JBIZZLE

I have decided that I will be traveling to Amsterdam this coming December 27th-January 3rd. There will be two of us traveling together and neither of us want to stay in hostels. Our budget is $175 USD per night for our hotel. (give or take a few bucks) Most of the hotels on Orbitz,Priceline, etc.. are doing their typical "From $150" line, only to find out its really about $230 averaged out. We would also like to stay as close to all the sites as possible.

Any ideas on private hotels that might not show up in one of these searches? Please only provide hotels with PRIVATE bathrooms...

Also, since we are there for 6 full days, what are the top MUST-SEE places we should visit? We want to visit a few museums but definitely do not want to make this a museum vacation. What other exciting things is there to do?

THANKS!

Dukey

Rijksmuseum or possibly the Van Gogh (they are geographically close to one another)

the Anne frank House

a canal tour..yes I KNOW it is "touristy" but you ARE tourists

possible quick trip over to Haarlem (15 minutes by rail) or even to another close-by town such as Delft or Utrecht

am sure many others will respond...have you looked at hotels on www.channels.nl?

Judyrem

Ditto Dukey's advice. We did all of those things BTW. Try Hotwire fare watcher. We got an e=mail from Hotwire for a 5* in Center Amsterdam for 118$! I jumped on that bad boy. I see you are going over holidays so that could be a problem.. But do try Hotwire fare watcher.

WillTravel

With Priceline, the regular service is usually not a great deal. It is the Name Your Own Price service that gives you great deals. That said, you are going over New Year's, so that may make things more difficult.

Also try:
www.edenhotelgroup.com
www.hotelscombined.com

laurie_ann

We very much enjoyed our stay here in May: http://www.amsterdam-bed-and-breakfast-jordaan.nl The hostess Charlotte is lovely, rooms nice (we had the ground floor room), and we really enjoyed the neighborhood, quiet but has nice shops and restaurants and is a quick walk to main sites. 110 Euro per night double.

Also, don't miss the Amsterdam historical museum, recently redone, very good displays, takes you chronologically through Amsterdam history and the modern part at the end is especially interesting.

JBIZZLE

I have discovered this hotel. CitizenM hotel Amsterdam City. Has a very reasonable price and seems nice. However, it is a little out of the center of the city. Does anyone know this area? Are Trams nearby? If so, how do you use them? Do I buy a pass? Or is a cab cheap enough or worth it? Should I keep searching for something closer?

kja

How are you searching for hotels? One thing I find helpful is to check TripAdvisor and then check the Web sites of any hotels or B&Bs that look interesting to me. I don't find the rate information on TripAdvisor to be particularly accurate, but the reviews - often with pictures - are useful to me.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g1...nd-Hotels.html

DAX

CitizenM is located in the southern border of Amsterdam so it's a bit far to walk to the tourists attractions, but you can just easily hop on the city tram line 5 which will take you to the Museumplein(=square), Leidseplein, Dam and the Centraal train station in the heart of Amsterdam.
Taking the tram is actually fun because it's modern/clean and you get to see the local population hopping in & out as you whizz through the city. Just buy the city tram pass for simplicity.
As far as area, I am somewhat familiar with the general area of the hotel because I used to stay with relatives who lived just a few blocks away. It's a nice safe neighborhood bordering the expensive upper crust suburb of Amstelveen. If you can walk through the Beatrix park you'll end up in a major convention center called RAI which has major connections to the city center. If you are avid walker then you may enjoy walking to Vondeelpark which is like the central park of Amsterdam close to the major art museums.

DAX

I should add that you can get to CitizenM a lot quicker if you take the train directly from the airport to the Amsterdam Zuid World Trade Center (8 minutes instead of 20 minutes to the Centraal Station). You can also do a direct daytrip to the fun student town of Utrecht from the WTC center.
Looking at the map your hotel will be just a couple of long blocks away from the WTC train station. The metro to the center also stops at the WTC but I think the scenic tram is more convenient & better than the metro.