Hotel Review: Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport

After arriving at Schiphol airport in the evening, I called the Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport hotel to ask where their shuttle was located out front. They said the shuttle ran every 30 minutes with one pickup point right in front of the Terminal. Eta – 15 minutes. I grabbed something quick for takeaway at one of the nearby restaurants and went outside 3 minutes prior to. Sure enough, a few minutes later the Hyatt Place shuttle went zooming by me, not even slowing.

It went all the way to the end of the Terminal before coming to a stop, and I ran. I wasn’t sure if the driver saw me but I didn’t want to wait another 30 minutes for the next shuttle!

Once I got there, a line of people were waiting to get on. I got one of the last seats and we left shortly thereafter. I hadn’t looked up the location of this Airport hotel prior to booking so I was then surprised to see us getting on a highway. A good 10 minutes later we pulled up to the hotel.

Check-in was busy, with four people in front of me. The lobby was otherwise deserted.

When it was finally my turn, I supplied the necessary credit card and ID and asked if the shuttle ran continuously on the half-hour mark since I’d need to take it early the next morning.

She said the shuttle didn’t start service until 6:30am and finished at 11pm. Not good. My flight was at 7:05am, so that clearly wasn’t going to work.

My flight wasn’t the first one out in the morning either. I said that I was surprised that an airport hotel didn’t operate a shuttle that started early enough to get all guests to the airport in time for their flights, and asked if maybe it was a reduced schedule right now for some reason. She said it is always the same schedule, didn’t offer any alternatives, and just kind of shrugged.

I figured I’d have to call a cab, and wasn’t happy thinking about the extra cost that would be incurred. I asked to settle the bill now, so I wouldn’t have to stop by the desk to check out in the morning.

All set with a room on the 11th floor, I wheeled my suitcase over to the elevators and on up.

Entering the room, it looked nice enough though a bit compact.

It was also uncomfortably warm in the room so the first thing I did was to adjust the thermostat to bring in some cool air.

Straight ahead was the desk, with just two outlets. Since I’d have a busy day the next day I needed to charge all of my electronics so I looked around for more outlets. I found two down near the floor by the couch but no others, so I just unplugged the lamp that was using one of them and put used it for my item.

The closet on the far side of the desk had room for just one bag, but I had two suitcases.

I don’t typically like to lay my suitcases out on top of furniture, but the couch did make a convenient place to open up the second one on.

I liked the small empty fridge that was just to the right of the closet, and I looked around for a couple of water bottles to chill but there were none. I didn’t feel like going back downstairs to get one from their pantry so the fridge just went unused.

Thankfully, the room was quiet. It was past midnight and I was exhausted, so I was glad not to hear any noise from nearby rooms or the hallway.

I grabbed my toothbrush and headed towards the bathroom to freshen up before going to bed. The bathroom had a smooth glass door that quietly rolled closed, and my toes were glad for the heated floors.

There was no toothpaste in the bathroom so I went back out to the room to unpack my liquids.

There was a card explaining that I could call down to request toothpaste, but I didn’t want to take the time. Returning to the bathroom I noticed that there was only one large towel and one hand towel on the rack.

I found a second large towel but no third, just two more small towels and a bath mat.

Once ready for bed, I thought again about how odd it was that an AIRPORT hotel didn’t offer shuttle service that covered all flights in and out of the airport. I went on to their website to see if maybe I misunderstood and it was a temporary situation. I was actually unable to find the shuttle timetable online, just saw notes about how the shuttle operates every 30 minutes.

I called the front desk, ordered a cab for 5:45am, and promptly went to sleep for a few hours.

In the morning I got my things together. There was a kettle with cups, but I decided to wait until I got to the airport so I went straight down and the cab was waiting right in front of the hotel. It was nice not to have to take extra time to do check-out as I had done it the night before.

Nice enough hotel, but I would NOT stay here again if planning to use this as an airport hotel where I didn’t have my own car. I consider the airport shuttle to be a mandatory service that passengers can use for all flights, when the hotel advertises itself as an airport hotel. Plus when I mentioned my disappointment at check-in, the hostess didn’t seem overly concerned. Surely I can’t have been the only guest surprised to find that this airport hotel doesn’t have a shuttle that runs to get people to the airport in time for their flights?