Guide · Amsterdam · 2026-07-08
Questions an experienced traveller asks before booking, answered plainly
Guests who have travelled for decades tend to ask sharper questions than first-time visitors, and they tend to want the answers without decoration. Here are the ones that come up again and again, each answered in the order a careful reader would raise them.
While you read
Nothing here asks you to decide anything. The whole page can be read and left alone.
What follows is gathered from the kind of message a thread receives before a booking is ever confirmed: the precise, slightly wary questions of someone who has read a great many terms and conditions in his time and knows where the awkward parts usually hide. Each question below is answered as directly as the facts allow. At the foot of the page, six shorter questions cover the deposit, the arrival, the rates, privacy and the age rule in a line or two each.
Is this something guests my age book?
This site is written for guests over fifty, so the question answers itself here. Retirement journeys, a return to Amsterdam decades after a first visit, a birthday with a zero at the end: those are the trips its readers are on. Nothing about your age changes the steps, the figures or the welcome, and there is no need to mention it unless you want to. Some guests do, because a line saying it has been a long time helps the reply set the right pace.
Why is everything done in writing rather than by telephone?
Because writing keeps. The address, the hour, the length, the figure and the deposit all sit in one thread, where either side can read them back on the day or a week later. A telephone call is quicker for the first minute and slower for everything after it, since each detail then depends on two memories agreeing. Most guests who start out preferring a call find, after one booking, that they prefer the thread.
Why pay part of the fee before I have met anyone?
Because the hour you book is taken out of someone's evening the moment it is agreed, and cannot be given to anyone else. Half the fee confirms that commitment from your side. It is the first half of the price rather than an extra, and it comes back in full if you cancel more than twenty-four hours ahead. It is asked for on any first booking with the house, which means every guest reading this for the first time pays one. A returning guest booking one or two hours later the same day, at an address in the city, pays nothing ahead.
What stops the figure from changing on the night?
The figure is printed. Every profile on the roster carries the same table: 180 euros for an hour, 270 for ninety minutes, 360 for two hours, 540 for three and 1,250 for the eight hour overnight, with couples and two therapist bookings set out beside them. The reply in the thread states the figure for your booking, and that is the figure paid. Nothing is added for the evening, the weekend or the journey across central Amsterdam. If you plan to pay the balance in another currency, the exact sum in that currency is confirmed in writing before she sets out, so there is no exchange rate to argue about at the door.
Can I choose who comes?
Yes. Put her name in the first message you write. If she is free at your hour, that is the booking; if she is not, the reply says who is free then, and whether to go ahead, choose a different evening or name someone else is entirely up to you. If you would rather not choose, a sentence about the evening you have in mind is enough to get a reply listing who is free.
Can I book for seven in the evening rather than late at night?
Certainly. Nothing about the arrangement assumes a late hour, and plenty of guests prefer an evening that begins soon after dinner and leaves the rest of the night for sleep. The figures are the same at seven as at midnight, and the forty to sixty minute window applies at either. If you would like the booking to start at a precise time rather than as soon as possible, give that time in the first message and say it is Amsterdam time; a booking made more than a day ahead then carries half the fee in advance, like any other arranged before the day.
What if I would rather speak a language other than English?
Every therapist on the roster speaks English, and many speak one or two further languages as well; each profile lists them. If a conversation in another language would make the first quarter hour easier, say so in your first message. The reply then tells you who is free at your hour and speaks it, and you choose from there. Nothing about the figure changes.
What does she need from my room?
Very little. A bed she can work beside, warmth, a lamp and a chair for her coat. She brings her own towels and oil and takes them away again, so nothing belonging to the hotel is used. A walk-in shower matters only for nuru, which finishes with a rinse; for every other format the bathroom plays no part. If your bed is very low or very soft, mention it in the thread and she will know before she arrives.
Who settles what the session includes?
She does. The therapist decides what a session includes and says so in her own words at the start of the visit, together with her limits, which then hold until she leaves. She may decline a booking without giving a reason, and she may end a visit whenever she chooses. You decide the practical things: warmth, light, pressure, pace, whether to pause. The arrangement is the same whoever the guest is, and experienced travellers generally find it reassuring rather than otherwise.
What if I would rather stop halfway through?
Then stop. Say so and the session ends. The fee for the time reserved remains payable, because that time was held for you and cannot be used for anyone else at such short notice, but nothing is added to it. If you already know before she sets out that you would prefer a shorter booking, change it in the thread and the figure changes with it.
What if my plans change during the trip?
You may move the booking once, free, if you ask more than twenty-four hours before its start and the new date is within fourteen days; the deposit moves with it. Cancelling more than twenty-four hours ahead returns the deposit in full. Inside the last day, while she has not yet left, half the deposit is kept. Once she has set out, the whole deposit is kept, unless another guest takes the hour, in which case it is all returned. You never owe damages as well. A moved flight, a cold or a change of heart counts as a change on your side and follows that scale; a transport shutdown or something equally outside anyone's control turns the deposit into credit instead.
What if the house cannot keep the booking?
Then the choice is yours rather than the house's. You can have the deposit back in full, or keep it as credit for a later date, for as long as you need to settle on one. If the therapist you named cannot come, you are told as soon as the house knows, and you decide between another name from the roster and your deposit back.
Who sees my name?
Only the people who need it to make the booking happen. There is no account, no membership and no mailing list, and nothing from a photo document is ever copied. A short internal note is written only if a booking turns out to be false, for instance placed under someone else's name or as a joke, or if a visit ends because a limit was pressed. It is held for twelve months, is seen by nobody outside the house, and decides only whether a further booking from that name is accepted. The privacy page explains how to object to such a note or have it corrected.
Why does the age rule say twenty-one and not something lower?
Because the house chose twenty-one as its line and applies it to everyone: every therapist, every guest and anyone else present. It is a standing rule, stated on every page and repeated on the age statement, rather than a judgement about any individual guest. The photo document she may ask for at the door is part of the same rule and is asked of everyone.
Is there anything I should not ask for?
Ask for whatever you like about the practical side of the evening. About what a session includes, ask once and accept the answer, because it is hers to give. Pressing a limit she has named ends the visit at that moment, with the fee for the reserved time still due and nothing added. In practice this is rarely an issue with guests who have lived long enough to know the difference between a question and a demand.
Where to go from here
For the steps in order, the booking steps, one per line list every stage with the rule behind it. For the full wording of deposits, moves and cancellations, see the booking terms. For the evening itself, the page for travellers over fifty is the natural next read.