Staying in a water tower - the Biesbosch National Park »

At approximately an hour driving distance (Southwards) from Amsterdam, you can find the Biesbosch National Park and the city of Dordrecht. The Biesbosch National Park is a perfect place for hiking, biking and kayaking. Located right in between of the city of Dordrecht and the Biesbosch, you can find an unique accommodation: Hotel de Watertoren. This accommodation provides a nice stay and experience in a water tower. In this article I’d like to tell you more about this hotel.

Would you like to read more about the Biesbosch National Park? I’ve written a 24-hour guide which you can find by clicking here.

Location

Hotel de Watertoren has a beautiful location, as you can find the city of Dordrecht very close from the accommodation, but also the Biesbosch National Park. The hotel is located in a rural environment which provides nature and relaxation. If you’d like to visit the city, you can easily reach the center by bus or by car.

Restaurant

When you book a room, breakfast is included as well. Breakfast is served in the restaurant, which isn’t that big (the hotel only features five rooms). I think there’s room for six tables in the restaurant, so it’s nicely compact. There’s no breakfast buffet, but you’ll get your breakfast served at the table. There’s enough choice and the breakfast is delicious.

You can also have lunch or dinner at the restaurant (by good weather there’s also a terrace so you can sit outside). We’ve had dinner at the restaurant, which was also delicious! Hotel de Watertoren uses, where possible, biological, seasonal and regional products which means that the menu can change regularly. During your time in the restaurant, you’ll look at a beautiful view over the polders.

Just for your information: we stayed at the accommodation during the Corona crisis, so there’s a possibility that this is normally arranged in another way.

Hotel Room

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, the hotel provides five rooms: one room at each floor. The first four floors feature a deluxe double room and at the fifth floor you can find the deluxe suite. We stayed at the second floor, which room is exactly the same as showed in the photos above. The room is very spacious and provides a comfortable bed. The bathroom is quite small, but it was nice and clean. The room has everything we needed, including a nice view over the polders.

Facilities

Besides a restaurant, the hotel doesn’t have any other facilities. By elevator you can go upwards to the top of the water tower, where you can walk outside and have a better look at the magnificent views. You can walk all the way around the building, which gives you the possibility to see the views from all sides.

Service

The minute you walk into the hotel, you can see that it’s a small accommodation. There isn’t a reception, but there’s always someone to welcome you. We got a nice welcome and the hosts helped us with the questions we had. The service was also good during breakfast and dinner.

Price

The price per night is € 113,- when you’re staying with two persons in a deluxe double room (breakfast included). In my opinion this is a very reasonable price for the experience and nice stay you’ll get in return. If you’d like to stay in a double room for single use, the price would be € 91,- per night.

You can book a stay directly at the website of the hotel or through Booking.com.

Overview

This overview is a summary of the points written above. I’ll give a point from one star until five stars where one star is very bad and five stars is very good.

Location: *****
Room size: *****
Room attributes: ****
Bathroom: ***
Facilities: **
Price-quality: ****

I’m very enthusiastic about the location, as you can find the liveliness of the city and the relaxing feeling of the nature both in just a few minutes driving distance. Furthermore, I’m enthusiastic about the room size as there’s much space. The room attributes and the price are good. Like told before, I found the bathroom quite small and there was no dividing door between the bed- and bathroom which I think will be better. However, the bathroom was clean and I liked the fact that there’s a bath (I enjoyed a nice, warm bath). I give two stars for the facilities as there are no other facilities besides the restaurant and the viewing deck.