Mövenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre

Although we live in the Amsterdam area, we decided to stay at the Mövenpick following our transatlantic cruise which ended in Amsterdam. My wife is wheelchair-bound so we decided to stay the Mövenpick adjacent to the cruise terminal. I would then travel home by public transport the next day to collect my automobile to make transporting my wife home easier. I booked an Ambassador sweet and pre-paid the reservation four months in advance, including an extra fifty-dollar fee for "guaranteed" early check in. We got off the ship early at 8:00 a.m. and proceeded to the Mövenpick. I was told the suite was not yet available but we could definitely get in by 10:00 (a lie) since I had a pre-paid reservation with guaranteed early check in. Since walking to a from the city was not a viable option with the wheelchair, we stayed at the hotel for two hours. During this time we were at no time told that our situation had changed. When I went to check in at 10:00 I was told the prepaid guaranteed suite was not available and they could not tell me when it would be available. One of the options they gave me was to temporarily take a junior suite until the Ambassador suite was available. The manager assured me that when the Ambassador suite was available he would personally show it to us and give us the option of moving (a lie). Additionally he told me he would refund the difference between the Ambassador suite and the junior suite. He assured me, he would call once the suite was available. The call never came - another lie. At checkout, I was told I would be credited 20% of my bill - less that what was originally promised. When I asked why I was not given the opportunity to move the to Ambassador suite, which I had prepaid, all I got was a shrug. Additionally, there was also no mention of refunding my 50 Euros early check-in. But they did charge my credit card an additional 50 Euros for incidentals which we did not use. Throughout this entire nightmare, any time a leader of the cruise group approached the check-in desk, whoever I was talking to turned there attention to them until their issue was resolved before getting back to my concerns. I have seen no credit, just an additional 50 Euro charge to my credit card. Though at least a dozen other couples stayed at the Mövenpick post-cruise at my recommendation, I was painfully clear that the Mövenpick only cares about its group bookings. They reacted to their repeated failures with repeated lies and shrugs. There were no misunderstandings here, simply failures, lies, and total insensitivity to mobility needs. Mövenpick's treatment of this situation borders on criminal.

They did not have a room at 11am but that is understandable. However when I went back at 4pm, there was a long queue for check-in and after waiting for 20 mins, they told me they are understaffed and the housekeeping hasn't cleaned the room yet. They were also unable to give a specific time when the room will be ready and only gave me a drink voucher and asked me to check again later. The same happened to a whole group of American visitors. I have stayed in more than 50 hotels and this is the first time such an incident happened. There was only one porter/concierge for a hotel more than 15 floors and everyone had to wait till the counter staff is free for us to collect our luggages.

Awkwardness is programmed into the running of this hotel, so much so that you end up feeling sorry for the poor staff because you feel that they'd like to help more but can't. Where do I start. The arrivals welcome sign took us to an unmanned part of the front desk. After waiting three minutes and realising no-one was going to come to talk to us despite the glass/fronted office behind having people in it, we moved to the part of the front desk where there was somebody. They moved us back to the part of the front desk where we had originally stood and were ignored. The room was definitely not as clean as we would have liked. The fridge had half-eaten food and drink from a previous guest, the bed was made to a level and the toilet was very badly stained. A tap in the bathroom was dripping. When we went down to tell the front desk, to their credit they emptied the fridge, fixed the drip but were unable to do anything about the staining to the toilet bowl. The duty manager gave us two drinks vouchers for our inconvenience, which we appreciated. In the evening, we went to the vending machine to buy water for the room (none is provided) to find it out of order. We asked reception where we could find water, and they suggested we get it from the tap on our bathroom sink. When I subsequently went to buy postcards and stamps at the hotel shop, it turned out they sold bottled water. The departure experience was not that good either. We queued away from the area marked arrivals expecting that to be the area for checking out. After having waited a while we realised that only the part marked arrivals was manned. I could go on but life is too short. The only possible reason for staying at this hotel is because you have no other choice.

Accommodations and service were just ok. Rooms were ok, restaurant opened an hour later than posted, on site ice cream shop was closed (albeit was advertised in all elevators), staff was friendly. View from room (9th floor) was great.

We had 3 wonderful nights in this hotel. Staff is really helpful when you do not know a lot about the city. The hotel is 15min walk from Central station, we were able to visit everything by foot. Breakfast and room service food is also great. Special thanks for the general manager for his kindness and the receptionnist. Our stay was perfect and we hope we will go back really soon!