Nightmare in Amsterdam
Jan 27th, 2000, 12:11 PM
#1
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Nightmare in Amsterdam
On a recent trip to Amsterdam, I stayed four nights at the France Hotel which is very hard to find. To make a long story short it is located just to the left leaving the central train station. Go over the bridge and towards the red light district. It is a short five minute walk. I arrived late at night and got many wrong directions and it took me well over an hour of walking and finally a taxi cab driver who also couldn't find the hotel. My last night there someone tried to break into my hotel room. First they tried the door handle and then a key. I looked up from reading (lights very dim for reading) and saw a man looking in my window. I was on the 5th floor and one of only two rooms on the front of the hotel. I called the front desk and reported seeing this man and the manager seemed to not believe me. He finally came up and looked out on to the tiny ledge where the man had been. He left saying he would look for the man. A few minutes later he phoned saying he had caught the man. I went directly down to the lobby and was informed that the man had gotten away. This was very unnerving even being a 6 foot tall 200 lb. man I slept in my clothes. The next morning the receptionist refused to take anything off the bill. On the way out I passed the "ledge walker" coming into the hotel. I just had this funny feeling that there was a connection between the two men. I would recommend avoiding this hotel at all costs!
Jan 27th, 2000, 05:48 PM
#3
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Honestly, Ron, if you had ever been to europe you would know that they count the ground floor as floor 1! European hotels are not classed and inspected as we in the USA are used too. There fore, it is "BUYER BEWARE" in every case. We have stayed in some real dumps and the only saving grace is, put it on your American Express, and when you get home you can dispute the issue. We stayed in a hotel in Paris where the sheets were still wet, full of holes, and the proprieter threatened to throw us out in the street when we challenged his bill (which was supposed to be three nights for the price of two, a promotion) which he refused to honor. My husband took down his licence number, and it was all settled when we got home. but at the moment, he really didn't care and was very rude and threatening to us. Lesson learned: don't pay in advance, and leave after the first night if you are unhappy, therefore you will not compound a crummy deal.
Jan 28th, 2000, 05:10 AM
#5
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Warning : never go anywhere in Amsterdam <BR>without a map,even for a 5 min walk.The street layout is such that getting lost is guaranteed, in fact it's one of the attractions. <BR> Late in the evening there are always lots of people searching for their hotel, some have maps (& still can't find it), some have none, but the most unfortunate are the ones who can't remember the name of their hotel.... <BR> Seriously, bishop's plight is one you could easily find yourself in, the place seems to be designed for lost - I remember wandering for an hour trying to find my hotel when never more that 5 mins from it.Never yet seen anyone outside my window though! <BR> If you're going back & don't fancy the <BR>hotel France again try the Doelen - it's just along the street from the France & is very good.
May 5th, 2002, 01:20 PM
#6
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Nightmare in Amsterdam again !<BR>Our travel agent booked two double rooms for 10 nights at Easter holidays. When we arrived at the hotel the manager told us that we don't have rooms because we are late and the computer had cancelled our rooms.<BR>The probem is they don't have a computer ,just a piece of paper with some names ! When i said i want my money back, they get one triple(?) room with only two beds and one single room.I don't agree with this choice , another rooms they get to us. Just a probem, all the rooms have been cleaned in the last century ! Next morning we just moved to another hotel !
May 6th, 2002, 07:47 AM
#10
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Either way, there would never be a fifth floor in in a four-storey building. If the street-level floor is counted as "ground", the top floor is the 3rd, and if it's counted as 1st, the top floor is the 4th. But since, as Bishop said, he never mentioned the height of the building, this seems like a particularly pointless exercise in semi-informed one-upsmanship.
May 6th, 2002, 08:04 AM
#11
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What am I missing here. I've reread the original post about a dozen times and I'm still trying to find where anyone ever said it was a four story building? For all I can tell it was a 6 story or even a 20 story building. Bishop only said he was on the 5th floor.<BR>Or are we just arguing about this because we like to argue?
May 6th, 2002, 08:22 AM
#12
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I don’t know why we are re-hashing a 2 year old complaint, but since it seems to be bothering people and I am the guilty party with respect to the height of the building, I’ll try to explain. I read Bishop’s tale as hallucinations of a fairly stupid person, probably brought on by substance abuse, who was trying to con the hotel owner into giving him a price reduction. I went to the hotel web-site and the picture was of a 4 storey building.<BR><BR>With respect to Falberto’s new nightmare, it is not clear if he is talking about the Hotel France or not. If not, his nightmare is not much use to us unless he identifies the hotel and the travel agent that put him in it.
May 6th, 2002, 12:10 PM
#13
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Since I am going for the 1st time to Amsterdam for 5 days solo next month (June 2002) I opened this thread with interest. Other than (possibly) avoiding hotels around the train station or red light district, and/or wandering around lost at night, I'm having trouble finding the point of all this.
May 8th, 2002, 10:25 AM
#16
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If this is the original writer's idea of a "nightmare", he's led a very sheltered life!<BR>A nightmare would be more like returning home to find your house burned to the ground...or making a wrong turn somewhere and ending up in a Syrian prison cell with a slop bucket for a toilet and rats chewing on your toes...or waking up to discover that your nose is missing from your face and striding about town in uniform, or you've turned into a giant cockroach.<BR><BR>*That's* a nightmare.
May 9th, 2002, 12:26 PM
#17
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From their website:<BR><BR>"The France Hotel is a modern, comfortable three star hotel, peacefully situated at the heart of Amsterdam<BR><BR>Our rooms are spread over four floors with a lift. They all have a bath or a shower, a toilet, colour television and telephone. Various rooms have a splendid view on one of the canals of Amsterdam"
May 10th, 2002, 11:23 AM
#18
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I'm afraid to say that someone staying at my hotel in Amsterdam last week might have a similar story to tell! My hotel was on the "second floor." So I climbed a set of stairs, went down the hall, and tried my key. Funny, the key went in but the door didn't open. I tried again, tried to turn the handle, and then looked up to realize that I was on the FIRST floor. I felt bad, hoped I didn't disturb anyone in the room, and ran down the hall, up the stairs, to MY room! So, maybe the guy at the France hotel just made an honest mistake too : )
May 15th, 2002, 02:04 PM
#19
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The france hotel is not a confortable hotel! The number of the floors doesn´t matter ! The problem is the dust ! the problem is pay a room and the room was not clean ! the problem is have a family with two children and don´t have a room to sleep when you have already pay for ten nights! The problem is you do not have clean linen ...you do not have a clean bathroom... you have to argue to have a room that you have already paied....
