Ramada Apollo Amsterdam Centre hotel review

Ramada Apollo Amsterdam Centre is a 4-star hotel in the northwest corner of adjacent Rembrandt Park in the Amsterdam New-West area of the city. For those not too familiar with Amsterdam, the location is about 15 minutes tram ride on the Tram 13 line to the city center at Dam Square.Â Â Ramada Apollo #13 tram stop is called Admiral Helfrichstraat.

This hotel is an excellent value using Wyndham Rewards GoFast rates, a cash and points rate currently at 62 EUR + 3,000 points. Add 3.10 EUR city tax and you have a nice $75 hotel room in Amsterdam for 3,000 Wyndham Rewards points.

Forget your preconceptions of roadside Ramada Hotels in the USA, if you have any. Ramada Apollo Amsterdam Centre won the 2015 International Hotel Award for best hotel in the Netherlands.

18 story Ramada Apollo Amsterdam Centre seen from Rembrandt Park.

Amsterdam is a city where hotel rates easily hit $200 to $300+ per night for a 4-star hotel in the Canal District, even in off-season travel periods.

After dozens of hotel stays in Amsterdam over the past 20 years, I find riding the tram 15 minutes from my hotel to Dam Square or Leidseplein entertainment district is a major budget saver to allow more spend for entertainment and dining while in the city.

Arrival Â

The savings at Ramada Apollo Amsterdam start immediately with free shuttle service from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to the hotel.

The return trip to the airport is 7.50 EUR per person and reservations are recommended.

The cost for a train ticket from Centraal Station to AMS Schiphol airport is 4.20-5.70 EUR, depending on payment type.
The public Airport Connexxion 191 bus is 5 EUR.
A single tram ride is 2.90 EUR, unless you buy a day or multi-day pass (for travel between hotel and train station or airport bus stop).
Uber just started Amsterdam Schiphol service in June 2017.

Ramada Apollo Amsterdam shuttle picks up outside arrivals hall in spaces A9-13 at the far right of the first traffic lane after exiting terminal building.

Ramada Apollo shuttle service runs every 40 minutes from 6:00am-9:20pm from hotel to airport and 6:20am-9:40pm from AMS Schiphol to Ramada.

Room 1016 King Bed Panoramic View Executive Room

Ramada Apollo has 16 guest floor rooms, Floor 17 restaurant and an 18th floor rooftop terrace. There were rooftop parties with live DJ tunes Fri-Sat-Sun of our stay. Unfortunately, the rainy weather sucked those nights and we never made it to the rooftop this trip. Still, the parties went on and we could hear the thumping bass sounds from Rembrandt Park.

TV swivels for viewing from seating or bed.

The bed headboard has a shelf, but no nightstands beside bed.

The closets held an empty mini-refrigerator, lots of shelf space, safe and iron.

The couch seating is kind of odd in that there is no solid back in the middle.

At least there is plenty of space for two.

The air conditioner worked great.

Breakfast not included on reward stay

Most Ramada hotels include complimentary breakfast on all stays, even reward stays. Ramada Apollo Amsterdam does not include breakfast on reward stays.

The first morning of our stay we paid 18.50 EUR each for the breakfast buffet. Neither Kelley or I eat enough at one time to make buffet dining a worthwhile meal plan. The food selection was standard and adequate, but the crowd in the dining room was too much traffic on a Friday morning for me to enjoy dining leisurely. Crying babies were scattered throughout the space.

The Floor 17 dining room is a great place for views of Amsterdam. I have enjoyed the bar and especially the view from the rooftop terrace on previous stays. The weather was mostly cloudy or raining all four days of our stay, then finally turned sunny and clear the day we changed hotels to Park Plaza Amsterdam Vondelpark.

Hotel Review: Ramada Apollo Amsterdam Centre on Wyndham Rewards GoFast rate (April 7, 2016). My review from last year in Room 1116 shows some photos from rooftop and Floor 17.

Ramada Apollo Amsterdam lobby

This Ramada Amsterdam view is from the rear of the lobby near the toilets. There is a gift shop at the bottom of the steps. The shop sells multiple day Amsterdam tram-bus-metro passes.

One round trip on the #13 tram from the hotel to city center is 5.80 EUR. A 24 hour pass is 7.50 EUR. Ticket time starts when you first check-in on a tram, bus or metro.

Tickets for 4 to 7 days drop the daily price for unlimited rides to 5.50 EUR per day or less.

There are a couple of TVs and gas fireplaces with seating closer to the front door of the hotel. The crowded hotel meant there were generally a dozen or more people hanging out in the lobby seating and I did not photograph that part of the hotel.

The Neighborhood

Rembrandt Park marks the boundary between pre-WWII development in Amsterdam and post-war. Rembrandt Park and the Western addition of Amsterdam was planned in the 1930s, but actual extensive development did not happen until the 1970s.

There is an art sculpture between the Ramada Apollo Amsterdam and The Hague Hotel School dated 1973.

Walking around the neighborhoods west of Ramada showed dense urban living with a sense of community. Playgrounds are located between residential tower block housing.

The neighborhoods in Nieuw-West are designed on the basis of the garden city principles: planned, self-contained communities surrounded by greenbelts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Nieuw-West

The New-West Amsterdam area has a high concentration of Muslims. Within 10 minutes walk of the hotel are many Turkish restaurants and shoarma cafes, where meals cost as little as 4 to 6 EUR. Women wearing hijabs is a common sight.

There are three supermarkets in the area I saw and I shopped in two of the stores.

Dirk van den Broek is the closest market at Mercatorplein, 10 minutes walk or one tram stop from Ramada.

Albert Heijn is one block east of Marco Polo Straat, the #13 tram second stop from Ramada heading into city.

Ramada Apollo #13 tram stop is called Admiral Helfrichstraat.

#13 tram runs from 6am to 12:09am with frequency every 7-15 minutes, depending on time of day.

Ramada Apollo Amsterdam Centre room rates

I booked my reward stay for Ramada Apollo Amsterdam in early May. The room rate for the Panoramic View Executive King at the time was 183.33 EUR ($211.53 USD) + 9.17 EUR ($10.58 USD) city tax per night for a total $222.11 USD nightly room rate.

I booked 4 nights for 12,000 Wyndham Rewards points + 260.40 EUR ($300.45 USD).

12,000 points cut the room rate by $588 USD.

That is the kind of value I find with Wyndham Rewards points.

July 2017

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SAS flying over San Francisco

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