HotelGolden Tulip Amsterdam-Zaandam

What am I doing here?

Oh I keep asking myself that. Why am I in this god-forsaken down-market crappy Dutch hotel? On the plus side, it's only for one night but on the down side, surely somebody could have found something better than this.

Where am I anyway?

To be honest, I don't exactly know. Someone said Zaandam is just north of Amsterdam. Someone else said it's about 15 minutes and 4.5 Euros from Amsterdam Airport on the train but if you made the mistake of getting a taxi from the airport you can kiss goodbye to 40 minutes and a massive 70 Euros. There must be hotels of better quality at cheaper prices and nearer to the airport.

According to my Dutch friend Zaandam is 'famous' as the home of Dutch retailing because it's the town where Albert Heijn (as 'world famous in the Netherlands' as Mr Marks and Mr Spencer would be in the UK) started his business. Hmm, I'm still not impressed.

Arriving

I arrived in a taxi with Helen, a diva-colleague with a taste for the good things in life. "Where the Hell are we?" she asked as we drew up to this unprepossessing ugly little hotel. "Who on earth picked this place?" she continued. Another pair of colleagues reported that their reaction was "Can we go and find a proper hotel instead?" We entered the dingy gloomy lobby of a hotel that had seen better days. The receptionist started to check us in, asking for not only our addresses but our passport numbers. Helen objected on the grounds that she wasn't willing to give out info that "could be used for identity fraud" but the receptionist said it was "the law".

The receptionist then proudly announced "I have two smoking rooms for you" which was a bad shock. We both asked for non-smoking rooms "ideally quiet ones" and she claimed "well, we dont really have any quiet rooms" and our faces fell. We headed to the lift which had seen better days and climbed to the second and fourth floors. Opening the door my room was exactly what I'd expected - dull, dated and small with a spectacular view out over a major building site on the other side of the six-lane road. Yippee, I'm going to sleep so well especially as the bed is characteristically Dutch-soft.

The Room

The small room was dominated by the bed which comprised two overly soft singles squashed together. There were bedside lamps on either side, a small desk a reading lamp and a minibar under it. There was a small armchair and coffee table and a wall-mounted small TV. The coffee and tea tray had also been wall mounted, recognising clearly that there wasn't enough room to actually move around the room and not bump into things. By contrast to the room itself, the bathroom wasn't too bad. Nice red granite flooring which would have been expensive if the floor space had been more than a couple of square feet. The sink unit was nicely finished with a wooden fascia but the enamel of the sink itself was chipped. The bath was a bit poky with a shower over it.

Helen's Room
Underwhelmed by my room, I headed down two flights of very steep stairs to meet Helen who was throwing a fit worthy of Mariah Carey and howling about her view of a graffiti-covered wall. "This is just SO unacceptable" she said. I calmed her down and told her my room was almost identical so there wasn't a lot of point asking to be moved to another room as they were probably all equally horrid. Slightly mollified, she gave in to my suggestion to go and get a beer and we headed down to the bar where, predictably, another strop kicked in because people were smoking. It's funny how quickly we've all got used to a smoke-free environment.

The Bar

We found a quiet area and fired up our computers to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi and do a bit of work before dinner. We'd probably been by the bar for an hour before anyone asked if we'd like a drink. Two beers and a very tasty-looking sandwich (for Helen, not for me) and she'd calmed down a bit. We both headed back to our rooms before going back to the bar before dinner. The barman was a nice guy who'd grown up in Essex and so knew that giving any Brit a beer with 4 inches of head on it would be a big mistake. The bar itself was dark, gloomy and crowded with too many chairs and tables. After about 20 minutes we headed for dinner.

Dinner

As we were a large group, the hotel had set a long table for us in their sort-of conservatory/sun-room. This was an oddly bright room stuck on the side of the building with big round sky-lights in the ceiling. The table was beautifully laid out with thick white tablecloths and sparkling glass and silverware. It really did look quite special. To prevent things being too complicated we were offered quite a simple menu. The starters were a choice of a smoked beef carpaccio salad or a watercress and smoked salmon soup. The main courses were pork or something described as a 'panga fillet' which was to be served with 'Asian vegetables'. We were a bit disturbed in case it was a typo and actually a panda fillet (possibly with bamboo shoots!). Pudding was to be a crème brulee.

I ordered the watercress soup without expecting to like it but it was actually really quite nice if a little too salty. There were lots of big chunks of smoked salmon in the bottom which were very tasty. The main courses were 'interestingly' served. The phallic pork dish being accompanied by two 'balls' of mashed potato. The Asian vegetables seemed to comprise mostly of stir fried cucumber. The mains were accompanied by big bowls of salad and some outstanding fat chips. The crème brulee was bland and beige and this was not helped by it being served with whipped cream and a ball of vanilla ice-cream. Coffees and teas were served afterwards and all in all, we'd had quite a nice dinner of fried cucumber and sex-change fish.

Back to my room

After dinner I headed back to my room, opened the door and switched the light on - NOTHING! Leaving the door ajar I tried the desk lamp - No action there either. Then the bedside lamp - Zip! Nothing doing with that one either. I switched on the bathroom light, closed the door of the room and fumbled around until I found one standard lamp which worked and then one of the two bedside lamps. I checked the cables to see if they'd been left unplugged but that wasn't the answer. What a joke.

Breakfast and Lunch

After sleeping fairly poorly due to a combination of the soft bed and the noisy heating, I dragged myself down to breakfast which was OK. Nothing memorable but nothing awful either. Lunch was also fine.

Meeting Facilities

There were several meeting rooms and the one we had was just about big enough for the number of people at the meeting just so long as they didn't move about too much. The room was right next to the pavement and at times the noise from outside was quite distracting. We were served with enough tea and coffee and jugs of water but anything more came only after we went and asked. Bizarrely they brought an enormous platter of fruit which was placed where nobody could get at it.


Do I recommend?

What do you think? Of course I don't. This was a ridiculous hotel that was poor even by Dutch standards and laughable as a 4-star. The price of €134 per night (about £105 for B&B) was far too high for the standard of rooms available and the location would have been less of an issue if the person who booked the hotel had actually explained how to get there. This hotel needs a major refurb and update to drag it up to date but even that won't make the rooms bigger or the location quieter. If you could get a really good price and there was NOTHING available in Amsterdam that you could afford then it's not a bad commute in daylight but a bit freaky after dark. I really can't see any reason to choose to stay in Zaandam and certainly not at the Golden Tulip.