Element Amsterdam Review: Better Connected Than It Looks

Element Amsterdam wasn’t the hotel I would ordinarily have picked for a weekend in Amsterdam. It sits south of the center, inside the Gelderlandplein shopping center, and when I first looked at the map it seemed more useful for what we needed to do than particularly appealing as an Amsterdam hotel.

That was essentially why we booked it. We were in the Netherlands for a weekend of hockey, with matches scattered around Amsterdam and beyond. Element was close to Amsterdam Zuid, one of the city’s major transportation hubs, and the points price worked with two Marriott 35,000-point free night certificates that were about to expire. We had spent the previous night at citizenM Amsterdam Amstel, then moved to Element for the remaining two nights.

By the end of the weekend, the location I had regarded as something of a compromise had turned into one of the better parts of the stay.

We took an Uber from citizenM. Public transportation between the two hotels was perfectly possible, but the route I was looking at involved a metro followed by a bus. With luggage and rain around, I wasn’t particularly interested in experimenting with an unfamiliar bus system.

That decision would look slightly unnecessary in hindsight.

Element is integrated into Gelderlandplein, an upscale indoor shopping center. You don’t arrive at a conventional freestanding hotel entrance with taxis pulling up beneath a canopy. Instead, you enter the mall environment and find the hotel within it.

There are shops and restaurants throughout the complex, along with a large supermarket. That supermarket makes more sense here than it would next to most hotels because Element rooms are designed for longer stays and ours came with a proper kitchen.

At check-in, I was offered 500 Marriott Bonvoy points as my Platinum welcome benefit. Only after I asked about the food-and-beverage alternative was I told that we could instead each take an eligible drink from the refrigerator.

The most expensive option we were interested in was a small bottle of prosecco priced at €9.95, so we took two of those, and I bought a considerably cheaper Heineken separately.

When the stay eventually posted to my Marriott account, I discovered they had given me the 500 points anyway.

Our Platinum status also produced a suite upgrade for both nights. It was more space than we needed, with a separate bedroom and living area, a desk, and a full kitchen.

Given the supermarket downstairs, this would be a particularly practical setup for a longer Amsterdam stay. We weren’t planning to cook during a two-night weekend.

There was one unexpected piece of equipment waiting for us in the bedroom: a crib. We weren’t traveling with a small child. More amusingly, we’d overheard another guest at reception explaining that their room was missing a crib. Apparently we had found it. A member of staff came up and removed it shortly after we called down.

The room had a coffee machine with two regular pods and one decaf. The two useful ones disappeared quickly and got us through until breakfast. They were replaced when the room was serviced the following day, although there was also a coffee machine in the lobby.

The living area worked well for us. I had a desk where I could get some work done while my wife used the couch and television. My main criticism was the lighting: even with the curtains open, the living room could be surprisingly dark.

The bedroom was comfortable enough. There were four pillows after I retrieved another two from the wardrobe, although somewhat unexpectedly I thought the pillows at citizenM the previous night were better.

The bathroom was spacious, with a walk-in shower, and the overall condition of the suite was good. Nothing about the room was especially memorable, but as somewhere to actually spend two nights it worked very well.

Breakfast is included at Element and is served downstairs at Papa’s Loft House.

It was busy both mornings. On Saturday, we arrived around peak breakfast time and there were no regular tables available, so we sat at the bar. The following morning was slightly quieter, although when I got up to refill my coffee, my plate was cleared and somebody else had occupied my seat by the time I returned.

The breakfast itself was decent. There were pastries and breads, cold cuts and cheeses, yogurt and fruit, along with salad and the usual hot selections of scrambled and boiled eggs, chicken sausages and bacon.

The bacon was clearly the star attraction. Whenever a new batch appeared to replace an empty serving tray, several waiting guests rapidly converged on it.

Service elsewhere in the hotel was good. On one occasion I went back to reception to charge some sparkling water to the room. The woman at the desk remembered my name and didn’t even need to ask for the room number.

There were other small touches. One evening, a box of stroopwafels appeared on the reception counter for guests to help themselves.

The biggest surprise at Element had nothing to do with the room. Before arriving, I’d treated the hotel as being somewhat out of the way. That was part of the trade-off when we selected it: the redemption worked for our expiring certificates, and Amsterdam Zuid looked useful for getting to the hockey matches we were actually there to see.

Once we walked the area, the transportation setup made much more sense. Amsterdam Zuid station is only a little over five minutes away on foot.

From there, Amsterdam’s rail and metro network opens up in virtually every direction. The M52 metro, for example, runs north through the center, passing Amsterdam Centraal and continuing to Noord. The ride from Zuid to Noord takes only about 12 minutes.

That became important because our weekend wasn’t centered on sightseeing around Dam Square. We were repeatedly heading to hockey grounds in different parts of the region.

For one match, we traveled north and then used an Uber for the final section. Afterward we were heading to Coco’s Outback in central Amsterdam to watch part 3 of “The Greatest Rivalry” rugby series: South Africa’s Springboks playing New Zealand’s All Blacks. Rain arrived and Uber prices jumped. We considered shortening the Uber by connecting back into the rail network, but the saving wasn’t enough to justify adding another change, so we took the car all the way.

The following day provided a more extreme example. Our match was at Gooische Hockey Club. Getting there by public transportation was possible, but scheduled rail work meant the final section involved a replacement bus. We had a game to get to and didn’t want uncertainty on the outbound journey, so we booked an Uber in advance for €45.

Coming back, we had time. It started raining again. The Uber price climbed to more than €140. That made the replacement bus considerably more attractive. We walked to the station, took the bus to reconnect with the rail network and eventually arrived back at Amsterdam Zuid. It wasn’t difficult, and with no deadline at the other end, there was little reason to pay more than three times our outbound Uber fare.

By then, my original decision to Uber from citizenM to Element seemed a little silly. Knowing what I knew after two days there, I’d probably have taken the train to Zuid and walked to the hotel instead. The rain might still have persuaded me otherwise, but the public-transport part wouldn’t.

None of this turns Element into a hotel in the historic center. If the purpose of my trip were to walk out of the front door each morning and spend the day wandering the canals, I’d still prefer to stay elsewhere.

But Gelderlandplein wasn’t the sterile suburban location I’d half expected either. There were several restaurants in and around the mall, and the surrounding area includes substantial office development. On Friday evening, one nearby bar had people spilling out onto the pavement at the end of the working week.

We had dinner at George near Amsterdam Zuid, where we ordered steak frites, spinach and a bottle of Bordeaux. It was a perfectly good dinner rather than something I’d cross Amsterdam to repeat.

The mall itself was more interesting than expected too. Gelderlandplein also contains a surprisingly substantial permanent contemporary art collection, something I’ve covered separately.

Yes, for the right trip. Element Amsterdam isn’t where I’d send somebody looking for the archetypal first weekend among Amsterdam’s canals. There are plenty of hotels better positioned for that. But that wasn’t our trip.

We needed to get to different parts of Amsterdam and the surrounding region over two days. Amsterdam Zuid turned out to be extremely useful for doing exactly that. Meanwhile, the hotel gave us a two-room suite, included breakfast, good service and easy access to shops and restaurants.

Most importantly, the thing I’d been least certain about when we booked it, the location, was the thing that worked better than expected. We had chosen Element largely because the numbers and transportation map suggested it could make sense for the final two nights of a slightly complicated trip. This time, the plan was right.

Three Expiring Marriott FNCs: A Different Optimization Problem

citizenM Amsterdam Amstel review

While We Were There: The Art Hiding in an Amsterdam Shopping Mall