Park Plaza Vondelpark Amsterdam

We loved our three nights at Park Plaza Vondelpark Amsterdam. Although this was our first time at the hotel, this is an area of Amsterdam outside the main tourist zone where we have spent quite a bit of time over the years. We are quite familiar with the stores, restaurants and tram stops in the area due to the many weeks we stayed at Hilton Amsterdam over the years. Hilton Amsterdam is three blocks away from Park Plaza Vondelpark.

Park Plaza Vondelpark Amsterdam is located about one mile west of Museumplein, in a primarily residential neighborhood beside Vondel Park. The hotel consists of three buildings. Two of the buildings are newer style and one building is an older historic building. Our room is a newer room in the historic building.

In Europe, the ground floor is labeled 0 and our hotel building has rooms on floors 0-4. Room 28 on Floor 2 is in the center with a large balcony. This is one of the best rooms in the hotel. The ceiling in the room is about 12 feet high.

The central building of the three separate buildings is the main lobby and houses the restaurant/bar.

The hotel is located beside Vondel Park, Amsterdam’s main city park. Our room 28 faces the park. The opposite side of the hotel faces the street with the Number 2 tram line. Trams are relatively quiet and street work one block east means the No. 2 tram only runs in front of the hotel going into Amsterdam. Track work has resulted in a temporary shift to a tram line two blocks south when coming from city center to the hotel. That work should be completed in a couple of months.

This photo shows two of the three buildings of the Park Plaza VondelPark hotel. The main restaurant is on the left in the central building and a passageway connects the two hotel buildings. Our room is in the third building separate from the other two.

Amsterdam is a city built on sand. Being one of the most densely populated places on earth, a person casually touring Amsterdam will notice construction happening all over the city. Currently the road between the hotel and Vondelpark is under construction. There is no pavement at the present time.

The hotel room is functional. The bed is large. Kelley does not like the feel of the mattress. I find it comfortable enough, firm, although it is not top quality.

We redecorated the room by pushing a chair out of the corner to the foot of the bed and moving the table holding the coffee machine from beside the desk to beside the bed to create a sitting area with the desk chair. We would change a couple things about the room. There is no full length mirror in the room. That could be easily rectified with a mirror on one of the closet doors. There is very little shelf space in the large bathroom.

Instead of a small plastic stool in the bathroom, there could be a shelf unit for placing towels and space for guest items. The only shelf space is directly above the toilet. That presents a potential problem for items falling into the toilet.

The bathroom door, when open, blocks the side of the bed.

The shower is a comfortable space. No tub.

There is a safe and mini-frig in the room. The refrigerator is truly mini with little space, but enough to meet our needs. The beer chills more quickly on the balcony in winter than in the refrigerator.

There is a Nespresso machine and a hot water kettle.

The large balcony space of #28 adds about 50% more room space.

The high 12 ft. ceiling of the room makes the room space seem much larger than it is. Combine the room height with the large balcony and the space feels almost like a suite.

One morning the elevator was out, forcing us to walk the narrow stairways of the hotel building.

There are chairs on both ends of the hallway stairwells.

The stairways are narrow and spiral.

The space below our room is a meeting room so we had no concerns about walking hard.

The front desk of Park Plaza Vondelpark sold tram passes. We received a couple of complimentary bottles of lemonade and a pack of cookies our first night. A small corner market Albert Heijn two blocks away provides a store for beer, water, bread and some food items. The large Albert Heijn market 20 minutes walk at Museumplein provides a large selection of food, although we noticed the Albert Heijn markets in Amsterdam no longer provide hot food. Albert Heijn market at Dam Square will soon have the W Amsterdam hotel sitting atop the grocery store later this year.

Park Plaza Vondelpark specifics:

• 97 Superior rooms.
• 32 Executive rooms. (Our room 28 is an executive room.)
• 8 suites.
• 1 penthouse suite.

The regular rate when I booked was 92 EUR per night. There was a special limited time discount offer dropping the rate to 55 EUR for a superior room and I upgraded to an executive room for 75 EUR per night.

Park Plaza Vondelpark is now one of our favorite hotels for Amsterdam. I booked the hotel for three nights at a rate of around $90 USD per night.

Our 3-night stay qualifies for the Club Carlson Extend Your Stay promotion for 30,000 bonus points.

Loyalty Traveler – Club Carlson Jan 12 to March 29, 2015 stays earn 15K for 2 nights, 30K for 3 nights

This is a great deal to stay three nights in Amsterdam for $270 and get a rebate in points worth almost as much as we paid for the hotel stay.

To be or not to be in the canal center of Amsterdam.

For several years we redeemed Hilton HHonors points and frequently stayed at Hilton Amsterdam, located three blocks south of Park Plaza Vondelpark. One of the frequent complaints I read on FlyerTalk about the Hilton location was its distance outside the city center. Only if you consider a 20 minute walk to the Museumplein with the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum outside of central Amsterdam. The trams run every 10 to 15 minutes into central Amsterdam from 6am to midnight for travel to the Leidseplein, city center canal area, and Centraal Station.

For us, the area of Amsterdam with Park Plaza Vondelpark and Hilton Amsterdam is one of the best areas of Amsterdam to stay, primarily due to its location outside the city center canal district where hotels like Andaz Amsterdam, a Hyatt and The Pulitzer, a Starwood Luxury Collection hotel are located. The canal district is historic, scenic and romantic when you are located in the midst of 17th century houses on the Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht. Hotels like The Pulitzer and Andaz cost three to four times the room rate of Park Plaza Vondelpark. 10 EUR per day for two persons to ride the tram for 10 minutes is a lot cheaper than paying 100 to 200 EUR more per day for a canal district hotel room.

West of Museumplein is a quiet area of the city where chances are you will be around more locals than tourists, yet still upscale and ritzy enough that you are in central Amsterdam within walking distance of many city sights and a short tram ride into city center.

Vondelpark is the main city park of Amsterdam offering a wooded contrast to the bricks and canals covering much of the city. This part of the city is upscale and an historic residential area. The green space of Vondelpark is a popular place for outings and activities in open space in contrast to the confined urban areas of brick lined canals and streets found throughout much of central Amsterdam.