Hans Brinker Hostel Amsterdam

Bed Bugs, cannot recommend !

I got bed bugs from these guys. Stay alert brothers

Utrolig dårlig oplevelse under studietur Vi boede på Hans Brinker Hostel under en studietur, i april 2025 og oplevelsen var desværre meget dårlig. Der var en rotte på vores værelse, og personalet nægtede først at give os et nyt værelse – vi stod i receptionen i næsten en time uden hjælp. Da vi stod der, så vi, at der stod rottefælder bag drikkevaremaskinerne, hvilket var meget ulækkert. Personalet nægtede at ringe til deres chef for at høre, om vi kunne få et andet værelse, og servicen var generelt uvenlig og uprofessionel. En af os fik desuden bedbugs under opholdet. Vi endte med at skulle skifte værelse hver dag, og vi fik ingen kompensation eller penge tilbage trods den dårlige oplevelse. Meget skuffende ophold, som vi absolut ikke kan anbefale.

"It’s a fairly bold move to call yourself the worst hotel in the world. After all, there’s no shortage of dodgy places out there vying for the title. Hotels with bedbugs and blocked plumbing, dirty linen and broken furniture. Hotels where there is mould in the bathroom and cigarette burns on the sheets, bad electrical wiring and broken locks on the doors. Hotels where the surly, sleazy staff believe the customer is always wrong. And yet along comes Amsterdam’s Hans Brinker Hotel, proudly proclaiming to be the worst hotel in the world. Featuring marketing gems such as ‘Hans Brinker Budget Hotel: it can’t get any worse… but we’ll do our best’ and ’Now a door with every room!’ the decades-long campaign has been a huge viral success. Most importantly it has ensured a consistently high occupancy rate: after all, which 20-something doesn’t want to brag on social media about surviving the world’s worst hotel? But amongst all the well-crafted hype, one question remained: is the Hans Brinker Hotel really all that bad? One Friday night I booked a twin room for 79 euros and decided to find out. On paper, I’ll admit the hotel had the potential to be horrid: with 550 beds, it was bound to pack people in like sardines. With such an obnoxious marketing campaign, it had to have indifferent staff. And with its basement nightclub open until 4 am, it promised little sleep. Curiously though, Hans Brinker Hotel is located in a more renovated part of Amsterdam known for its fine art and antique stores. The hotel is on a mainly residential street with an Italian deli, a few galleries, tattoo parlours and bike shops. Entering the hotel, I discover first impressions last at Hans Brinker, mainly because the lobby’s special stench of stale beer and old cigarette smoke will seep into your clothes and hair, lingering for days. The lobby is cluttered with peeling posters, beer vending machines and people: one group with luggage waiting to be checked in by the sole receptionist, another made up of guests waiting to be buzzed out of the secure building. Eventually, I’m checked in en masse with five others. The receptionist tells us to all pay attention at once so she doesn’t have to repeat herself (not exactly customer-focused, but time-efficient). After paying 10 euros for a key deposit, I head to my room on the 4th floor. Inside, there are two single beds, two lockers, a chair, and a rubbish bin in the room. Surprisingly, there’s a small hand towel on the end of the bed and a full roll of toilet paper in the toilet. There’s even some very bad, framed art on the walls and the walls look freshly painted. There are working lights, smoke detectors and the window even opens to allow fresh air in. There’s even a view of a church and a courtyard filled with blooming tulips. When I see the tulips, I start to get suspicious. Last time I checked, the world’s worst hotel didn’t offer a garden view. Could this hotel really be that bad? I decide the answer to this lies in the bar. Over a hundred hotel guests sit in groups around picnic tables eating from a menu featuring a selection of backpacker fare: burgers and spaghetti bolognese. I feel like I’m in a school cafeteria, mainly because everyone is very young. People file in and out, quite a few of them carrying, predictably, souvenir bags from tourist attractions. A few take selfies with the hotel’s worst hotel posters, giving the thumbs-up sign. For a Friday night, it’s fairly tame stuff, even if it is early. But I have to admit it’s the sort of environment I would have relished if I were backpacking for the first time. When we check out the next morning, there’s a free breakfast happening downstairs and the room is packed with hungry, hung-over but mostly happy guests. Collecting our key deposit back with a minimum of fuss, we leave the hotel disappointed and underwhelmed. We really had expected a lot worse from the worst hotel in the world." IGCSE English language B, text 2

STAY AWAY BEDBUGS ALERT!!!! We knew it was a budget hostel but the place is sooooo infested with BEDBUGS it’s disgusting and top of that the breakfast is terrible and the windows can open more then 2cm and being 6 people in a room that’s not very fun. Terrible truly a terrible hostel

You get what you pay for. If its just a base you need whilst you go out exploring its perfect. Plenty of cheap places to eat close by, plenty to see close by, 2 or 3 places to rent bikes opposite the hostel and free breakfast. If you don't mind the staff not being interested in good service or bed bugs then go for it. I don't think they pretend to have top service but the bed bugs would put me off staying again...although I have to say that ironically I did find the beds very comfortable.

