Unfortunately for us, the Dutch government announced separate lockdown rules a day before our visit, which resulted in the GLOW light art exhibition being cancelled a day before its intended end date. This undoubtedly turned put a damper to our trip, but we thought of giving the city a go anyway because we couldn't cancel and get a refund. But writing this staycay series about the hotel now assures me that we made the right choice of taking a short break after all.

Set just minutes away from the Eindhoven Centraal train station, you could say that the location of Crown Hotel Eindhoven is unmatched. The check-in was seamless, and no thanks to the pandemic, there were rules like wearing our masks at public places such as the lobby and lifts, and we had to pre-book our breakfast times. That said, we'd set rather low expectations for the hotel before we entered our room. Our expectation also stemmed from the fact that the hotel lobby looked rather shabby and the doors leading to the lifts would slam behind us if we didn't attempt to close it slowly.

Upon entering our room, however, we were pleasantly surprised at how absurdly huge it was for a night's stay. Unlike most hotels, you didn't need a key card to power the electricity of the room. You simply needed to hit the "electricity" button and it was all good. Having been vastly disappointed at my previous stay which you can read here, this was an absolute upgrade.

For starters, we were welcomed to a room with what we do think was a king-sized bed. There were pillows aplenty to go around, and a pillow menu left by our side table to note that we were welcome to pick different pillows if necessary. If you must know, I'm very picky about my pillows and very often I'd think it's either too soft, too hard, too tall, or too flat. While we had the options to pick other pillows, I felt the default ones provided ticked every box I needed for a night's sleep so I didn't ask for another set.

There was a small work table set opposite the bed, with a TV mounted over it. We obviously didn't catch any shows over the weekend because it was mainly in Dutch, but I couldn't help to think of the what ifs - if I had brought my Nintendo Switch along. This table ended up becoming my other half's supper spot because we bought some shawarma at midnight after watch No Time To Die at the cinema right opposite the hotel. Another plus point.

As far as amenities went, Crown Hotel Eindhoven provided us with 4 coffee pods fit for the Nespresso machine. There were also selections like green tea and English Breakfast in teabags, and we had a kettle and a hidden mini fridge. You didn't get pre-chilled drinks, but you were always welcome to visit the Albert Heijn supermarket located just outside the hotel. Really racking up on plus points for conveniences here.

Having seen the mostly red outlook of the room, I felt like the washroom was a huge mismatch in colours that I just had to turn a blind eye on. What I loved most was that it came with a bathtub, something I hadn't enjoyed for a while now since I left Malaysia. I promptly visited the Kruidvat nearby after we checked in to get a bath bomb, but also for a set of toothbrush and toothpaste because the hotel provided none. 

While we're on the topic of the washroom, I felt like it was the only downside to the room. The water pressure felt slightly off and I wasn't sure if it was because we were on the 5th floor, but I knew the shower head made sounds each time we held it wrong. There was also an unmistakable stench of pee near the toilet, though I tried to ignore it to my best efforts. 

With all that's said and done, our stay at the Crown Hotel Eindhoven was a fantastic one. I really enjoyed how the bed gave me one of the best night's rests after what was a long week at work, and how it was central enough for us to get to everything we wanted to. Upon checking out, we also left my other half's bag for safekeeping at the hotel as we explored more of the city the next day. This was a complimentary facility, and we were able to leave it there for about 6 hours or so. 

At this point of this blog post, I should also point out that there's nothing much to do in Eindhoven unless you're interested in trucks, in which you should then visit the DAF Museum. We also made a detour for the Philips Museum in a bid to while away time until dinner, because we wanted to dine in at Dadawan - one of our favourite places to eat out that's sadly only available in Maastricht and now in Eindhoven.

Bottom line? Crown Hotel Eindhoven was a true gem with a fantastic city centre location and a great stay. The city of Eindhoven itself however, didn't attract me as much that I would make it a must-return kind of place. I feel like it was a really sad thing we didn't get to see GLOW Eindhoven this year, but perhaps that would be the only reason we'd come back to Eindhoven in 2022. But until then, this is another city in the Netherlands done.

