The Happier the Hotelier, The Happier the Guest
The “How To Spend It” magazine of the Financial Times covered Haagsche Suites in The Hague (see pictures), Park Tower Suite in Haarlem en Brugsche Suites and Maison le Dragon, both in Brugge, Belgium.
The New York Times addressed designers Analik of Miauw Suites in Antwerp and Marcel Wanders of Lute Suites near Amsterdam.
Hotel Beaumont in Maastricht has been restyled and reopened recently. It won the “Dutch Hotel Award” for its renovation.
Hobb publishes various Dutch language paper Hotel Guides: Hotels in France, Italy, Morocco and Germany to name a few.
Recently Hobb launched a new hotelguide for Belgium and The Netherlands. Another guide? one would ask, but I believe it will find its place, because it has a handy size. In addition there is the Hobb website.
By coincidence we stayed at the Wilhelmina Hotel in Domburg, province of Zeeland, on May 5, 2005, which is Dutch Liberation Day. It was celebrated as a holiday (once every 5 years it is a holiday, as it is already some time ago that we were liberated….ever heard of the stingy Dutch?). Consequently the adjacent Beach Hotel Duinheuvel where family of us stayed, was entirely booked, but there was a room available in Wilhelmina Hotel. However, it was possible to have a sumptuous breakfast together in the Gallery of Beach Hotel Duinheuvel.
Such breakfast is an experience as all guests are draped around a very expensive piano and all sorts of paintings look upon your fresh eggs. The artwork exposed is for sale.
We actually bought a nice bronze of a dancing lady as a present for our dancing daughter who was going to graduate from the Rotterdam Dancing Academy. (How happy a hotelier can be ;-)).
We stayed in one of the renovated Wilhelmina rooms. Very clean, wooden floors, all amenities available and a pleasant atmosphere.
One of the owners is the third generation of the family that operated Wilhelmina Hotel.
Together with his partner, the one who mainly operates the Art Gallery, he bought the Beach Hotel Duinheuvel a couple of years ago. Wilhelmina has been renovated in 2004 and now the renovation of Duinheuvel is almost ready.
I loved the location just two steps over a dune from the beach. The Coasters heading to and from Antwerp sail so close to the coast there, that you can almost touch them.
Service is friendly and very professional.
There used to be a unified Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg hotel classification system under the name Benelux Hotelclassification.
As of January 1, 2003 The Dutch started with their own Dutch Hotel classification system.
According to the Telegraaf of April 6, 2005 Lloyd Hotel Amsterdam gets a month from the Dutch Hotel Classification Authority to provide all rooms with warm and hot water taps. If it does not comply, it will get no star rating at all. Worse even, it will not be allowed to advertise itself as a hotel (!?), as the Dutch Hotel Cassification Authority has usurpated the word “Hotel” as being only available for those complying with their basic classification. In 13 of its total of 116 rooms there are no water taps at all. Lloyd Hotels has a rather refreshing and new approach to the classification system under its motto: Sleep and dine from one to five stars! Only a couple of years ago everybody deemed it normal to wash ones hand outside the room……