Van der Valk Hotel Amsterdam Zuidas

I stayed here from December 2-4, 2025, and it was the best business hotel experience I've had. The sixth floor meeting rooms and common areas were perfectly designed for a productive workday. Breakfast was extraordinary, and lunch was delicious. The rooms were clean and relaxing, and the staff were welcoming. Bring beachwear if you want to enjoy the sauna and spa on the top floor. I really hope we can keep holding our annual meetings here.

The room and view were very nice, but the service ruined the experience. For what we paid, the level of service was unacceptable. At check-in, we were charged double for parking because the reservation had been made through Booking.com, even though my partner is an exclusive Van der Valk member. It was poorly explained and felt unfair. Reception staff weren't particularly friendly, and communication during the stay was frustrating. We asked for bathrobes, which mattered especially because of the sauna, but didn't receive any for three days. On the fourth day, we went downstairs again and still had to pay a €50 deposit, despite staying in one of the hotel's most expensive rooms. Housekeeping was the biggest problem. We put the cleaning sign on the door, but the room repeatedly wasn't cleaned. We had to visit reception several times, and once we even showed photos to prove it hadn't been serviced. They apologized and gave us free breakfast, but the same problem happened again the next day. This wasn't what we expected at this price level.

The location was good, but after three nights this was a very poor stay, especially for hygiene and basic service. There was a strong sewage or fecal smell in the bathroom as soon as I checked in. The toilet brush looked old and unhygienic, left out in the open without a cover, and didn't seem to have been cleaned or replaced for a long time. Dust was everywhere. It felt like the room hadn't been cleaned at all and they'd only made the bed. There was visible dark dust on the sheets too, which made the bed feel unhygienic. I told reception on the first morning that the room needed a proper clean because of all the dust. When I came back exhausted that evening, the dust I'd noticed was still there. The bathroom was worse: the drain was completely blocked, and after I washed my hair, water came back up in the shower and flooded the whole floor around the wash basin. The slippery floor also made me worry about guests falling. They provided only one small bottle of shower gel, and it wasn't automatically replaced after use. I had to call the front desk to learn that toiletries had to be collected in person from reception, something nobody had told me beforehand. Housekeeping also removed a bar of soap I'd opened but hadn't finished, without replacing it. What was I meant to wash my hands with? I wouldn't recommend this hotel or stay again.

The food at dinner was excellent, and the hotel is in a very good location with convenient parking under the building. Other parts of the stay were frustrating. We arrived around noon. I had a meeting, and while I was away my partner couldn't check in because the booking was in my name. He had to wait four hours, even though he had my identity card and permission. Staff weren't very understanding. At the sauna, we encountered naked prostitutes. Nudity itself isn't an issue, but hotel rules say guests should be dressed, especially since the wellness area is also accessible to minors (+16). We asked for robes and slippers through the whatsapp and were told to go downstairs and pay a €25 deposit per person. The deposit itself wasn't the issue, but having to go down for basic wellness items felt like an unnecessary hassle. We also requested coffee capsules and shampoo or soap for the room via whatsapp, but they never arrived. When we asked to charge dinner to our room, staff said we needed to go to reception to open an “account.” Reception didn't seem to understand what we meant, so we went back upstairs to get the credit card. That was annoying too.