Should I arrange a two o'clock booking the day before or the same morning?

The day before, if you can. It gives you a real choice of names rather than whoever is free at short notice, and it means the half that travels first is settled while you are relaxed rather than at half past twelve with one hand on a coffee. The trade is that a booking more than twenty-four hours ahead always asks for that half, whereas a returning guest's same-day hour or two at a city address is settled entirely at the door. On a first booking the half is asked for either way.

How much time should I leave between lunch and the booking?

An hour and a half is comfortable and an hour is workable. The mistake is not the timing so much as the lunch: a long one with wine at half past twelve is why a two o'clock booking occasionally feels like a five o'clock one. Something light, water rather than beer, and be back on your own street by one rather than aiming to be in the room by one. The last stage of an Amsterdam journey is always slower than the map suggests.

Do I need cash in the room before she arrives?

Yes, for the balance, and it should be counted and to hand rather than somewhere in a bag. On a booking with a deposit behind it the balance is the remaining half, so EUR 135 on a ninety minute afternoon. It is settled in the first minute or two after she arrives rather than at the end, which gets it out of the way before the booked time starts. Every figure on this site is in euro; cash in another major currency is fine if you say so in the thread first, so the exact amount can be confirmed in writing.

What do I do about the curtains in the middle of the afternoon?

Close them at least halfway, and decide before she arrives rather than during. A hotel curtain will make a room properly dark at two in the afternoon if you want it to, but somebody has to close it, and guests used to evening bookings never think of it because the dark arrived by itself. Half closed suits most rooms: enough light to see by, not enough for the building across the street to be part of the afternoon. In a ground floor apartment, close them fully.

The room has not been cleaned yet and it is nearly one. What now?

Ring the desk and ask for the room to be skipped today. It takes fifteen seconds, it is asked for constantly by guests who are working or sleeping off a flight, and nothing is made of it. Then put the sign on the handle if it is not already there. The one thing that will not work is leaving it and hoping the round has passed, because in a larger building the round can still be moving at three.

Can I make the booking longer on the day if the afternoon is going well?

You can ask, and whether it is possible depends entirely on how the rest of her day is arranged. Ask early rather than at the end, and the extra time is quoted before it starts rather than tallied up afterwards. Going the other way is only free before she leaves: decide in the thread that one hour suits you better than two and the booking simply becomes the shorter rung, but a session closed early once it has begun stays payable for the whole time that was held.

A Day in Amsterdam Built Around a Two o'Clock Hour

An afternoon booking is not a separate kind of day. It is an ordinary day with one thing placed carefully inside it, and almost everything that makes it work happens in the four or five hours before she knocks. What follows is one such day, laid out in full. The times are a sample rather than a recommendation, and the reasoning behind each one is worth more than the hour itself.

The evening before: arranging it

Write the night before rather than on the morning itself. Four facts settle almost any booking: where you are, when you want it in Amsterdam time, how long, and whether it is one therapist or two. A name from the roster goes in the same message if you have one in mind.

What comes back holds a name, a figure and an arrival window. Because this booking is more than twenty-four hours ahead, half of the figure travels before she leaves; ninety minutes is EUR 270, so EUR 135 goes first and EUR 135 is settled at the door. The exact sum and the details for sending it appear in the thread once the hour is agreed. Settle that part the same evening rather than leaving it until the morning, because an unpaid half is an unconfirmed booking.

Nine o'clock: the sign goes out

Before anything else, the do-not-disturb sign goes on the handle. Not at half past one, when she is already crossing the canal ring, but now, while you are still deciding what to do with the morning. If your room uses a switch beside the door rather than a card, step into the corridor once and check the indicator is actually lit.

Then one decision about the room itself. Either let housekeeping come early, in which case go down to breakfast and leave the sign off until you are back, or ring the desk and ask for the room to be skipped today. Both work. Doing neither and hoping the round has already passed your floor is the single thing that spoils these afternoons.

Ten to half past twelve: use the morning properly

This is the part people get wrong in the other direction, by treating the whole day as a waiting room. Do something with the morning. Vondelpark on foot, an hour along the canal ring in the Jordaan, a market in De Pijp, a museum that opens at ten. Walk it rather than ride it, because a morning spent moving makes a far better afternoon than a morning spent in a room refreshing a phone.

One practical rule: be back on your own street by one. Not in the room by one, on the street by one, because the last stage of any Amsterdam journey takes longer than the map says it will.

