Journal · 2026-04-04
Same Day or a Week Ahead: Two Ways to Book on a Long Stay
Long-stay guests split into planners and deciders within a few weeks, and each approach works, provided you know how the deposit treats the one you choose.
Spend a month around a group of people on a long posting, and they sort themselves into two groups. The first plans. They know on Sunday which evenings of the week are free, and they fill them. The second decides on the day. They wait to see how the week unfolds and book when an evening turns out to be free. Neither group is right. But the two approaches interact with the booking rules differently, and it helps to know how.
The planner's way
A planner writes several days ahead: Thursday at eight, ninety minutes, the usual address, and ideally the same therapist as last time. The advantages are clear. The evening is secure. The therapist you want is more likely to be free. And there is nothing to arrange on the day itself, which suits a guest whose days are full.
Because the booking is arranged more than twenty-four hours before its start, half the fee goes ahead. For ninety minutes at EUR 270, that is EUR 135 in advance and EUR 135 at the door. The deposit is paid by card, or by Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency, with the details appearing only in the thread. For a planner, this becomes routine within two or three bookings.
The decider's way
A decider writes on the day: tonight at eight, an hour, the usual address, whoever is free. The advantages are different. There is no commitment until the evening is certain. A day that goes badly can end well without anything having been arranged in advance. And, once the first booking with the house is behind you, a same-day request for one or two hours at an address in the city is paid entirely at the door, with nothing ahead.
The trade-off is choice. On a busy evening, some therapists will already have filled their hours by the time a same-day request arrives, and a particular name may not be free. The reply says who is.
What sits outside both
Some bookings carry a deposit however they are made. A first booking with the house, whenever it is written. A session of three hours or more. An overnight. Anything with two therapists. A booking at Schiphol or an airport hotel. Anything on a peak date. A decider who wants any of these pays half ahead just as a planner does.
Cancelling, for each
A planner's booking has a deposit, so cancelling is measured on the notice scale. More than twenty-four hours before: the whole deposit returns. Inside the final day, before she has set out: half is kept. After she has set out: all of it is kept, unless the hour is re-let. A planner can also move a booking once, free, to a date within fourteen days if they ask more than a day ahead.
A decider's same-day booking has no deposit behind it. Cancelled before she has left for your door, it costs nothing. Cancelled after she has set out, it costs the share of the fee her journey represents, and nothing more.
Which kind of guest you are
Most people know within two weeks. If your working days are predictable and you like to know what the week holds, you are probably a planner. If your hours shift with the project and you dislike committing an evening in advance, you are probably a decider. Guests on research terms and remote-work stays tend to decide; those on consulting postings with fixed site days tend to plan. Neither pattern is locked in, and many guests change approach as the stay settles.
The mixed approach
Most long-stay guests end up somewhere in between. Ordinary weekly evenings become same-day requests, written over breakfast or at lunchtime. The evenings that matter more, an occasion, a longer booking or a request for a particular therapist on a particular night, are planned a few days ahead. The mixed approach gets the flexibility of deciding on the day for most bookings and the certainty of planning for the few that need it.
What neither approach changes
Whichever way you book, the rates come from the same matrix, printed in every profile on the roster. Planned or not, she is at a central Amsterdam door forty to sixty minutes after the reply confirms. Both guest and anyone else present have to be twenty-one or over. And she decides what each session includes, tells you her limits when she arrives, and may end the visit whenever she chooses.
Planner, decider or both: the choice is about how you like to run your weeks, and the booking rules accommodate either.