B&B la Festa

First the positive - location is pretty central, all main areas you will want to visit are easily within walking distance. The surrounding area is in a nice part of Amsterdam, there are plenty of restaurants and cafes very close. The owners seem pleasant. But - This is not a B&B I've never known this title to mean anything else but bed and breakfast. There is no breakfast service. Yes there are plenty of places to go to very locally but you will be paying at least 15 euro per person which you should add on to your stay if you are comparing prices to a hotel that does offer a breakfast. There are only two rooms available. In my opinion the one at the front (the one we stayed in) of the property, the room that doesn't have a balcony, is not worth staying in. If you are able to sleep through any noise then this may be ok as a basic somewhere to sleep accommodation. But the room is above a busy street, deliveries to the restaurants and other businesses nearby are very noisy and early. We certainly couldn't leave the window open or we would have got very little sleep at all. This is another problem as there is no air conditioning in this room, beware if booking for the summer. Another issue is the stairs to your room, as per photos from other reviews they are very steep and turn at the top sharply, if you have any kind of mobility issue this will make your stay impossible. There were also issues with the lighting on the stairs, they are automatic lights that don't come on as you need them to, actually dangerous in my opinion. We also had problems with the shower not clearing of water, on first use, not noticing opened the shower door for a wave of accumulated water not draining in the shower tray to flood the bathroom. We reported immediately but the problem was still there for our next use. If you don't take longer than a minute to shower you will probably be ok. This has also been mentioned before on a previous review, so seems to be an ongoing problem. So overall for me its not worth taking the room at the front, make sure you request the room with the balcony if you are wanting to stay here. (other reviews seem to confirm this too) If its not available look elsewhere, cost comparisons with breakfast included probably make the perceived cost savings not as great as you think.

First the good. This property is very walkable to many central locations. There is great food and coffee quite near. (Check out Pesca if you like fish.) the owner is very nice and will answer questions and provide recommendations. Also, the rooms are very clean. Just the facts- we stayed in both rooms. The standard room was our preferred. It had an a/c unit, was a larger room, was more quiet, had better lighting and had a window you could leave open. The balcony room had a fan, no a/c. The room is tiny even by European standards. The balcony has another door opening onto it, so we didn’t feel comfortable leaving it open to get more air. There is no other opening window. The balcony overlooks a small side street, so there is no view, but it’s a decent place for 2 people to sit. For some reason that room was noisier. The other thing to know is that the stairs from the street to the unit are very narrow, steep and curve. The good news is there is a bannister. One thing they need to fix is a way to turn the light on from the top of the stairs. The motion detector is 3/4 of the way down and the toughest part to navigate is at the top.