Question:
We recently stayed at the Holiday Inn Amsterdam, near RAI convention center. We were there from 5/16 to 5/19/04. We got a really good bargain from Priceline on this 3-star hotel in the southern section of Amsterdam (near the convention center, south of the museum district). I think we paid about $90/night.

The location is definitely not central but you can get to Centraal station using Tram #4 in about 8-10 minutes. During weekdays, it runs about every 15 minutes and at night/weekends about every 20 minutes (look at the GVB site at http://www.gvb.nl/engels/default.htm for exact schedule). The tram leaves from a stop directly next to the GVB RAI train station and you can walk to it from the Holiday Inn in about 2-3 minutes. The last tram leaves at 12:25am from Centraal though, so late night ventures are more difficult because you will have to take a taxi or one of the Nacht (night) buses, which only run once an hour.

The hotel itself is pretty nice inside. The outside looks rather drab and industrial but once inside you will notice a nicely appointed lobby. Our room was definitely large by European hotel room standards. The bathroom was very clean and fairly large. The bed was comfortable. Good lighting, nice desk/vanity area. The air conditioning was less than desirable though. While it did cool the room some, it was very sub-par to the hotels I've stayed at in the US. It wasn't exactly hot but I don't think the room got below 75 degrees at any point and you can't open the windows. That said, we stayed at another hotel later in the week and it too had this type of air, so it must be par for the course at a lot of the hotels there.

About a 10 minute walk away you can find a street lined with about 15 restaurants of every variety. We ate at an Italian place there that was reasonably priced and very good. If you are too tired to walk that far, you can always hop on the tram and go up about two stops to the Europleine stop, which will cut out about 5 minutes of the walk.

The staff was helpful and pleasant - they even let us check in four hours early since we arrived in the morning on our flight.

Overall I would say this is a very good place to stay. If you are not hung up on being in the Centraal part of town and if you don't plan to party into the late hours, I highly recommend this hotel. It is also very family friendly unlike some of the more central hotels in town. You will see no shady characters in this area and no questionable signs or pictures of drugs or prostitution.

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