Betty in the sky with a suitcase

Betty is a flight-attendant and she tells about her "traveling-life" in this podcast. I listen to it when walking to/from work and I find the stories amusing, interesting and sometimes hilarious. People must think I am totally out of control seeing me laughing by myself.

Batavia stad outlet-village, Amsterdam

We went to this outlet with train from the central-station. Mind you, all the information at this train-station is in Dutch! The train takes about 1 hour and 10 min. depending on the route, how many times you have to change train, 1 or 2.

From the train-station in Lelystad there is a bus, bus number F, which takes you to the outlet-village. The bus takes about 10 min.

The bus stops at the Mexx outlet, which is outside the village itself, but only 100 meter. The selection were good, with some very good offers and some 30% discounts.

In the outlet-village there were some nice shops (look at the link), but the offers weren't very good. Some of the shops had mainly 20-30% discounts! Seriously, I don't mind paying for clothes, but if buying clothes from last season, or even older, I demand 50%. This is what you get at the ordinary sale, so why not at an outlet-village? With regarding the discounts, this is the least exciting outlet I have ever been to.

If I would go back to the outlet? Maybe, to go to Mexx...

Crowne Plaza Amsterdam 4*

I went to Amstedam with my best friend and we booked a 2 room suite.

Checking in went very quick and we were escorted to the room, which was on the 6th. floor, at a corner. The bed-room was like a normal hotel-room but the living -room was huge. Some weeks before we arrived I had called the hotel to ask for an extra bed, but she said it would be 50 Euro extra per night so I said we didn't need it. When we arrived to the room I asked the receptionist for an extra pillow and duvet. He asked if we wanted an extra bed as well and when I asked if it would be any extra, he told me to not think about it! :)

Bed-room

Bed-room

Bed-room

Bath-room connected to the bed-room

Toiletries

Nespresso-machine in the bed-room

Living-room

Living-room

Toilet connected to the living-room

Terrasse with entrance from the living-room

Everybody at the hotel were very nice, warm and smiling.

We had lounge-access in our rate. The lounge was very small and, except from the breakfast, there were almost no food, only some snacks. There were coffee, tea, mineral-water, beer and wine all day. We had continental breakfast in the lounge the first day. OK, but not impressive. The second day we had breakfast in the restaurant. This was much better and nicer, full English with somebody making egg/omelet.

Having a 2 room suite was an excellent choice when going with a friend as you are together but still it is easy to get some privacy.

At this trip I didn't bring my camera, just the iPhone, so the pictures aren't that great.

Soon in Amsterdam

My best friend and I have decided to take a 2-days shopping-spree in Amsterdam. I am not bringing my laptop but you can follow me on Twitter @micacosmetics

We will stay at Crowne Plaza Amstedam and we have booked a 2 room suite. I have not seen any pictures of those rooms so I am very curious. Will upload pictures to Twitter.

Club/executive lounge

Usually it is worth paying the little extra to stay at the club/executive lounge. Mostly because you always get breakfast. Very often there is complimentary coffee, tea and mineral-water all day, some snacks at tea-time and some evening snacks. It varies a lot from hotel to hotel how much food they provide. At Corinthia in Budapest you got a lot of food and both mineral-water and alcohol all day long. In Orlando there were no other drinks than coffee and tea throughout the day, but they served hot food at the evening-service, no complimentary alcohol. At Conrad Tokyo there weren't that much food, but coffee/tea and mineral-water all day. At Ana-Intercontinental there were coffee/tea/, mineral-water and beer all day and a nice selection at the evening-service.

The evening service is not supposed to be dinner, but a pre-dinner.

For me it would be worth it to stay at a club/executive room when going by my own. I don't like going out alone and I don't like to go in the bar. Going to the lounge is a much better option and much more relaxing.

Intercontinental Ambassador membership

This membership costs 150 Usd. a year. If you have the intention on staying at an Intercontinental hotel, I will highly recommend to become a member because you get a one night stay for free with the membership. Usually a one night stay at a IC-hotel is more expensive than 150 USD, so all in all, you get your membership-fee back.

What you get for the membership?

Guarantied upgrade
Fruit and mineral-water at arrival
A small present (sometimes)
Newspaper
Late check-out

You also get a membership in Priority-club.

Ana Intercontinental Tokyo 5*

Because I am an Ambassador member (I will write about that later) we could check-in at the Ambassador-counter. No problem with check-in. I had booked a club-room so we could get access to the club-lounge. Because of my Ambassador membership we got an upgrade to a suit at the 35th. floor!





The room was very nice and we got fruit and a little present (again, because of the a-membership).



The bathroom was not very big, but not very small, with L'occitane and Shiseido products.

This little machine was placed in the room. I haven't tried it, but it looks like you can put the oil (a lavender oil to get you to sleep)

The downside with this hotel is that it is situated in the Rappongi area. The area is the business-area in Tokyo. All the embassies/consults are in this area. There is not much to do or to see! Luckily there is a tube-station close to the hotel.

Another downside is that we didn't get new toiletries at turndown. This is not good for a 5* hotel!

The lounge is BIG. At tea-time there were some sweets and coffee/tea/mineral-water. The coffee is from a machine and the cappuccino was not good... Grrrr... BUT the evening-service was great with sushi, "finger-food" and some cakes. There were also REAL Champagne, red- and whitewine, beer, whiskey, Campari etc... etc... The atmosphere in the lounge is nice and very international. We even saw some other Scandinavians! There are also two massage-chairs in the lounge, the only downside was that all the descriptions were in Japanese! Well, well, I tried it and it did SOME kind of massage!



The hotel has an out-door swimming-pool. Because the weather has been very bad today, we haven't tried the pool yet. Maybe tomorrow!

I will also write about the breakfast tomorrow, after breakfast... :-D