Max Brown Canal District Hotel is where I stayed on my 2 nights in Amsterdam. Amsterdam is an extremely pet friendly city. When I looked for pet friendly hotels there was over 100 available. My pawrents didn’t want to book anything until they knew for sure we would get in. With the covid restrictions on travel and all my papers they were a bit worried there may be some hurdles. We therefore made a shortlist of hotels but didn’t book until we had checked in for our flight!
Max Brown stood out to us as it was right on the canal in a central location. We originally booked just 1 night as we weren’t sure how long we would stay in Amsterdam. We were kind of playing things by ear at first.
Check In
We landed at around 7am into Schiphol airport. After getting the train to the city and walking from the station, it was about 8.30am by the time we got to the hotel. Check in was at 3pm so we thought we were going to have a really long day of waiting around, which wasn’t ideal after almost 23 hours of travelling.
We checked in easily and the hotel told us they had a cupboard we could leave our bags. So we dropped them off and went for a walk around the canals. It wasn’t long before the lack of sleep started to catch up with us all. So we headed back to the hotel just for somewhere to sit.
After about half an hour of being back in the hotel, they gave us the great news that our room was ready! The previous guests had checked out early. As the staff knew we’d had a long trip they prioritised ours to be cleaned. So by 11am we got into the room! This worked out really well as it meant we were able to have a couple of hours sleep. This really put us in good stead for the trip and really helped with the jet lag.
The Room
For the first night we booked a Superior Room which was US$189.24 for the night. We think that on the website this is a medium room. We booked via hotels.com as it was cheaper than booking direct with the hotel. The room we were given was on the ground floor just behind the bar area. The room was pretty small with a long corridor. This seemed a bit of a waste of space as it couldn’t be used for anything other than walking through. The windows to the room led directly onto the street outside so it was slightly noisy but nothing that caused an issue. It was a lovely room, decorated very well and we slept very well. Both for our morning snooze and our full sleep.
We decided to stay another night. We managed to get a room on their website. The only one available was a small room with a canal view which was €140 for the night. It did mean moving rooms but that was OK as was easier than moving hotels. After we got ready we just stored our luggage and spent the day exploring Amsterdam. When we got back about 4pm we were taken straight to the new room.
Despite this room being smaller, it was a much better room. Note though that this was on the top floor of the hotel and it was up a lot of very steep stairs! So not for anyone with any difficulties with mobility. The view from this room was lovely and was decorated similar to the first room. I would always choose this room if I had the option, especially as it was cheaper as well.
Pet Policy
This hotel was pet friendly. It does say on the website that dogs weren’t allowed in the common areas (bar or restaurant) and that there would be a €15 charge per pet per night.
However, we sat each night in the bar area before heading to bed.
Also, when we checked out we were only charged the pet fee once, rather than per night. So that’s much better than per night. But I’m not sure if this was a mistake or a change in policy.
Conclusion
Overall I would give Max Brown 21/25;
Room quality : 4/5 (rooms were small but nicely decorated)
Price per night : 4/5 (quite expensive per night and didn’t include breakfast)
Breakfast : we didn’t try breakfast so can’t rate that
Pet friendly areas : 4/5 (although we sat in both the bar and restaurant it does state dogs aren’t allowed in these areas so do have to mark them down for that one)
Pets allowed to be left unattended in the room : 5/5 (although not requird as pretty much everywhere in Amsterdam lets you in with dogs)
Pet fee charged : Yes : 4/5 (only charged per stay rather than per night as advertised and low price of €15)
Better marks would have been scored if dogs were truly welcomed in the communal areas. Whilst I was allowed there during my stay I didn’t feel 100% comfortable since I knew it had said on the website that I wasn’t. Also, it wasn’t clear what is the pet fee (per stay or per night) as we were charged different to the policy on the website.
For info on how I managed to get to Amsterdam you can check out my travel page. For videos of my trip in Amsterdam you can also check out my Youtube videos.
Woof woof, Wylie x