Camping Amsterdam Forest — Hotel in Amstelveen

The awful stay in this camping began even before our arrival.

Neatly tucked away and hidden in a dropdown menu on Booking.com, we saw at the last minute, that they require a €500 euro deposit!!! First of all, what kind of place requires a deposit for one week, the equivalent of renting almost a full flat?!?!? Second of all, when we called about this, plus other questions, the person at the camping who picked up the phone was COMPLETELY clueless to anything, apart from confirming that they do require a €500 deposit. Interesting, huh? She kept insisting, that she couldn't reach the reception, although who else would pick up the phone, if not the reception?!? She told me to email them, which I did, and I never received a response!

Well, we went there, with ruined moods about having to give up most of our spending money for the trip, which we would get back after the trip, but we still tried to be positive. As we reached the camping and proceeded to check in, they didn't mention ANYTHING about the deposit! So what was all that for, then? Was someone trying to scam us over the phone, I don't know.

Anyway, we got settled in, and in the process discovered the beautiful nature engulfing the camping area, as well as, that there are rabbits roaming freely within the camping grounds, and in front of our cabin. That was the most pleasant thing we experienced there, and the only good thing I can say about the place.

Things proceeded to get worse from there.

Since this is a camping, it's understandable that the conditions are not supposed to be as comfortable as a hotel, that's not a problem. The problem is, that they charge more or less hotel prices, but offer much inconvenience in return! There was nowhere, in the entire camp site, where you can go to use a kettle to make a hot drink, so if you don't come in your RV or bring your own kettle (really?), you're screwed, and it was very cold at night!

However, the worst part about the whole experience was the staff, specifically the people at reception. They were cold to begin with, which is tolerable, but the rest isn't! Every time we had a query, each person working there told us something different, which later, the other person would contradict, leaving us misinformed and left to wonder what to do. For example, the man working the reception told us we need to book a bicycle 2 days in advance, and when we tried to, the woman working that day told us we can only book it on the day, and when we went on the day (morning) she told us it's all gone! We made 3 attempts to hire bicycles, which for the price of the stay, should already be included, and they had an excuse all 3 times, as if they simply didn't want to let us book them. Imagine going to Amsterdam and not riding a bike? Yeah... We lived it, and all because of these completely rude and unpleasant people!

The small brunette working there left the worst impression, as she was putting a holier-than-thou act the whole time! When we were checking out, we weren't feeling well and took extra time to get ready, surpassing the harshly enforced (by said brunette) checkout time by 40 minutes (we had requested the later check out 3 months in advance and they only told us we won't get it on the day). That ended up not being a problem, as nobody came to talk to us about leaving until the 40 minute mark, so it wasn't that urgent to begin with! When we went to return the keys, she passive-aggressively commented how we were late but she will let us off this time, can you believe it?!?! We didn't fight her, but also refused to acknowledge or apologise, so we just dropped the keys and left.

So, obviously, the people who run this camp understand nothing about customer satisfaction or running a business properly. They take advantage of the relatively good location and just grab as much money as they can, without any interest in providing the customers any sort of pleasurable stay!

We will never return there, and we hope this unacceptable behaviour takes a toll on this camp's earnings.

Avoid, if you want a...

Beware - aggressive owners!!! I wish for noone to stay here.

When I opened the door of the dorm room, the humid smell of rotten wood was in the room. Similar to when someone has left wet washing in a room for several days without opening the windows.

I went to the dorm next door and asked the other people there whether this was a general problem in all the rooms or only in the room where i was placed. They said the humidity was everywhere and that it was worth investing 6 Euros in paying for heating to get the humidity out of the room.

I went back to the reception and asked them whether they had a room that is more dry for me and I also said that I was willing to pay extra for it. The owner reacted very angry and upset. He said he has no humidity issue in any of his rooms and that none ever made this complaint, that he has over 100 cabins and none of them has such issue. He offered me in an unfriendly way to move to the room next door and I tried to explain that I had checked with the guests next door who were having the same issue and that he could come with me to look at the issue together.

I asked if there is any other option or if I could get a reimbursement so I can find another place to stay for the night near Amsterdam Schiphol airport, all I needed was a place to get a few hours of sleep. I mentioned to him that I found his way talking to me unfriendly and he told this to his wife. His wife came to me and shouted at me how I could say that her husband was unfriendly. I tried to explain that all I wanted was a reimbursement of what I had paid to find a dry place to sleep and take my plane the next day.

The husband said I could not get anything back and that after saying he was unfriendly I could also not stay anymore and I should leave the place immediately. I tried to ask for my key deposit back and he said I should send an email. I had sincerely lost trust in the owner couple by this time and therefore insisted to get back my deposit for the key - I had already returned them the key and not received any proof of me giving it back so I felt it was correct to get back my deposit.

The owner shouted at me, pushed me towards the exist of the reception and told me to leave his grounds, while his wife kept to the back shouting at me. I felt helpless since he had my 20 Euros deposit plus the full payment for the night and I neither had a proof nor a testimonial of the situation, so I took out my phone and tried to film what was happening. The owner hit my iphone out of my hand, it fell and the screen got scratches. He pushed me out, didn't care that he broke my phone and he insisted that I had to leave his grounds immediately. I felt helpless in this situation and decided to call the police who couldn't do much since they said not much could be done with this word against word situation.

At least they made him pay back the deposit to me and told me I should take up the rest with Hostelworld to investigate the issue. For a proper investigation about the damage of my phone, they said I would have to stay in holland and wouldn't be able to go on my business trip the next day.

About the money I paid for the stay, the owner said he had already canceled the booking since they didn't want me to stay there anymore, so there was no option I could stay (I wouldn't have want to anyway, since i didn't feel safe with their aggressive manner) but when I checked at the computer, I never received a cancellation confirmation nor a repayment of the total amount . I am really disappointed, helpless and am still in shock.

I don't think someone that behaves in this manner should be able to advertise on any tourism booking website. This is the first time ever I have a negative experience. I feel completely ripped off, lost money and have a...

Was very unpleased of my stay at this camping, apart from it being in a quite nice place i found the personnel there extremely rude. I stayed there with a couple of friends there during the weekend of King's day and have come a long way to get to Amsterdam for just 2 nights. I got my first impression of the personnel working there (grumpy old man that is probably the owner) who was very pushy. Me and my friends decided we would rent bikes from this place because the center was quite far from the camping. On the first night coming back from the center i got a flat tire on the way back to the camping (which is not great because i had to walk at least 5 kilometers back). The next day which was King's day, I asked if I could switch bikes which I did at least 5 times because none of the bikes were properly maintained. After all that, I finally got going to spend the day and night in the city. After celebrating this King's day, me and my friends started to make our way back around 6 am, and about half way I again got a flat tire! This time i was sure that this was because of all the broken glass lying on the street after this big celebration. Anyways, ended splitting a cab with my friends to make our way back. This camping has a stupid rule that you have to give back the rented bikes at 8:30 in the morning, which i could not since i had left the bike in the center because of the flat. The reception opened its doors at 7:30 so i went inside to tell the owner that i could not bring the bike back at the given time. Before i could even ask the question whether i could bring the bike back later or not, the owner started to get very agitated and was clearly irritated that i got another flat tire. Ok that could be understandable, but he then started blaming that I did it in purpose and even said that he saw me jumping around with the bike in front of his office which was clearly a lie. (Why should I brake his bike in purpose?) He would not even listen to what I had to say and would just talk over me as if he knew everything better. This ended being a very big argument and he was very aggressive while talking. He has put all the blame on me because 2 of his bikes got a flat, this really pissed me off because I really did nothing to deserve this and I had come a long way for this trip just to be screamed at and threatened that i would have to pay a fine of 400 euros!! this guy is crazy, there was no way to reason with him. In the end, I went back to the city with my van to pick up his bikes and drove back to the camping (which I was going to do anyways if he had listened to what I had to say) and ended being banned along with my friends from the camping.

Be careful people with this guy, I think he hates his job and doesn't not know anything better to do. He is just an old guy that probably never left his birth place, a real Amsterdamer with no idea of guest relations. No matter how many people are staying at his camping, he should always have some kind of respect for his clients. So because of him I do not consider I had a good stay there and I was very annoyed of the fact that I had to go through this experience during my short stay. Now I know why the owner does not give out his name, it's because he does not want people to talk bad about his name and I am sure I am not the only one which had a bad experience with him. There are many other campings in the city which are way better and much closer to the city, do consider your other option...