Review: Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport
Amsterdam is by far one of my favorite cities to visit. I find myself quite often either starting or ending trips thought this city unintentionally. This time it was a planned visit between two flights. On my way back from Taiwan, it was cheaper to connect in London to Amsterdam rather than make my final destination London and start my next flight from the United Kingdom.
This meant that I had to stay a night around the airport as I waited for my next flight. Usually I like to stay at the Sheraton or Hilton on the airport property, however during my visit in early June, prices for these hotels were nearing $500 for the night, even when I looked months in advance.
So it's time to explore off property, where I found the Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport.
Booking
I booked two night at the Hyatt Place Amsterdam due to my connection time between flights. My flight from Taipei landed around 10PM that night and the next flight that I was looking at taking leaves at 7AM, so I chose to give myself a full day to recover after flying halfway around the word.
For 143 EUR per night, it wasn't terribly priced compared to the on-airport hotels.
As a Category 2 Hyatt property, the point redemptions will range from 6,500 to 9,500 points per night. On the nights that I was staying in June, the hotel wanted 9,500 points per night, so I felt the cash option was more fair.
Location
The Hyatt Place Amsterdam is located just off the Schiphol airport, about a 5-10 minute shuttle ride away from the airport. The shuttle only runs between 6:45AM to 11:15PM daily. And while it is free to ride from the airport to the hotel, there is a charge of about 7 EUR from the hotel to the airport.
I arrived around 10PM at night and managed to hop on one of the last shuttles to the airport, but I was not able to take the shuttle from the hotel to the airport. I had a 7:30AM flight, and with the shuttle only starting at 6:45AM, I couldn't take the shuttle and make it to my gate in a reasonable amount of time.
I ended up taking an Uber, which cost about 18EUR.
Check-in
For checking in at 10PM, the line was quite long, I'm assuming that a flight may have been cancelled or lots of people missed their connection. However, the line moved pretty quickly, and I was in my room within 10–15 minutes after being dropped off at the hotel.
The Room
The room itself is small and simple. The bathroom is on the right as you enter the space which has a stand-up shower, toilet, and sink. The floor in the bathroom also seemed to be heated, which was a very welcome touch.
The rest of the room was basic and had all the furnishings you'd expect from a Hyatt Place, including a desk, closet, couch, and the large bed. The couch did pull out to an additional bed if you needed it.
I appreciated the ample closet space, luggage rack, and under the TV there was a mini-fridge to store some drinks. The TV on the wall felt small for the space that it was in, and it didn't work that well, it featured the availability to stream to it with a Chromecast, but I never got it to work. Additionally, all the TV channels provided only worked half the time and would glitch out frequently.
Moreover, I had to iron some clothes for the day that I was leaving, and I found that the iron was non-functional and would not turn on. It had a faint burnt smell to it, so I suspect someone tampered with it and ended up breaking the unit.
Food
As I was at the hotel for a little over 24-hours, I had both a lunch and dinner service during the day that I was staying at the hotel. During the lunchtime, the dining area serves a limited menu and then a full menu during evenings.
The lunch service was nice, and I had no issues ordering my food. It was a very lovely steak sandwich and of course I had the local brew on the side.
While lunch was great, I ran into a problem during dinner service. When I had lunch, I charged my meal to the room without any incident. However, during dinner when it was time to pay the waiter insisted that I couldn't charge the meal to my room, even after providing him with my room number and name.
When I asked why, his reasoning didn't really make sense, saying that I didn't pre-pay a credit to the room, and thus I couldn't charge it. My meal wasn't that expensive, it was only 25 EUR for my dinner. I pressed back and asked to speak or check with the manager.
It took them some deliberation and finally the manager came back and confirmed that I could charge my meal to the room and there was some mix up. It sounded like they had punched in the wrong room number when checking the status of being able to charge to the room, but once that was resolved I was able to fully charge everything to the room.
It was just a disappointing experience, even after trying to explain I should be able to do this multiple times to the waiter.
Service
Besides the one incident at dinner, everything was a pleasant experience. Behind the check-in desks in a bar with a quick service pantry area full of drinks and snacks.
It's a great little space and sitting back here having a few drinks was nice. However, it looked as if the bartender was also working the check-in desk and would be going back and forth trying to serve people while also checking guests in.
The food here is the same food that could be purchased at the sit down restaurant but with a more social atmosphere. In hindsight, I should have probably eaten in the bar area, but it was all pretty pleasant.
Final Thoughts
For an airport hotel, I was pleasantly surprised with the offering and quality of the stay I had. Besides the little dinner time hiccup and the shuttle hours, I thought the food available at the hotel was great quality and the service is what you would expect.
The bed was reasonably comfortable and the price that I paid was something that I would be willing to pay for again if I was on a layover in Amsterdam. While I would prefer to stay at the on-airport hotel just for the ease of access, this would be the runner-up in the future.
