Visually, this is a great hotel. However, it is in Zaandam not Amsterdam and I didn't realise until trying to use my GVB ticket that it's too far out to extend to this area. Whilst transport back into the central area is very easy it's at an additional cost. The hotel is a 10 minute walk from Zaandam station and the route takes you through a pleasant town centre surrounded by quaint housing and of course ubiquitous canals/waterways.
The staff were lovely, friendly and spoke (and read) English very well. The room design and overall cleanliness was great, but the mirrors were smoked and the hairdryer didn't work.
As we had an early trip, I upgraded to include breakfast. Unfortunately as it only started at 7:30, that was too late for us as we had to leave before this time in order to commute in to make our trip. I'm currently in the process of trying to sort a refund. It would've been helpful if this start time had been advertised as part of the upgrade request. The following morning we had breakfast, which was a bit of a disappointment. We were only given one cup of tea. There was no juice or water to accompany it. As I had my refillable water bottle I asked for it to be filled and whilst they obliged, it seemed like a begrudged act. Generally, access to water to drink whilst in Amsterdam was hard, which is ironic. The only water fountains that we found were not in the central area and the locals(?) seemed to be using them for other things, such as washing their face/feet.