Raul is an great host. Incredibly responsive and thoughtful. The finishes and extra touches he has added to the unit are very nice - bottled water to get you started, a couple of beers in the mini-fridge, coffee and tea, and a package of Amsterdam’s stroop waffles as a treat. The beds are very comfortable including the single bed which one of my adult sons used (best we stayed in over 5 cities). The bathroom is large, great shower, and has plenty of storage, which is really uncommon for the other European bathrooms we encountered on our trip. The toilet area is small, but it is separate from the rest of the main bathroom which is good when there are several guests staying. The kitchenette is small, but useful with coffee, tea pot, cups/bowls/plates/glasses. Just a mini-fridge so can’t really accommodate food for breakfast or otherwise. I learned that this is a limitation of a “bed and breakfast” type of unit under Amsterdam’s laws.
The location can absolutely not be beat. It made it possible to see so much of the city during a short 3-night stay. Other than getting to and from the airport - everything we wanted to see was walkable. Because of it’s in-the-heart-of-the-city location, there a decent amount of street noise both late at night (packed bars nearby) and very early in the morning (bars emptying their bottles, garbage collection in back alley).
One part that I missed when choosing the unit is the layout of the “apartment” (which currently has a “hotel style” description). It would benefit by adding a layout to the listing. It is a basement unit with separate entrance from the street. The door is very short (4 feet maybe) and you step down into the unit, needing to watch your head (we bumped our several times). You enter into the first bedroom. Walking through that bedroom to the hallway that leads to the “kitchenette”, the bathroom, laundry, and lastly the 2nd bedroom. So if the guests staying the back bedroom come and go later or earlier than the guests in front bedroom, you are disturbing them completely. My adult kids didn’t care, but I didn’t like that so much. Raul provides privacy shades for the door (a blackout shade) and windows (not blackout) - which is good because you can see directly into the unit from the street, especially at night when the lights are on inside the unit (and the sun rises early and sets late). There isn’t a common area that all guests can sit and relax together. There is a small table for 2 in each bedroom and couch/pull out bed. I learned that this is a very common layout in Amsterdam (basement units that run front to back) - I just didn’t pick up on it when booking what I thought as a 2-bedroom apartment. Scanning options - the “typical apartment” seems hard to find in Amsterdam. So in the end it worked for us, but did have some draw backs that I don’t think we could have avoided without staying much farther outside of the city or maybe booking 2 separate hotel rooms.