Because of the odd construct of the cube houses, it's quite inevitable that you'll have walls that curve around. This made placing our things around the room difficult, as most of them would have to go on the floor instead. The only other issue was how small the room was, so you're taking over what precious space you have. We were assigned Room 201 for our stay, which was right in front of the door when you first get off the elevator - something that while I thought was a blessing in the beginning turned out to be a terrible curse, but I will get to that later. 

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to take a picture of the private bathroom we had, but it's as basic as it gets. You'll only get one bottle of shower gel / shampoo mix in the shower, though I'm sure you can ask for more if needed. The bathroom came with a rain-shower type of shower head, which means you'd have to bring your own shower cap if washing your hair daily is not your thing. Owing to their "sustainability efforts", the water also stops after every 30 seconds so you'll be forced to do a military style shower. This meant very quick rinsing, very quick soaping, and then rinse again.

No thanks to the minimal construct, the entire bathroom tends to get wet after a shower so I don't recommend bringing your clothes in to change. The lights in the bathroom is also set to detect motion near the door and it turns off after a few minutes. I absolutely did not appreciate how the lights went off on me as I was cleaning up halfway, and I let out a yelp when it did - only to realize I had to track all the water and soap closer to the door just to activate the lights again. Although I warned my other half that this would happen, he too got a minor shock when the lights went off on him. Separately, I also found the bathroom reeked of pee when we first checked-in, and this was despite them claiming that the room has been cleaned prior. 

 

Beneath the many rooms, you'll find the lobby of Stayokay Rotterdam and a their in-house bar. Breakfast is also included in your stay, though we skipped it from the lack of sleep we had - something I would also be mentioning about after this. Free WiFi was supposedly provided at the hostel, though we didn't bother to connect to it so I can't mention anything about whether it worked or not. The staff provided us with a tiny booklet upon check-in and reminded us of the basic rules including being quiet after 10PM to ensure all guests are not disturbed. 

But here's where I can tell you, nothing gets enforced from the tiny booklet. While we tried to turn in at midnight, the loud yells, screams, and door slamming from the other guests kept us up all night. The same guests who were making these ruckuses also sounded very drunk, so my other half and I obviously didn't want to go out there to confront them. Having our room in front of the door as you exit from the elevator also meant we could hear these people go in and out across the entire night, so you can imagine how little we slept that night.

By the end of the day, my other half decided to wear his noise cancelling earbuds the entire night so he could get some undisturbed rest. I remember only knocking out close to 3AM that night, and it was only because I was way too tired to stay awake anymore. To say that the sleep quality was terrible was an understatement, because I could vaguely hear people screaming about until morning. So to quote the hostel's name, this was definitely NOT okay.

There were no staff members who told these guests to keep in down, presumably as there were probably no staff members at the lobby anyway. This deduction comes from the fact that there wasn't anyone at the counter when we tried to check-out at 11AM the next day, and we waited a good 15 minutes before anyone turned up at the desk. Speaking of check-out, we were also hassled to leave the room by their housekeeping team at 9.45AM, 10.30AM, and 10.45AM respectively. This, despite me telling them that we were packing up and getting ready to leave. Check-out was supposed to be 11AM anyway, so I found it absurd to harass your guests to leave earlier than that.

While we were initially extremely excited with our staycation, my other half and I left the place feeling drained and frankly slightly ill - though I'm not sure if it was just from our lack of rest or from the questionable cleanliness of the room. This was very disappointing, because we loved how central the hostel was to everything that was available in Rotterdam. In fact, I hardly ever tell people not to stay at a hotel because experiences can differ but Stayokay Hostel Rotterdam is simply not somewhere I would recommend - ever.

Although you could argue that our stay was considerably cheap, I'm sure we could have added another €10 for somewhere else where we could actually get some sleep. We don't foresee ourselves returning to Stayokay Hostel Rotterdam in the near future (or ever), and it's probably easy to see why. I've also seen how there are more Stayokay Hostel places around the Netherlands, though at this point I'm not sure if we'll try those yet.

If you'd like to take a peek into the lives of the people in a Cube House, perhaps visiting the Kubuswoniningen Museum House would be a better choice. The museum charges visitors €3 per person to visit, but at least you wouldn't have to leave the place feeling like you haven't slept for days.