Half past twelve: lunch, and what to eat

Eat, and eat lightly. A long lunch with wine at half past twelve is the reason a two o'clock booking sometimes feels like a five o'clock one. Something small, water rather than beer, and coffee if you want it. The temptation on a free afternoon in Amsterdam is to make lunch the event, and then the event afterwards has to carry the weight of it.

One o'clock: back in the room

An hour before is the right margin. Shower, because it is a courtesy and because it costs nothing. Deal with the curtains: half closed is usually right, enough light to see by and not enough for the building opposite to be part of the afternoon. Clear the surfaces, put the suitcase somewhere other than the middle of the floor, and make sure there is water in the room and somewhere to put a bag down.

Then the money. The balance is cash and it is settled in the first minute or two after she arrives, not at the end. EUR 135 in this example. Have it counted and to hand rather than in a wallet in a jacket in a wardrobe. Every figure on this site is quoted in euro; if you want to settle the balance in another major currency in cash, that is fine, but it has to be said in the thread beforehand so the exact amount can be confirmed to you in writing.

Ten past one: the twenty minutes that matter

Send the room number now if you have not already. Check your phone is on Amsterdam time, which sounds patronising until you have watched somebody lose an hour to it. If the desk announces visitors, or the lifts want a key card during the day, that should already be in the thread; if it is not, put it there now.

After that, stop managing it. The window is forty to sixty minutes from when the booking was agreed, and this one was agreed last night, so two o'clock means two o'clock give or take the building.

Two o'clock: she arrives

She comes in street clothes with a small bag and crosses the lobby at ordinary speed, which in the middle of the day is not the thing anybody in it is looking at. The practical part is done first: the balance, the bag, and a word from her about what the session will and will not include, because that is hers to decide and she says it at the start rather than leaving it to be discovered. Then the booked time runs.

At half past three she leaves. The lift and the lobby are busier than they were at two, which again is a help rather than a hindrance.

Half past three: the afternoon you still have

This is the whole argument for daylight in one line. It is half past three, you are showered and unhurried, and there are four hours of Amsterdam left before dinner. Guests use them in entirely ordinary ways, which is the point: a long walk, the museum that has been on the list since Monday, a coffee somewhere with a canal in front of it, or an hour of genuinely good sleep that is a choice rather than a collapse.

Take the sign off the handle before you go out, or the room does not get cleaned tomorrow either and somebody arrives early to catch up.

Six o'clock onwards

The evening is untouched, which is the reason a great many guests book this way in the first place. Dinner at eight with colleagues, a family thing at seven, a flight at nine: none of it has had to be moved, and none of it is being spent thinking about later.

The variations worth knowing

Two hours instead of ninety minutes. Start at one rather than two and finish at three, which leaves the afternoon even longer. EUR 360, half of it ahead.

Three hours. Awkward in an evening, easy in a free day: one until four, EUR 540, and the deposit applies whatever else is true of the booking.

A couple. Both of you need to be twenty-one or over and both may be asked at the door. A couple with one therapist runs at EUR 360 an hour, with two therapists at EUR 720.

A working trip. If the day has meetings in it, place the hour with a real gap either side rather than in a fifteen minute slot between two of them. An hour that starts late because a meeting ran on never quite settles.

The same day, moved to a Saturday

A weekend version of this day changes three things and leaves the rest alone. The housekeeping round often starts later on a Saturday and runs later, because the building had a full house the night before, so the safe assumption is that the round has not passed your floor by noon. The city is also considerably busier from about eleven, which means the last stage of any journey across the centre takes longer than it would on a Wednesday, and the far end of the forty to sixty minute window is the realistic one rather than the near end.

The third change is the diary. Saturday evening is the hour everybody asks for, and it is gone early in the week. Saturday afternoon is frequently still open on the Friday, which means a guest who is flexible about the hour and firm about the name does far better by moving to two o'clock than by holding out for nine. If a particular woman matters to you on a weekend, write on the Wednesday.

What does not change is everything else: the figures, the deposit rule, the arrival window and the four facts that settle the booking. A Saturday is not a peak date in itself. King's Day, Pride, the Amsterdam Dance Event, the run from Christmas into the new year and a large conference week are, and on those the half travels first whatever else is true of the booking.

If you are in an apartment rather than a hotel

Delete the housekeeping paragraphs and add one of your own. Write the whole entry sequence into the thread: the street door and its code, the inner door, the floor, the bell, and whether anything changes on a schedule. Half a sequence is what costs people twenty minutes of an afternoon they have already paid half of. Everything else about the day is identical, and the words used along the way are set out in the glossary.

A day in Amsterdam with a two o'clock booking in the middle