Amsterdam Manor is located in Eagle Beach between the downtown and the High Rise Hotel area.

The location is perfect because you're far away from the crowds. Eagle Beach is one of the best beaches in Aruba and deservingly so!

To get to Eagle Beach you'll need to cross a road (not very busy), but once you do - it's heaven. There is plenty of shade (palappas) at ANY time of the day, which is a the best part, no crowds, no loud noise. No matter when we strolled into the beach, we ALWAYS found palappas available.

Great things about Amsterdam Manor:

1. Eagle Beach - Palappas
2. Rooms - nice, clean, roomy, modern (big flat panel TV, working jacuzzi tab, etc)
3. Full Kitchen in the suite with everything you need to cook.
3. Free Internet in the lobby area with PC Cameras, perfect for communication through Skype.
4. Front desk service people - extremely helpful and friendly.

Not-so-great things:

1. Since Amsterdam Manor has a very distinct European feel to it (many Europeans come there) - there might be more smoking on the beach or around the resort that we'd like.
2. Restaurants are simply ok, nothing special. We usually traveled to downtown for much better restaurants (Cuba's cooking, Matilde).
3. Free Wi-Fi Internet in the room wouldn't work for us very well, it was extremely slow.

Overall - a great experience, would come back again!

Horrible!! Can I please preface this by saying that I am not one of those people who is difficult to please?! But I booked a 1 bedroom suite with Amsterdam Manor back in December. I arrived last Wednesday 3/26 to have them tell me that they were overbooked, I mean can they not count how many rooms they have in comparison to how many guests they book? The woman at the desk told me that a wedding party that was there decided that they wanted to stay longer so myself and 3 other guests lost their rooms. They told me that they booked me a room at La Cabana next door. I said okay, is it still a 1 bedroom suite with an ocean view and king size bed like I booked here. I was told no that it was in the back of the building and not a suite. This did not make me happy at all because I had booked, paid for, and gotten confirmation from Monique in the reservations department that my reservation was confirmed. After expressing my displeasure with them for about 45 minutes and requesting to speak to a manager (none were available) they said they could put me at the Manchebo. When I got to the Manchebo I was put into a “garden view” room with 2 double beds. I then told Manchebo the situation and they were great! And put me into a ocean view room with a king size bed. Please read my review of the Manchebo, they were awesome.

Stayed in a 2 bedroom suite with brothers. Experience was great. Staff was very pleasant and helpful a number of times. Suite was nice (door squeaked - paper held it tight). Minor matter taken care of by maintenance (safe was not working). Loved the location and would definitely go back to Amsterdam Manor again. With some exercise involved - able to walk to many restaurants, stores, and other places. Staff helped with a jeep for a trip one day - again very convenient and helpful. Would recommend this place.

I came prepared to love Aruba and this hotel, based on the reviews here and elsewhere. I was quite disappointed in both. First let me say that I judged everything in comparison to several past stays at Capitain Lafitte on Mexico's Riviera Maya. (That hotel unfortunately has closed and recently reopened nearby under the name Petit Lafitte.) Maybe it's not fair to compare, but I couldn't avoid it. The differences between Lafitte and AMBR were most striking in two areas: ambiance and food.

Ambiance: While Lafitte was gloriously quaint and totally authentic, overflowing with Mexican color and charm, AMBR felt rather generic and unexceptional. Though the architecture was supposedly Dutch colonial, there was no discernable ethnic or cultural vibe in the hotel whatsoever, Aruban or Dutch. The music played in the bar and restaurant was a bizarre, annoying mix of Muzak, 70's disco, and generic salsa-type stuff.

Food: At Lafitte, both breakfast and dinner were included in the price of the room, and the food at both meals was always extremely bountiful, fresh, and delicious. The lunch menu was very reasonably priced and also delicious. At AMBR, though we did not go the all-inclusive route, we ate most of our meals at the hotel and found them to be mediocre and overpriced. The buffet continental breakfast was especially galling: $11 for a meager selection of boxed cereal, supermarket-quality baked goods, and cold cuts. True, there was a full kitchen in our suite (see below), but we did NOT come on vacation to feed ourselves supermarket food in order to save money.

The accommodations were fine, but not outstanding. Our room was nice enough, though without any notice we were upgraded from a "superior studio" to a two bedroom suite, which was far too large for the two of us. The towels were thick and fluffy, and the bed was firm, but the living room seating was cheap and not comfortable. We had a nice balcony, and the air conditioning worked fine. The rooms and common areas were clean and well maintained. We did not notice any sewage smell as noted in other reviews.

The service was unimpressive. The front desk and bell staff were friendly and helpful, but the quality of the waitstaff was very uneven. The disinterested bartender at the beach bar repeatedly gave me the wrong drinks and once charged my tab for another party's lunch. It took him three tries to get our check correct.

As for Aruba itself, we will definitely not go back. The weather was wonderful and the beach gorgeous, but the whole hotel strip and Oranjestad area felt tacky, touristy, overbuilt and overpriced. And we flew nearly five hours to get there. Not worth it at all.

I'm not the type to be overly critical and rush to write a negative review, but I felt I had to share my experience which was so at odds with the many rhapsodic accounts contained here. It was not a terrible hotel or island, but it was definitely a far cry from a dream vacation.