Van der Valk Hotel Haarlem

We enjoyed our stay at the van der Valk Hotels very much, excellent service, friendly staff, cleanliness 10+, we will definitely refer friends and family when they make plans to visit Holland to van der Valk Hotels.

We stay here a lot as we have elderly family in NL nearby, on our visit this time we thought we'd stop at the van der Valk we had our wedding night in 29yrs ago. So in comparison: the rooms were similar, the other vdV hotel had a better & nicer looking selection of toiletries (now wishing I'd taken more photos) they had an information book on the desk about the hotel in both Dutch & English, & a note pad & pen, Haarlem has neither. I didn't pick up the free magazine at the other hotel as I thought I'd pick it up in Haarlem, except they have completely different magazines. Now as we've stayed at this hotel many times over the last 5yrs, we've noticed many cut backs - you used to have a minibar fridge in the room that you could put food in that we may have bought, to keep it fresh but they have been turned off due to power costs. You used to be able to to watch UK & USA tv channels, not any more, they have cut paying for those. Last year they told us the antenna was being fixed, obviously still waiting. Now to breakfast, this is where Haarlem on balance just won out, they have a greater selection on offer, although I would note that it has gone down over the last few years, you used to Krenten bollen (fruit buns) not now, the jam was in jars, now its now pump action into small dish, there is no cream cheese to go with smoked salmon, juices have also suffered the squeeze of 'cost of living crisis' but still love that I can have a glass of prosecco at breakfast.

The Van der Valk hotel was a great hotel for our family of 5. We stayed in the family suite with 2 bunk beds and 1 King. Very large and very nice. The toilet was separate from the shower / tub abs sinks which was nice and the beds and pillows were very confortable. Probably the nicest beds and pillows we’ve had our entire Europe trip of 5 countries. I would highly recommend this hotel.

Check-in was fine, although I don't recall picking ground floor rooms, when I booked. In our room the desk lamp was loose & in our children's room the detail mirror was leaning against the main mirror & when our daughter touched it, it fell apart. I found the pillows too high & was advised they have no other options.

We really liked the rooms for families. Extremely convenient when you have more than 2 children.