Are We Having Fun Yet?

We have officially checked into the weirdest damn hotel ever. Good thing it’s free.

Michael won a trip to Amsterdam with three nights at the Lloyd Hotel. From its general appearance inside & out, it feels like an old warehouse was renovated into a hotel, but it was indeed built as a hotel a century ago to house those in the process of emigrating to South America via Amsterdam. The most recent renovations however make some interesting design choices…

We’re in the 6th floor, in what the hotel describes as one of their best rooms. Let’s be clear: it’s a loft: it is a single large room with exposed beams, posts & rafters on a cement floor. We do have some throw rugs here & there to spare one’s feet too much strain, but it’s a cold surface first thing in the morning. We have a large wooden table with two benches. There is a small chair & coffee table. There is a large king bed. Everything however is minimalist and white. It feels like a museum art installation.

In the far corner of the room is a walled off water closet: it is the only thing closed off from full view but it makes up for it with superlative acoustics. You can here every toilet paper tear –and worse.

Beside the WC in the main room is a deep bathtub. There is a shower head, but no shower curtain or enclosure: if you are bathing, you are putting on a show for everyone present, whether you want to or not. And if the shower head slips in your hand, you will be spraying water across the room and possibly your luggage, as I accidentally noticed this morning.

The bed itself is fine, but in its space there are no bedside tables or shelves of any kind, so there is no place to have an alarm clock if one needed such. I usually use the alarm function of my mobile phone but there is no place to put it. And even if there was, there is no place in that area of the room in which I could plug it in: the only two outlets are at opposite ends of the suite.

Next we come to a full length mirror, but it’s recessed in its own cubby and box frame. With no lighting whatsoever. I can see shadows of myself move in the mirror, but there isn’t enough light for anything else.

And finally, the last item in the row is the bathroom vanity. Note that: it is no where near the toilet or bathtub. Indeed, after doing one’s business in the WC, you have to exit the toilet and walk the length of the suite to wash your hands. At least the vanity has good lighting and fast hot water.

We paid extra for the breakfast, which is running about 17 euros per person. I accept that expense as a convenience, but it certainly isn’t for quantity. The breakfast buffet offerings include several types of bread & croissant, some shavings of salmon & specialty cold cuts, tea/coffee/juice, and some cereals. Anyone who actually worked for a living would be starving in an hour from such a meagre offering.

The breakfast buffet did have one saving grace however: a pain au chocolat to die for (or indeed which would kill you if consumed too frequently). Usually a pain au chocolat is a croissant with some chocolate baked inside. The hotel’s version however is a plain croissant which is dipped into a pot of chocolate to be entirely coated. At least the croissant won’t go stale if it’s encased in solid chocolate!

Given that the place isn’t costing more than our breakfasts, I should be less critical of the hotel. But if we were paying for this room, I would quickly have asked for a more conventional place. If I wanted to sleep in an art installation, I’d check in at MOMA.