MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West Review

Meininger hotel Amsterdam city west Review. A place in Amsterdam where I stayed in one of the smallest beds ever & why I will never stay there again.

Written by: Soumya Nambiar

Last Updated on:

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I am pretty mad this week and maybe I will write later on why I am so angry this week. All I can say is that we finally got fed up of people taking our family for a ride and we have finally decided that enough is enough. I have spent half of this week screaming at incompetent people.

That is why I decided to write a negative review this time. I was in no mood to write something positive and this post has been long overdue. Many of you, who have read my previous posts, know how I have been complaining about the smallest bed ever at MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West.

I am not a fussy traveller anymore. As long as I get a clean and quiet room that is centrally located, I am fine. When we were younger, we were used to staying in good hotels around the world since dad used to work for an airline. I think my fussiness disappeared when I spent two months in one of the dirtiest hostels during my first year in college (we once found a cockroach in our morning coffee). I have camped in tents and places where the commode was filled with frogs (We ended up peeing outside and each of us had a marked territory by the time the sun rose). I have slept on a train for 2 days and I still loved it. So you can understand how flexible I am when it comes to accommodation.

 

MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West Review


I was finding it hard to find accommodation in Amsterdam. Everything was just too overpriced. I had the same problem in Paris but I finally found a very nice hotel to stay at an affordable price (at least according to Paris standards). That is why it was one of the last places I booked in Europe and maybe I did not scrutinise MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West as much as the other places.

So I reached Amsterdam around 7:30 PM in the evening. I decided to take a cab since it was showing that the hotel was around 6 km from Amsterdam central and I was too tired to even think about taking public transportation to the hotel with my luggage. The cab driver was way too chatty and the first advice he gave me was that it was better to take a train to my hotel. Soon I noticed that the landscape was changing and we were heading towards a quieter part of the city. It took us a bit of time to locate the place even with the GPS since the name board was not too visible from the main road.

The cab driver dropped me in front of the Sloterdijk railway station since MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West is located right next to it. I was also eager to get rid of the cab driver since he had already started flirting with me by then and wanted to know what my plans were for the night. I gave him some excuse about how my friends were waiting for me at the hotel and went searching for the hotel entrance. Even though the hotel is located right next to the station, the entrance is on the other side and I walked around for a while trying to find an entrance which did not include dragging my suitcase over a flight of stairs.

Smallest Bed Ever

The hotel staff were extremely rude and indifferent which was quite different to what I was used to till then. I soon got my room keys and went to the room only to discover the smallest bed ever. This was quite a shock to me since I had ended up paying more than 100 Euros per night for this small bed. The only good thing about the room was that it was quite clean.

MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West Review
Smallest Bed Ever

Right next to the train tracks

Anyway, I went to shower and the only thing I wanted to do that day was to have an early night. That is when I realised that was not possible. Even though my room was on the fifth floor, the hotel is right next to the railway station and hence it was quite noisy throughout the night. There are trains running till quite late in the night.

Bad Laundromat

Since I could not sleep, I decided to go do my laundry. But they had a very slow machine and by the time I finished my laundry and drying them, it was almost 2 AM. I had to wait in the common room and that is when I realised that most of the people staying there were around 15-25 years old. That was one of my other concerns with this place. Instead of advertising it as a hotel, they should advertise it as a hostel.

Too remote for a solo traveller

Another thing is that even though there are many budget hotels around the place, there are no restaurants to eat except maybe one. The ones inside the railway station are not open throughout the day. The whole place had an abandoned vibe to it after 10 PM and hence I made sure I got back here every day before the sun set. As a solo traveller, I found this place too remote for me, especially in the evening. Breakfast is also not included and I ended up having breakfast in the city every day.

MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West Review
Photograph Inside The Room

Very Far from Amsterdam Central

It takes around 15-20 minutes by train to Amsterdam Central and around 30 mins by bus. If you were thinking of saving some money in this place, you end up paying the same amount you saved, for transportation. Hence, in my opinion, the place is overpriced and has no value for money. They should not charge so much for such bad facilities.

I spent three nights at this awful place and I ended up not sleeping much on all my nights here. The bed was so uncomfortable and tiny. I am definitely never going to stay here again. I was so glad by the time I saw my bed at the Dominican in Brussels. As one of my friends mentioned, sometimes all you need at the end of a tiring day is a good bed and this place, MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City had one of the worst beds ever.
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Soumya Nambiar here. I am an avid traveler, travel blogger, vegetarian foodie and entrepreneur from Bangalore, India who grew up in Tanzania, Africa. I have been to more than 60 countries and in this blog, I write about my personal experiences as an Indian traveller around the world as well as my struggles as a vegetarian. I can be reached at [email protected].

18 thoughts on “MEININGER Hotel Amsterdam City West Review”

  1. I’m so sorry that this was such a bad experience for you! I’ve definitely had to pay a pretty penny for a lunchbox of a room in Normandy. I was sharing with two of my friends, where the bathroom was the same size as the room. We had two single beds pushed together against one wall with a single cot squished between the other wall and the single beds. We could barely fit our luggage at the foot of the bed and had to crawl over each other during our stay. Thankfully, we had breakfast included and were only there for two nights! Good to know not to book this place in Amsterdam! Would not recommend the lunchbox experience.

    Reply
  2. Wow that’s the whole room?! There is barely a space to stand up next to the bed! My hubby recently went on a business trip to Amsterdam and I ended up booking them Elements hotel – the regular price was around 130€ with breakfast, and you get the whole studio. He recommends it, if you ever come to visit again.

    Reply
  3. OMG, I hope that’s not the entire room of the pic with the tiny bed? It looks so closed in! What an awful experience for you! At least it was clean! I’ve seen tiny beds before in hotels but mostly cabins or wilderness getaways, some uncomfortable, and I agree at the end of the day sometimes all you need is a comfy bed. I’ve never really minded the tiny or uncomfortable beds and like you have done a lots of camping and sleeping in tents, slept outside a few times on the ground etc, but if the entire trip there is not happening it just makes things feel worse. I think the main takeaway for me is to check out hotels because like this one they don’t advertise or false advertise leading you to think your getting something your not which results in a huge disappointment. not to mention the being so far away from the action or even food. I’d hate it and would be raving right along side of you!

    Reply
    • No there was a bathroom too and a corridor which was around the same size as this. I had to keep my luggage there and I had to jump over the suitcase every time I wanted to go to the washroom.
      In case of camping, our expectations are set right. But in this case they were not and they were charging a hefty amount for a tiny room.

      Reply
  4. What an awful experience. I would have taken one look at that place and demanded my money back. Good to know what to avoid in Amsterdam!

    Reply
  5. I hate it when you get somewhere and have such a bad experience. I can’t believe how tiny the room was, I certainly wouldn’t be happy paying over 100 euros for it. I always stay in hostels and yes you can get disturbed sleep, but they are great places to meet people and a lot of the times in great locations.

    Reply
  6. Oh no, this sounds terrible. The bed is indeed very small and there is nothing worse than rude staff. Did you complain to the manager?

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  7. Sorry that you have had such a bad experience. I think at some point we have all had the box room you’re right to say it should be advertised as a hostel. I am going back to Amsterdam in December for a weekend and this has defiantly been noted as DO NOT STAY. If you get the chance you should give Amsterdam another chance 🙂

    Reply
  8. Wow, that is indeed the tiniest bed I have ever seen! Even my cubicle room in Hong Kong was bigger than the one you had! And I’ve only paid 40$ a night for it. Usually hotels that area near train station or airport invest in sound proof windows. Shame that this hotel didn’t.

    Reply

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