Re: F2F Hotel recommendations?

Hi Steve,

First of all, the "some station" is the Amstel station[1]. It is, in terms of time, actually close to CWI. On the one hand, there are a whole bunch of buses and trams, as well as the only metro line of Amsterdam, that all stop there, ie, it is of an easy reach from the city centre. On the other hand, there are two buses that go from the Amstel Station to the Amsterdam Science Park[2], the campus that hosts CWI. One of the buses (no. 40) rides the whole day, the other one (no. 240) rides at peak hours. That means that, put together these two, there is a bus once every 5-10 minutes from the Amstel station and it takes you to the Science Park in about 10 minutes. So it is not as bad as you fear...

Among the hotels listed, our guests at CWI often go to the NH Tropen hotel

http://www.hotels.nl/amsterdam/nhtropen/?gclid=CJyVy66lvKcCFYNI3godnyjyBA

(also listed on the wiki). I have never heard major complaints about it but, in my view, it has the downside of being a bit out of the centre. If I was to come to Amsterdam for a meeting I would certainly try to go to down town hotel and commute to the Science Park. With the public transport it is not a big deal, and you would certainly miss out the beauty of this city if you are out of the centre (remember: 'centre', 'outskirts' is a relative term; Amsterdam is a small city for a capital city, it has only 800,000 inhabitants...)

I do not know the two hotels Guus put on the site, I certainly trust him and his secretary. Beyond those:

- I had some friends staying at the Apollo Museum Hotel cca. 3 years ago, who were fairly happy:

http://www.booking.com/hotel/nl/museum.en.html

- Just for the fun of it, there is also an OWL hotel:

http://www.hotels.nl/amsterdam/owl/

some colleagues, who had a meeting in Amsterdam, stayed there and they were pleased with it (o.k., they were XML people:-).

Both hotels, as well as the two hotels listed on the site to be around the Museumplein, are in an area with a direct tram connection to the aforementioned Amstel station. The two hotels on the wiki site and the Museum hotel are also nearby to one another...

I hope this helps

Ivan


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Amstel_railway_station
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Park_Amsterdam
 

On Mar 11, 2011, at 21:10 , Steve Harris wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Can anyone with local knowledge recommend a specific hotel?
> 
> I've looked at the wiki page, but the "Closest to CWI" page seems to be big list of hotels within 2 miles of some station that doesn't appear to be very close to the venue, and most have very mixed reviews.
> 
> I don't know that part of Amsterdam at all, so something to narrow it down a bit would be great.
> 
> Somewhere within walking distance of the venue would be good, I'm happy to walk 20-30 mins. Alternatively somewhere with a critical mass of people staying.
> 
> Cheers,
>   Steve
> 
> -- 
> Steve Harris, CTO, Garlik Limited
> 1-3 Halford Road, Richmond, TW10 6AW, UK
> +44 20 8439 8203  http://www.garlik.com/
> Registered in England and Wales 535 7233 VAT # 849 0517 11
> Registered office: Thames House, Portsmouth Road, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9AD
> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
PGP Key: http://www.ivan-herman.net/pgpkey.html
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf