Jolly Carlton Hotel, Amsterdam

A couple of weekends ago I went to Amsterdam with my boyfriend. We wanted to find a hotel which was close to the centre so it was easy to get around, but that wasn't too expensive (if we could help it!)

I went on lastminute.com and I saw a deal for one of the 'secret hotels'. This means that you don't know which hotel you will be staying at, but that you will get it at a discounted price. It told us the rough location (around Rembrant ...
...You find out which hotel you are staying at as soon as you have made the booking. We thought it would be quite exciting to get one of the 'secret hotel' deals, it was in the right location for us and sounded like it had everything we needed so we went ahead and booked it for the price of £287 for three nights. The deal was also that we would get the best available double room when we got to the hotel.
The hotel that we had booked was the four ... more

A couple of weekends ago I went to Amsterdam with my boyfriend. We wanted to find a hotel which was close to the centre so it was easy to get around, but that wasn't too expensive (if we could help it!)

I went on lastminute.com and I saw a deal for one of the 'secret hotels'. This means that you don't know which hotel you will be staying at, but that you will get it at a discounted price. It told us the rough location (around Rembrant Square), the room and hotel facilities and the star rating. You find out which hotel you are staying at as soon as you have made the booking. We thought it would be quite exciting to get one of the 'secret hotel' deals, it was in the right location for us and sounded like it had everything we needed so we went ahead and booked it for the price of £287 for three nights. The deal was also that we would get the best available double room when we got to the hotel.
The hotel that we had booked was the four star 'Jolly Carlton'. I had a look on the internet and it seemed wonderful.

We were told that check in wasn't until 2pm, but when we arrived in Amsterdam in the morning, we though that we would go to the hotel to see if we could leave our luggage there so we didn't have to drag it around the city until 2pm.

The hotel is about a 15 minute walk from the central station, which we managed no problem, even with our luggage. If you don't want to walk then there are also several trams you can take, either from the central station or from the centre of the town, though it really isn't that far and it is a fairly flat road all the way, and it means you can window shop as you walk! The hotel is very easy to find and is along one of the main roads. It has a very large sign outside, so you really can't miss it!

When we got to the hotel and went through the doors, there was a large reception desk there with several people working behind it. This was great as we didn't have to wait in a queue to be seen to. The lady at the reception was very nice and said that our room was ready already and that we could check in straight away. We were very impressed since it was only 11am and it was great knowing that we could go and freshen up after our flights and drop off our luggage instead of killing time before the check in time.

Our room was on the 6th floor, there are seven floors in total. There are three impressive looking lifts (if you don't want to take the stairs!), so you never had to wait long for one to arrive.

Once we go to our room, it was slightly smaller than we had expected but had everything we needed, so we didn't mind too much.

The room came with a mini bar, but this was really expensive so we didn't get anything from it. It was an amazing €4 for a can of coke! There was a variety of things in the mini bar such as soft drinks, wine, beer, chocolate and nuts.

There was a nice comfy double bed in the centre of the room and you could also choose which kind of pillows you wanted on the bed. The bed came with standard pillows, but there were four more different kinds you could choose so that you could have the perfect nights sleep. All you had to do was call you request into reception and then they would bring your pillow right up to you. We just stuck with the standard ones though, they felt fine to me!

There was a sliding mirror in the room, which reveals a wardrobe behind it, and also another large mirror above the desk at the bottom of the bed.
There was a tv in the corner of the room with international channels. It was also possible to go on information pages which would tell you the tourist attractions and restaurants around Amsterdam. I thought this was quite handy, and a nice feature to have since we could plan all the things that we wanted to do.

There was a kettle with tea and coffee on the desk, and plastic cups which were replaced every day so that you would have a fresh one. There was also a folder with writing paper and envelopes on the desk, and a large hardback book which was the 'Amsterdam Insight' book which has a history of Amsterdam and the history of some of the tourist attractions and restaurants. This was good for an indication of what was worthwhile seeing while we were there. Also handy if you are a newcomer to Amsterdam! The book belonged to the hotel, so couldn't be removed from the room.

There was also one comfy chair and one desk chair in the room. I do think the room looked quite cramped with all the furniture in it, and it was a little hard to manoeuvre around at times which was one of the downsides to the room.

We had a balcony attached to our room. I think this was where the 'best available room' in the deal came in. There are only balconies on the 6th floor, so we were quite lucky to get one! It was nice going out on to the balcony and being so high up, because you really could see all of the city from up there. It was great.

There was a bath tub/shower in the bathroom, and everything was sparking clean. There were also complimentary toiletries consisting of 2 shower caps, 2 shower gels, 2 shampoos, 2 conditioners, a sponge and a comb. If you used these, then they were replaced when the room was cleaned.

There was room service available, and this came with an automatic €5 supplement charge. The food sounded nice but it was a little expensive, and we liked getting out of the hotel to try the different restaurants, so we didn't make use of the service. On the menu was pizzas, soups, spaghetti, wine and beer. Breakfast was also available to be delivered to the room for €20.

The room was impressively clean and had a modern décor. The room was cleaned every day, but if you didn't want to be disturbed there was a switch next to the door which said 'Do not disturb' which you could switch on, and then it would turn a red light on outside the door, indicating that you do not want to be disturbed.

The check out for the hotel is 12 noon, but you can leave your luggage at the hotel free of charge.

There is a restaurant and a brasserie at the hotel, we didn't go to these so I can't comment on the food or service, but they did look very nice!

There is a private car park at the hotel, but there is a charge for using this (we didn't come with a car so I'm not too sure how much it is!) There are also cots available from reception if you require one.

The hotel is in a wonderful location, it is right next to the floating flower market, which is lovely to look around and see all the flowers. There is a Burger King and a McDonalds right across the road from the hotel, but also lots of nice little restaurants and coffee shops. It is a short walk to Dam Square and on the way you pass Amsterdam Dungeons and Madame Tussauds, so everything is really close by! You can walk to the centre (Dam Square) in around 7 -10 minutes, and if you go in the other direction, for about 10 minutes, you have the Heineken experience, Hard Rock Café, The Van Gogh Museum and lots of other museums and tourist attractions, so I really think that this hotel is in the perfect location if there are lots of things that you want to do and see around the centre of Amsterdam.

All in all I had a wonderful stay at the hotel. The staff were really friendly, the room was nice and modern and had everything we needed, and it was in a wonderful location. The room was a little on the small side, and the mini bar and room service were too costly for us to justify, but it was a very nice hotel. The room rate did seem a little on the expensive side for a hotel, but it was actually one of the cheapest ones we found that was in the centre of Amsterdam. The thing you also have to remember is that when you check out of the hotel, you have to pay a city tax charge which I think is around 5% of what you pay for the room, so we ended up paying another €14 when we left.

I would recommend this hotel, and if I go back to Amsterdam I would definitely think about staying here again! 

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