One word explains all - bedbug. I understand this is a hostel, so I can accept all noises and a little bit not as clean, but beds without bedbug is my bottom line. I got bitten and my leg swell to a point that I can hardly walk, as I am really allergic to their bites... Though the staff is good, breakfast is good, I can only give it 1 star. If I had read the reviews on bedbugs before, I would definitely not book this one.

THEIR BEDS ARE INFESTED OF BED BUGS. I stayed there this weekend and i am full of bites it is absolutely gross. DO NOT STAY HERE!!!!

Worst hostel I’ve ever stayed at. Been travelling for two months and haven’t gotten bed bugs until now. Staff handled it very poorly and unprofessionally. Not happy and never coming back.

Oh boy where to start. Had an absolutely miserable stay. Firstly no where was it mentioned that you have to wait until 1pm to check in. This resulted in our group wasting a morning waiting to check in. When we got to our room (a six person room on the top floor) we found that they were very basic, there weren't even ladders to get to the top bunks. Nothing really wrong here, you get what you pay for. Then sat on the beds and found that there was a bed bug infestation going on in the room. Bed bugs where coming out of every nook and cranny of the room. One of our group slept in the room and woke up 2hrs later covered in bed bugs. We killed about 200 of the creatures before we went to get our room exchanged. The staff at the reception desk split the group up and we changed rooms splitting the group up and telling us that they would again change our room the day after (to do this we had to check out and re check in again resulting in us wasting another morning) The staff also told us that they knew that the room was infected, according to them it was treated. I find this hard to believe, the amount of bugs would suggest that the staff simple ignored the problem and rented the room out again. The worse part of it all is the fact that our luggage spent some four hours in the room with the very real possibility that we brought bugs with us home from vacation.

Bedbugs

Our room was infested with bed bugs as were at least 2 other rooms on floor 4 Hostel moved us into a new room but were not particularly helpful

You pay for what you get... But 4 out or our 10 guests did have some bed bugs bites here.... Even when they've only slept here for like 3 hours! Besides this, the location is perfect!

I've tried posting this on Tripadvisor 3 times, but I feel like they won't let it get published because it's negative. First of all - I had bed bugs staying here. At first I thought it was just me since I stayed by the window but it wasn't. I had suspected bed bugs but it didn't seem like anyone else was getting bitten. After I checked out, I messaged the people in my room again (we stayed in touch) and they said, yep... they were bit too. Bed bugs. I did some digging on TripAdvisor, messaged a few people who had posted a review about bed bugs, and one guy was on the same floor as me (his review was recent at the time) but in a different room. I left Hans Brinker and emailed about the bed bugs but at that point, what could they really have done? Asides from the bed bugs, it wasn't a bad stay. The location wasn't bad, free breakfast, the wifi reached my room (it's only available downstairs, I believe). The reception people are nice, me and my friend spent a while chatting with the guy at the desk one night and he told us stories and we went through the Hans Brinker book. We also got to get the temporary tattoo with a map that shows you where the Hans Brinker is located. All in all, it really wasn't the worst - except for the damn bed bugs. I can't make any conclusions but I'd say for the most part, yeah it was a little dingy, and yeah it was slightly reminiscent of a prison at times, plus there wasn't a ladder to get up to the top bunk... Anyways, my point is, if they got rid of their bed bug problem (I stayed there June 2016) they actually might be a decent stay. But they might not have and I'd suggest staying somewhere else. Because I'm pretty sure Trip Advisor is trying to block the negative reviews.

Terrible!!! Do not stay here! Bed Bugs and horrible admin staff. Should be shut down as soon as possible, rather sleep on a bench

Worst hostel experience ever. Bed bugs throughout several rooms and got bites all over my body and the sink unit wasn't draining - something that would have been very obvious to the cleaner and was clearly just ignored. It took them 24hours to fix. Accommodations were also very cramped, and food wasn't great.