Amsterdam Houthavens – Moxy By Marriott Review

On our recent trip to Amsterdam, we used our Marriott Rewards points to stay at Moxy Houthavens, and we instantly fell in love with this trendy new member of the Marriott family.    The designers have given guests the best of both worlds when creating Moxy.  I love that they encouraged artists to submit designs that illustrated stories of Amsterdam and incorporated those into their hotel artwork as part of their Blank Canvas competition.  Moxy has a hip, communal atmosphere reminiscent of a hostel, but doesn’t sacrifice any of the quality you’d expect from Marriott.

Note: We are budget travelers and realize that Marriott is not a budget accommodation for most.  The way we afford to stay in this chain is with our points/free nights earned from our Chase Marriott Visa card.  It awards you one free night on your card anniversary each year and we earn points from all our other spending which we save up to use on additional free nights.   If you would like an invite to join Marriott Rewards, I’ll be glad to send you my referral link (this would reward both of us if you sign up) if you leave a comment below.

I loved the creativity and relaxing atmosphere of their lobby.  It wasn’t stiff and all business like some hotels, but rather invited you to sit for a while, play some games, chat with some new friends and have a drink at their bar that is always open!  The layout definitely encouraged socializing and relaxing in the common areas instead of in your room, which was nice.

The unique and quirky furniture was also fun to play and lounge on as we were planning our day in the city.  My favorite piece of furniture was the stool with bike pedals as footrests – a nod to the plethora of bicycles you’ll encounter throughout Amsterdam!  Instead of parking garages for cars, they have entire garages for bike parking.  Hello healthy lifestyle!

We made friends with Chris, one of the employees and bartenders, who was incredibly helpful and gave us suggestions for what to do with our first day there.    On his recommendation, we bought bus tickets at reception and saved ourselves a lot of time and money that way.

Chris also hooked us up with a lovely top floor room full of windows with this beautiful view of the water!

After we dropped off our things in the room, we explored the rest of the hotel and found that the lobby wasn’t the only artistic spot in this hotel.  We discovered these giant Manta Rays hanging in the space above the pool – they were so neat!

Sadly we didn’t get to eat breakfast in the hotel, but the menu looked delicious!

The bed and pillows were delightfully soft and we were tempted to sleep all day because of that, but managed to drag ourselves out of the luxurious room so we could explore all that Amsterdam had to offer.  If we had more time there, we would have also spent more time in the pool and excellent workout area on the 2nd floor!

Though we checked out at the normal time, they had no problem letting us store our luggage in their lockers until later in the day when we were leaving to catch our flight.  This was a huge plus, allowing us more time to explore without being encumbered by our baggage.

When it was time to head to the airport, a taxi was the best way to go, and as luck would have it, we got picked up by a Tesla!  Probably the first and last time I’ll ever ride in one, but it was such a rush!  Our driver had some fun with us and floored it a few times on the way just so we could feel the power.  What a magnificent design, and check out the navigation screen, is that big enough for you?!

As you can tell, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay, and I hope you all get to experience a night #AtTheMoxy like we did.  They have 3 locations in Asia already, multiple locations in Europe and 12 new locations set to open in the US in 2018, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding one nearby!   Does Moxy look like somewhere you’d like to stay? As always, I welcome your questions and comments!

Emily

The Planking Traveler

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