Rotterdam is Amsterdam's hip, modern cousin. Flattened in only 13 minutes by a German air raid in 1940, the rebuild has resulted in some very striking modern architecture; from the huge curved hall of the Central Market with its colourful ceiling to the Erasmus Bridge, the famous quirky cube houses and futuristic Centraal train station, Rotterdam is an architect's dream.
To contrast with our stay in historic Amsterdam, we wanted a Rotterdam hotel that reflected the city's quirky and modern style and came across Cityhub. While we've stayed in pod hotels before (check out our blog from Japan here), Cityhub is much more luxurious than typical narrow space capsule-esque pods. Soundproofed and with a proper locking door, you'll get a brilliant night's sleep in the comfy double bed.
We loved everything about Cityhub. The shared bathrooms felt like a posh gym's facilities with underfloor heating, brightly lit mirrors and tunes to bop to while you shower. A vending machine near the lift sells essentials like toothpaste to razors. Everything felt very clean and cared for and we saw cleaners in the shared facilities everyday.
Downstairs, you can chill out in the communal lounge space called the Hangout. Comfy seats, free WiFi, board games and a self service bar, you can either bring food back to eat or use the hotel's microwave and kettle. There's even a fridge with sticky labels for you to put on your leftovers! The hangout has free lockers that you can use before or after check in/out. Judging by the number of people hanging out working on their laptops in the evenings, this hotel is a popular choice for bloggers and digital nomads.
The hotel felt very safe, unlike some other pod hotels/hostels we've stayed in. Upon check in you're given a wristband that operates the front door, lift (and bar) and your room, which means no randoms can wander around.
What are the Cityhub rooms like?
If given the choice, we'd recommend booking a top hub rather than a bottom one, you can climb up into the bed and the room feels a bit more spacious. Cityhub provide kimono dressing gowns and you have lots of shelves and storage for your bags and coats.
Each room has speakers that you can pair your devices with for music, USB charging points, and our favourite bit was the adjustable lights. By pairing your phone to the Cityhub app, you can play with the brightness and colour of your hub! You can either select a block colour (from a rainbow of choices like calming blue or funky pink) or choose one of the preset options which cycles through a few colours - we enjoyed "universe", like having a little club night in your room!
How to get to Cityhub Rotterdam:
Cityhub Rotterdam is an easy 15 minutes walk from Centraal Station and tram 6 also stops pretty much outside- hop off at Museumpark.
It's a 15 minute walk to Erasmusbrug for the Spido harbour tours and the waterbus to Kinderdijk, or if you're planning a day trip to the Hague, Beurs metro station is 8 minutes walk away where you can pick up metro line E to Den Haag HS.
Disclosure - we were gifted a discounted stay in return for this blog and Instagram coverage but we weren't paid to post and as always, all opinions are our own.
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