Category: Pod Hotels

Finding a Cool Hotel in Amsterdam – Nothing Zen! Part 7

Here we go again with my “Nothing Zen” series

A fellow TrendHunter, a very trend setting young lady from Down Under, younger than my 2 daughters (who, by the way, are two very trend setting young ladies themselves) is going to attend a conference at the VU university of Amsterdam in July and asks me whether I could recommend a Cool Hotel in Amsterdam.

My first reaction
Off course I first recommend her to stay in my own Haagsche Suites in The Hague, as commuting between The Hague and Amsterdam is usually only 45 minutes and my credo is always: “You should party in Amsterdam, but sleep in The Hague!”.

My second reaction
However, because her conference schedule is from 8.00 AM until Mid Night, she only needs a nearby comfy bed to crash and sleep in.

So my second suggestion to her is to look at the then one year open Qbic Hotel which is within walking distance. No other hotels are nearer by. Next near are some hotels at Schiphol Airport, but a bit noisy maybe.

My third reaction
As a local your knowledge of local hotels tend to be scarce. My only Amsterdam experience is a couple of nights stay at the Pulitzer Hotel, see my review at VibeAgent. Therefore this question is not so easy to answer. First I will give some off the cuff recommendations:

While talking about VibeAgent, fellow Vibe Agents recommended:

  • Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel
  • The Pulitzer Hotel
  • Bilderberg Hotel Jan Luyken
  • Hotel ‘t Jagershuis
  • Bed and Coffee
  • Amsterdam Marriott

Finding a very clever feature at VibeAgent
While looking in detail at VibeAgent, I discovered a very handy travel planning feature which is not so obvious. This is the map you get if you type in Amsterdam at their Hotel Search:

VibeAgent Amsterdam Search Page

The orange signs mean that the hotel has been reviewed by one or more of the VibeAgent members (who are called VibeAgents).
Here the order starts with the Pulitzer.
However, If you know the exact location where you have to be, you can drag the center of their map to your exact destination. Then their search results change while you move. Excellent thinking!

Vibeagent Search Results

Now the VU location is in the center of the map and suddenly you note a completely different list of hotels starting with the Novotel and the Holiday Inn.

VibeAgent has a long way to go with acquiring more content, but this is a very helpful tool to get names of hotels in a city you don’t know yet!

Fellow TrendHunters mentioned:

Hm TrendHunter should do a bit more homework. Maybe the lady in question and I should get together and do some more research.

Historic Hotels of the Benelux has 2 Amsterdam Hotels:

Some suggestions from the Weekend Hotel list for Amsterdam:

I believe there is no better site for finding a cool hotel in The Netherlands and Belgium than Weekendhotel. Search results of Weekendhotel should be matched with their List of Favorites which counts 38 hotels and B&B’s and even apartments in Amsterdam.

Maybe co author – and owner of the site- at Weekendhotel, Willem steps in with some suggestions as well, as I know he always looks at my Zen Series.

I intend to follow this up with my own list of favorite Amsterdam hotels after a bit more checking.

It still is very time consuming!

Street Art (2): Berlin, The Invisible Billboard Pod Hotel

Berlin Pod Hotel

Where
Located on Death Strip, the piece of land along the former Berlin Wall where people used to be shot and now a waste land dedicated to sculptures, French artist Etienne Boulanger formed a one room hotel between billboards. It definitely is a Room without a View. A night costs a mere Euro 20.- (approx US $ 30.-). It is on view (or use) up to March 2008.

Berlin Pod Hotel 2

It is accessible by ladder and is a fully equipped as a two star hotel room.

Philip Horst, one of five artists running the Sculpture Park Berlin Centrum, said: “Boulanger’s idea was to make use of an economic cycle and use the rented out advertising spaces to finance the hotel.”

Reservations

Berlin Pod Hotel 3

Via Etienne Boulanger‘s website

The ITN Video on Youtube:

Via
Vacant ready and ITN UK

Christchurch: The SO Pod Hotel

Hotel SO BAR
The Bar of the SO Hotel

The So Hotel
Hotel SO in Christchurch, New Zealand is another and massive (284 rooms of which 190 are pod size) Pod Hotel that opened on 6 November 2007. Room rates for a double start at an affordable NZ $ 89.

Its Team
The team is made up of people from industries as diverse as property development, hotel management, marketing and advertising. They believe this diversity in backgrounds is essential in providing the fresh perspective needed to develop an experience unencumbered by the traditional ways of designing and managing a hotel.

Its Philosophy
Some hotels offer a budget experience at a cheap price. Others offer a luxurious experience at a high price. SO believes that great design, great technology and great service should be available to everyone at a great price. Other than the “strict” pod hotels like Yotel Qbic and Easy Hotel it also offers bar, restaurant and business facilities.

Its History
Looking into its history and background is interesting. The Hotel has been developed by Dave Henderson who became famous in the middle 90ies for his struggle with the NZ tax authorities. It started when he claimed a tax refund that resulted in a tax review with a huge back taxes claim. It even put him into bankruptcy from which he was able to come back when he successfully overturned the tax claim. The whole story is documented in the feature film We’re Here to Help. The NZ release of the film coincided with the Hotel opening. (Note to myself: Have to advise Filmgirl whether it is feasible to have this film released at the Rotterdam film Festival).

The funniest thing is that the hotel is located in….the former Tax Office. After Henderson bought the property he refused to extend the lease of the Tax Office and after having them vacate the building he started converting the building in a hotel.

More Reading
It is also featured by The Guardian and
USA Today

Dutch Dutch Design (23): QBic Hotel at CNN

When launched Qbic got featured on CNN. I didn’t see it myself. I red the transcript once, but thanks to fellow Blogger Época Alta I found the Youtube link:

The first ever Qbic Hotel is four months in operation now and its occupancy rates are reportedly over 90%.

Paris: Hotel Everland, The One Room (One Suite) Cube Hotel has arrived.

Hotel Everland Paris 01
Hotel Everland on top of the Palais de Tokyo
Hotel Everland Paris 02
Wow! What a view from your room on the Eiffel Tower!

From the roof of the Leipzig Gallery of Contemporary Art the one room (one suite) Hotel Everland has moved to the roof of the Paris Palais de Tokyo where it will receive guests for an overnight stay and museum visitors during the day until the end of 2008.

In an interview with the Australian News Com Swiss artists Sabina Lang who with Daniel Baumann forms the duo “L/B” that created the artsy Hotel concept, commented:

“It’s what we thought of as an ideal hotel room,” Ms Lang said as she watched a giant crane being prepared to winch the prefabricated green unit up from the back of a truck.

Hotel Everland, originally conceived for Expo 2002, has already spent 18 months at the Gallery for Contemporary Art in Leipzig. But the view from the Palais de Tokyo, incorporating the Paris skyline and the Eiffel Tower, is of a different kind from the east German tower block guests saw there.

“You shouldn’t need a television,” Ms Lang said.

She said it was important for the work to be an actual hotel as well as a part of the museum. Guests pay Euro 333.- (currently $526.86) a night during the week and Euro 444.- (currently $702.48) at weekends, a comparable rate to other hotels in the chic 16th arrondissement, with charges used to cover running costs.

Guests book online at the Hotel Everland site but stay only for the night after closure of the museum. During the day, the room can be inspected by museum visitors.

Reservations, which opened at the start of October, have been brisk and the first two months are already booked out. But the two artists have not been tempted to change trades and abandon art for the hospitality industry.

“It’s absurd to have a one-room hotel and it’s never going to be a success as a business plan,” Ms Lang said. “We just like to play around with the idea of exclusivity and luxury.”