Peak Dates, Seen From a Calendar at Home

Ordinary weeks in Amsterdam behave the same way. A diary that is open four weeks ahead is still largely open two weeks ahead, and a booking made ten days out usually finds the woman and the evening it asks for. A few dates do not behave like that. They fill early, they carry a deposit whatever else is true of the booking, and a traveller planning from home should know which they are.

The dates themselves

The house treats five kinds of date as peak dates. King's Day, at the end of April, when the whole city is outdoors and orange. Pride, in high summer, with the canal parade at its centre. The Amsterdam Dance Event in October, which fills hotels across the city for several days. The run of days between Christmas and New Year. And the large conference weeks that fill central hotels with business travellers, which the house names when asked. Each of these brings more visitors than an ordinary week, and more of those visitors want an evening arranged.

What changes on a peak date

Two things. First, a peak date always carries half ahead, even for a booking that would otherwise be paid entirely on arrival. For a traveller booking from home this changes nothing in practice, because a booking made more than twenty-four hours ahead carries half ahead anyway. Second, diaries fill sooner. An evening that would normally be open two weeks ahead may be taken a month ahead, and the woman you have in mind may already have her peak-date evenings committed.

What does not change is the figure. There is no peak supplement. An hour on King's Day costs what it costs on any Tuesday in February, and every row on the profiles on the roster stays exactly as printed.

Booking into a peak date

If your trip is built around one of these dates, book early. Six weeks is not excessive for the Christmas to New Year stretch or for the dance event, and a month is sensible for King's Day and Pride. Name two women rather than one, so the reply has somewhere to go if your first choice is already committed. Consider an evening either side of the peak itself: the night before King's Day is busy in its own way, but the night after it is often quiet and easy.

Think about the city as well. On King's Day and during Pride, parts of the centre are crowded well into the evening, and movement across the canal belt is slower than usual. The forty to sixty minutes she needs to reach a central address still apply, but a guest should expect the streets outside the hotel to be louder than on an ordinary night and should plan the room accordingly.

Booking around a peak date

If the peak is not the reason for the trip, it can be worth avoiding. A traveller whose dates are flexible can often move the whole trip a week and find hotels cheaper, streets calmer and diaries wide open. A traveller whose dates are fixed can place the booking on an evening before or after the crowded days. Either way, knowing the dates in advance is what makes the choice possible.

Changes and cancellations on a peak date

The rules do not change, but their effect is felt more. A cancellation more than twenty-four hours ahead returns the whole deposit, exactly as on any other date. Inside the last day, before she has set out, half is kept; after she has set out, all of it is kept, unless the evening is taken by another guest. On a peak date, the chance that a released evening is taken by someone else is usually good, which works in the guest's favour. The one-move rule applies as normal, though moving onto another peak date depends on whether that evening is still open.

The conference week problem

Business travellers booking from home sometimes do not realise that their own conference is the peak. A large trade event fills the hotels near its venue and across the centre, and the diaries fill with it. A delegate who books a month ahead is fine. One who writes on the Monday of the conference for the Tuesday may find the evening he wants already gone. The peak date entry explains what the house counts, and asking in the first message whether a date is treated as a peak date is always a reasonable question.

Reading the calendar early

The whole point of booking from home is that the calendar can be read before it becomes urgent. A traveller who checks the dates of the trip against these five kinds of date, before anything else is fixed, avoids the one situation in which lead time really matters. Everything else about an Amsterdam evening can be arranged comfortably inside a week. A peak date sometimes cannot.