To specify, this review is about the Empress apartment, not the studio. The reviews seem to be mixed in on the Empress page.

The good news is that the apartment is in a fantastic location overlooking a canal. We felt safe, there were plenty of restaurants around and this was definitely a nicer part of town.

Unfortunately, we arrived during a heatwave in July that had the whole apartment very hot. We tried opening the windows only to find out on our first night around 2am, the bedroom filled with at least 6 mosquitoes. A terrible experience waking up in the middle of the night with bites on you.

The bedroom window overlooks a skylight from the studio below which looked like where the little guys hung out. We had to keep all the windows closed since they would come in with just a few minutes of the apartment open. This meant the apartment was always hot. Unfortunately there was no mosquito net, although we'd ask around and most people did say the bugs were relatively common.

Mosquitoes aside, the apartment is clean, in a great location but also in a very old building, which Joop is upfront about. The floors are extremely creaky, the walls are very thin so you hear everything, the bathroom is separated by a hallway which isn't a big deal but the bathroom itself is poorly design, even if it's in tight space.

Overall lots of positives but the whole experience was an uncomfortable let down that I would not recommend.