Hotel Keizershof — Hotel in Amsterdam

The DeVries family—matriarch Mary, along with her daughter Hanneke and son Ernest—are the hosts at this hotel, which feels more like a comfortable bed-and-breakfast. The building dates from the 17th century and maintains many of the architectural features of that time, including narrow, steep staircases to access the guest rooms, none of which are on the ground floor. As long as you understand that there is no lift and that the treads on the stairs are narrow and require agility to climb, especially with luggage in hand, then you will enjoy your stay here. If you can’t accept climbing steep stairs, you will be better off booking a more “traditional” lodging.||||The many rewards for accepting the stairs include clean, spacious, and quiet rooms; a convenient location within easy walk of tram lines and the Rijksmuseum; and, most of all, the hands-on care and oversight of the DeVries family, especially Hanneke, who presides over the morning breakfast (included in the room rate) and takes care of many little details for her guests. The breakfast room on the ground floor has a long communal table where guests gather to enjoy a generous buffet of cold meats, cheeses, freshly baked bread, pastries, fruit, cereals, and yogurt, accompanied by orange juice and unlimited pots of strong coffee (Ernest makes a hearty brew!).|| ||The hotel’s web site doesn’t handle credit-card bookings in the usual way. It offers a form which people can submit to indicate their room preferences and their dates of arrival and departure. From that point, reservations are made and confirmed through e-mail communication with Hanneke, who made the process very easy for us and was prompt in replying to any questions we had. (FYI: the hotel prefers payment in cash, so plan accordingly. Your credit card number will be used simply to hold the room and guarantee the reservation, but it will not be charged.)||||In our e-mail communications with Hanneke, she described the hotel’s various rooms and their location in the building. Wanting to minimize the number of stairs we had to climb, we reserved the “Raefje” room, which involved only one spiral staircase. The room was large and comfortable, with a walk-in shower, plenty of hot water, an electric kettle with an assortment of teas and coffees, and a magnificent Delft-tiled fireplace: an ornate and beautiful reminder of the building’s history. The room overlooked a lovely garden and was quiet at all hours of the day and night. The small toilet cubicle was located on the landing, just outside the door of the room, and some people might find this a bit awkward.||||We arrived in Amsterdam on a Delta Airlines flight which landed at the dark hour of 6 AM, and we took a train from Schipol Airport to Amsterdam Centraal station, and then a tram to the hotel, arriving around 8 AM. Weeks earlier, we had alerted Hanneke of our early arrival, and she told us that we could leave our bags with her and explore the city for a few hours until our room was ready. When we arrived at the hotel and rang the doorbell, Hanneke warmly welcomed us inside and graciously asked us if we’d like to sit down to breakfast, which had been set out for the other guests who had already spent the night. We were famished and gladly accepted her invitation to have a full breakfast and an opportunity to get to know her, after which we did spend the day wandering Amsterdam on foot. Returning to the hotel in the afternoon, we found that Ernest had already carried our bags to the room, so we didn’t have to carry luggage on the stairs until the day we checked out.||||After traveling beyond Amsterdam for a few weeks, we returned to the Hotel Keizershof for a two-night stay before flying home from Schipol Airport. Hanneke had promised us that we could have the same room we had stayed in a few weeks earlier, but upon our arrival, Mary announced that she had made a mistake with the booking and that we would have to take a different room for only one night. This room was on the very top floor and required ascending THREE flights of stairs, but we managed it for just the one night. This top-floor room was called the “Rita Hayworth” room and was even more spacious than the “Raefje” room which we had occupied before. The bathroom alone was easily three times the size of the bathroom in the “Raefje” room. We loved this room and would have stayed in it for the last night, had it not been for the stairs. We were very glad when Hanneke moved us back into “Raefje.”||||We paid €150 per night for each of the five nights we stayed at the Hotel Keizershof, and we thought it to be a very good value, considering the hotel’s prime location, the ample and diverse breakfast, and especially for the daily conversations with Hanneke and her family, which certainly enhanced our stay and gave us a taste of true Dutch hospitality from a delightfully friendly...

Only seven rooms but all accessed from a steep spiral stair case; even our first floor (second floor in US terms) was challenging. Room was very large (although my mattress needs replacing) but bathroom outside door and very small. Breakfast very good but doesn't start until 8:30, late for fulling seeing city (although owner did accommodate are need for early breakfast two days. Owner is very pleasant and personable but she pushed us to take a taxi to the airport saying it was a fixed price of Euros 37.50 (which was also stated in a flyer in the room) but we were charged Euro 45 by the taxi and owner has not responded to our email asking for an explanation -- much better to take the very convenient Metro to the train station and then the train to the airport, which would cost just Euro 17.80 for two people. Hotel is very convenient to everything. Owner does a lot of airbnb, so check out...

Ernest and Mary went above and beyond to make our stay special, starting with a cup of hot tea at our arrival and ending with help (and moral support) with getting a rental car for the rest of our travels in the Netherlands. They seemed genuinely glad to settle down for a lengthy conversation with my octogenarian father-in-law a couple of times during our short stay...I so appreciate their graciousness! Breakfast was delicious; fresh fruit, warm fresh bread, and an awesome omelet were my favorites. When Ernest learned that we were going to visit our ancestral province, he made a point to serve cheese from that province for breakfast the next day. Another example of thoughtful service. Our rooms were comfortable with beautiful views of the garden or canal. We loved being in the heart of Amsterdam within easy walking distance of so many places. Staying here was one of the highlights of...