Amsterdam Hotelboat

Our hotel boat in Amsterdam, aptly called Amsterdam Hotelboat.

When I was looking for a place to stay in Amsterdam, topping the search list are hotel boats. Of course, I was searching for affordable ones and by that I mean, €30/night/person or less. Lumping many countries (which in our case was 6) in one trip can be expensive because one would need to transfer from country to country. However, cross-country trains can also be cheaper if booked well in advance and it's now the era of budget airlines so, frugality can still be a way to go.

But then for us, mere employees who get our dough entirely by working, cheap train and airline tickets will still be congruent to affordable accommodations.

The outside deck of our hotel boat. Nice prolly during summertime.

As you might already know, Amsterdam for the most part consists of water. People in Amsterdam have already learned well enough to deal with it. Say, for the past hundreds of years? Their canals are like akin to streets in the rest of the world, maybe except in Venice (but I still have to go there... drifting off for a quick daydream...). Okay, I am back. So, it doesn't come as a surprise when Amsterdam also offers a considerable number of boat options for a place to stay for those who want to try something different or something that doesn't burn severe holes in one's pockets.

Amsterdam Hotelboat's dock. The Amsterdam Centraal Station is straight ahead.

Like the other accommodations we had in Europe, it was important that aside from our accommodations being budget-friendly, location was also a big consideration. Case in point, the Amsterdam Centraal Station building can be seen straight ahead. Because we wanted to make most of our 2-day Transportation ticket, we got on a bus a lot of times to get to the station. It was one bus stop away, though. haha

The distance from our hotel boat is about a 15-minute leisure walk to the train station. It is near by anyone's standards who enjoys walking. It is even much nearer if one has a bicycle which every Dutch in Amsterdam has, I suppose.

Anyway, there was that instant when we wanted to take a bus from the train station to our hotel boat. We had no idea which bus that would go and we did not see any bus stop in opposite direction that's near. We couldn't gamble to take a random bus because many buses will do a left turn towards a sort of an expressway. It would be downright hilarious if we ended up taking such bus.

So, we mustered a little courage to ask a train station officer on which bus that will get us to Nemo, a science center near to our pier. (On a side note, it isn't hard anymore to find Nemo. You know, the fish. :p) But what do you think the officer replied to us? You might guess it right. He pointed towards the Nemo building and asked if we see it. "Take a walk! It's near and it's a good exercise." At least that's how I remember but you get the point. Face palm. haha

Our neighbor boats

And more boats...

My cousin has a fear of water but since the boat was anchored, there wasn't any uncomfortable movement to evoke a slightest paranoia. Yes, our stay was pleasant and more so, with our wonderful and generous breakfast spread. The only thing was that our room was really tiny and that's coming from a petite girl like me. There isn't any space left for two people to simultaneously move around the  room. One has to go out and make way. But apart from this, it was more than worth the €50/room/night that we paid.

And here are a few phone photos I took on our last morning there. The soft glow of the early morning skies concluded a sweet ending. Are you calling us back Amsterdam? (wishful thinking...)