This hotel was one of the secret hotels listed in last minute.com. This is the description mentioned:

"• Fantastic hotel near the attractions of Amsterdam - 4* - Amsterdam

Local Attractions
• Flower Market
• Rijksmuseum
• Anne Frank House
• Van Gogh-Museum
• Dam Square

Location
• Nearest airport: Amsterdam
• Nearest train station: Amsterdam Central Station

This fantastic hotel offers all the necessary facilities to make your stay a fantastic trip in Amsterdam, both for leisure or business guests! The hotel offers stylish, modern sleeping rooms, a restaurant and a parking lot. All the rooms are equipped with air conditioning and television. Amsterdam city centre is within easy reach by different ways of public transport.”

After booking, we found out it was the NH Galaxy...
We were both very disappointed with the location of the hotel; it stated that it was near the local attractions. The hotel is actually outside of the city, across the river on the north of Amsterdam. I would state that this is NOT near the local attractions.

Now compare the above description with the one they use when not under a secret hotel guise:

“NH Galaxy is situated just north of Amsterdam's city centre. The hotel has 290 comfortable rooms, fitness centre and it's own parking offering 150 spaces. There is also a daily bus shuttle service into the city centre from the hotel, where you can visit the the house of Anne Frank, the Red Light District or the main shopping streets of Amsterdam. Other tourist attactions like Marken, Edam and Volendam are just a 15 minute drive from the hotel”

I let you make your own judgement, but if your thinking about saving money (considering taxis etc) and enjoying Amsterdam at a leisurely pace – avoid this hotel, the location is terrible.

We stayed in this hotel in matter of business. I've been to a lot of hotels lately and this is one of the better. The hotel doesnt look very attractive from the outside, but when you come to the inside everything changes. It looks and smells like it recently has been refurbished. The room was great, and clean, nice bed. WIFI was running smootly, and breakfast was great.

If you want to go the the center, there is a free shuttle bus, taking to the NH Barbizon just in the middel of Amsterdam. The drive is 10 mins. And it runs every 15 mns untill midningt. Great service.

I've nothing to compalin about what so ever

At the price it's a great hotel....really value for money !! It's really clean & nice

On my last trip to Amsterdam my wife and I first stayed in the Golden Tulip Amsterdam Art (which was beautiful) we then booked a further 3 days in the Dam via Lastminute.com's Top Secret Hotels (you get a brief description of the hotel but not the name of it until you book it). The hotel was described as being 2km north of the city centre with a free bus shuttle service to the centre and it was described as a 4 star hotel. Since it was only about £210 for 3 nights (top secret hotels are discounted) we thought we'd got ourselves a great deal...until we arrived.

Our first impressions of the hotel building when we arrived was that it looked drab and unimpressive from the outside. Once inside, the reception and lounge looked more like what I'd expect from a 4 star hotel, clean, spacious and reasonably modern.

After checking in with one of the receptionists (who, like most Amsterdammers, spoke perfect English) we headed off to our room. As soon as the lift doors opened, a powerful, musty smell hit us (if you've ever opened a cupboard full of clothes thats been shut for months, you'll know the smell). When we reached our room, the same smell was waiting for us as was an extremely dated decor and furniture. Whilst I don't know the hotel's history, the smell alone convinced me that it had probably been shut for some time before our stay, though why it wasn't possible for the staff to clean the place or at least air it out properly is beyond me.

The biggest shock I had was the state of the bathroom. The ceiling was covered in dirty brown tidemarks which suggested that upstairs had flooded at some point in the past. The sink was covered in cigarette burns and the hairdryer that was fixed to the wall had turned a yellow/brown colour from age. There was also a cheap looking paper lampshade in the bedroom which had a huge tear in it, again, why couldn't the staff replace or remove this before our stay???

At this point, I reflected that if this hotel had been advertised as 1 or 2 star or if it had been incredibly cheap, I would have been feeling really depressed that I couldn't afford better. As it was. I just felt angry at being ripped off.

In need of a beer, I opened the minibar to be confronted by an empty fridge. I rang reception to let them know the minibar was empty but they informed me it was supposed to be empty! After fruitlessly looking for a room service menu, I rang them to order a salad and ask if they could bring up a menu while they were at it, they told me they had no menus! Incidentally, I really couldn't fault the food we had, however, if you've been to the Dam before, you'll know that they take good food seriously.

The next morning I walked into the bathroom to discover the reason for the tidemarks on the ceiling. There was a small but steady drip coming from the ceiling which had left the floor soaking wet. I rang reception to let them know, genuinely thinking that someone may have flooded their bathroom above us. The manager arrived and told me he'd investigate the problem and warned me that we may have to change rooms. This wasn't a problem as any other room woul;d have been an improvement on the one we were in. After waiting for 2 hours for him to come back we got fed up and decided to head to the city centre (he never returned throughout our stay, the drip kept dripping and we never changed rooms).

Next disapointment for us was discovering that the free bus service to the city centre was non-existent (though it did apparently run in the past). This infuriated me as the sole reason we chose this hotel over another similar hotel advertised on Lastminute was the free shuttle service which could have saved us at least a hundred euros on taxis and buses. This is quite simply false advertising and at worst, obtaining money by deception! On a similar note, the hotel was advertised as having tea/coffee making facilities, needless to say, this was another lie.

Would I return to this hotel? Never.
Would I recommend this hotel to anybody? Not if I liked them.

If you are reading this review, considering staying at this hotel, I urge you to look elsewhere or be as disappointed as my wife and I were.