Van der Valk Hotel Rotterdam Nieuwerkerk

This was a business stay, location was important. What I did not know, was that the hotel is being renovated, so half of it is a construction ground. To get to your room is a labyrinth and, once there, you have noise from the ongoing work. Rooms are ok (but basic), breakfast ok (nothing to write home about). If I were the hotel management, I would give customers some discount or bar voucher, to compensate while the rebuilding takes place. Silver lining: nice view on cute small duck pond from the hotel windows!

Admittedly it is a bit of a trek to get to/from this hotel if your meetings/holiday are in central Rotterdam (25 minute taxi or 60+ minutes on public transport), but the hotel itself is really quite good. Large, bright and modern rooms (many overlook a canal and park), a perfectly good restaurant/bar and very friendly service. I was very positively surprised once I got over my grumpiness about the location.

Never again. We came here for a quick drink and something to eat because we were stuck in traffic on our way to Utrecht. I have been going to van der Valk hotels for years. We have dined or stayed at several this week alone such as Dordrecht, Blijdorp and de Bilt. As such I am used to a specific level of service at van der Valk establishments. This one did not deliver. We waited a long time to be seated. Once the bartender saw that none of the young serving staff were going to seat us, he took it upon himself and served us our drinks and took our order. We would have liked some coffee afterwards, but the serving staff completely ignored us. We therefore decided to forego coffee and pay. A young lady came to clear our table and I asked her for the bill. She said she’d bring it right after she brought our plates to the kitchen. Unfortunately, one of the young male receptionists decided to take his break at a table at the far end of the restaurant right as she came out of the kitchen, and she decided that sitting at the table and flirting with him was more important. None of the other staff were anywhere to be seen. She finally decided to get back to work 20 minutes later. I got up and walked to the bar where all the serving staff were now standing and asked for the bill, again. I then got a snarky answer from one of the male servers that his colleague was currently printing it. I replied that she had been “printing it” at the table at the far end of the restaurant for the last 20 minutes and that I was done waiting for it. It took another 5 minutes and the same young male server ended up bringing us the bill. She did not have the courage nor the decency to own up to her mistake and apologize in person. Instead, she sent out a colleague to possibly take the heat from dissatisfied customers for her rudeness. When we left, all of the serving staff had made themselves scarce. I am sure other customers would have just left without paying instead of waiting a total of 25 minutes for the bill. As said in the beginning, I will not be visiting this particular van der Valk again. There are others close by with much better service that this young staff should take as an example!