. The room rates are reasonable staring at 80 Euros for a one-star to 295 for a five-star. The staff here are pleasant, very accommodating and speak great English. We brought the wrong type of voltage transformer and the front desk had literally bags of transformers that we could borrow.

The simple beds and all-white duvets here kick Westin's Heavenly Bed ass, which is most important when you've got severe jet lag. There's a small little restaurant and bar downstairs open pretty much all day--lthough you may save some Euros by hitting the supermarket, c1000, across the street for snacks.

The only problem is that it's a bit out of town. It's not terribly far and actually it's quite nice to be away from the city crowds, but you do have to take a tram into town. All in all its probably about a 20 minute ride to the center of Amsterdam. Someone here said you can walk it in just as much time but since its 40 degrees out, we'll pass.

We'll have more on the Lloyd Hotel when we can finally upload our pictures, which hopefully will be later today so you don't have to deal with our crappy Macbook photos.

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