A long-stay guest's first week: booking, paying and the thread

Most guides to booking a massage in Amsterdam are written for someone who will book once. This one is written for the guest who has just arrived for weeks or months and expects to book again. That changes the emphasis. A one-off visitor needs to get a single evening right. A long-stay guest needs the first booking to set up everything that follows: the booking thread they will return to, the payment route they will reuse, and the knowledge of how the house works that makes every later message shorter. What follows walks through the first booking from the first message to the balance at the door, with an eye on what carries forward.

Before you write: an address you barely know yet

In the first week it is easy to underestimate how little you know about where you live. The flat has a street and a number, but canal houses often have several doors, some buildings have separate bells for each floor, and serviced apartments have a lobby, a building name and an apartment number that may not appear on the lease. Spend two minutes outside the front door before you write. Note which door is yours, which bell, which floor, and whether the stairs are the steep, narrow kind that many older houses have. If the street door locks after a certain hour, note that too. This is the information a therapist needs to find you without a phone call, and once written down it can be pasted into every later booking.

If you are spending the first week in a hotel while the flat is prepared, the same applies with a room number instead. When you move, write the new address in full the first time you book from it.

The first message

A useful first message does five things. It gives the day and the hour, written in Amsterdam time, because a phone that has just crossed several time zones is not always sure where it is. It gives the length: an hour, ninety minutes, two hours or more. It gives the full address with the details above. It says whether you are alone or whether a second guest will be present. And it names a therapist if you have read the roster and have someone in mind, or says you are open if you have not.

That is all. There is no form and no account to create. The booking routes on this site open a thread, and contact@massagesamsterdam.com is the written address if you would rather use e-mail. The booking page sets out the same list with examples.

The reply, and agreeing the booking

The reply confirms the hour and says who is free at it. If you named someone and she is available, that is the answer. If she is not, the reply says who is, and the choice is yours. Once you agree, the booking is fixed in the thread with the hour, the length and the fee, taken directly from the rate table printed in each profile.

The deposit on a first booking

Every first booking with the house carries half the fee in advance, regardless of length, hour or how soon it starts. The reasoning is straightforward: the house has no history with you yet, and she is setting aside time and making a journey on the strength of a message. With one therapist, half of an hour at EUR 180 is EUR 90. Half of ninety minutes at EUR 270 is EUR 135. Half of two hours at EUR 360 is EUR 180.

The deposit is paid once the booking is agreed, by card first, or by Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency if you prefer. The exact sum and the payment details appear in the thread and nowhere else. PayPal and bank transfers play no part. Cash cannot act as a deposit, because a deposit is settled before she sets out and cash only changes hands in the room. For a long-stay guest it is worth using the method you intend to keep using, since the same route will serve any later booking that carries a deposit.

A first booking on the same day

Plenty of guests make their first booking the evening they decide they need one, often at the end of a hard first week. That is entirely ordinary. The deposit still applies because it is a first booking, and there is one extra step: before she sets out, you confirm in the thread that you want the session performed straight away, and that you understand the fourteen-day withdrawal right will not apply once it has been performed. It takes one sentence, and the reason for it is explained on the booking terms page.

The wait, and the arrival

She arrives forty to sixty minutes after the booking is confirmed, anywhere in central Amsterdam, and on a first booking the clock starts once the deposit has cleared. That window is the same in the Jordaan, De Pijp, Oud-Zuid and the Zuidas, and does not shorten because a flat is close to the centre. Use it well. Turn the heating up higher than you would keep it for yourself, because a room that feels warm when you are dressed feels cool when you are not. Swap the ceiling light for a lamp. Put out water. Clear a path to the bed if the flat is still full of half-unpacked boxes. She brings her own towels and oil, so nothing else is needed from the flat. Leave your phone within reach with some battery left, in case the door or the bell needs a word of explanation.

At the door

Everyone who books, and anyone else present, must be twenty-one or over. On a first booking especially, she may ask to see a photo document at the door. It is looked at and handed straight back, never copied or photographed. If there is someone else in the flat whom the booking did not mention, say so beforehand; a visit where the question of who is present cannot be settled ends before it begins.

Once inside, she decides what the session includes and tells you where her limits are. Her limits stay in force from the moment she states them until she leaves, and ending the visit early is her decision to make at any point. That is true on the first booking and on every later one.

Paying the balance

The other half of the fee is paid at the door when she arrives. Cash in euros needs no further arrangement. Cash in another major currency is welcome too, but the exact amount in that currency has to be confirmed in writing in the thread before she sets out, so that nobody is doing exchange rate arithmetic in a hallway. The house quotes every price in euros only.

The thread as a record you will use again

For a one-off visitor, the booking thread is disposable. For a long-stay guest, it becomes a working record. It holds the address in the form that worked, the name of the therapist you booked, the length and the fee, and the payment route that went through. The next time you write, you can refer back to it and keep the message to a line or two. What the house itself keeps from the thread, and for how long, is set out on the privacy page; there is no customer file or profile built from repeat bookings.

A first booking, worked through

Take a guest who arrived on a Sunday and by Thursday evening has had enough of the week. At half past six she writes from a flat in Oud-Zuid: ninety minutes, tonight at eight, the address with the second floor and the left-hand bell, alone, no particular therapist in mind. The reply names who is free at eight and gives the fee of EUR 270. The guest agrees and confirms in the thread that she wants the session performed straight away. The deposit of EUR 135 goes by card, the thread acknowledges it, and the arrival window starts. At a quarter to eight the heating is up, the lamp is on and the laptop is closed. The knock comes a few minutes before eight, a document is glanced at and handed back, and the other EUR 135 is paid at the door. Two weeks later the same guest writes one line on a Tuesday afternoon asking for an hour at seven, and pays the whole EUR 180 when the therapist arrives.

What changes from the second booking

Exactly one thing changes once the first booking is done. A same-day request for one or two hours at an address in the city is then paid entirely at the door, with nothing in advance. Everything else keeps its deposit: a booking arranged more than twenty-four hours before its start, a session of three hours or more, an overnight, two therapists, a booking at Schiphol or an airport hotel, and anything on a peak date. In practice, a long-stay guest who books on the day pays at the door from the second booking on, and one who plans ahead pays half in advance every time.

If the first booking has to be cancelled

First weeks are unpredictable, and a first booking is often the one that gets moved. Written more than twenty-four hours before the booked time, a cancellation returns the whole deposit. Inside the final day, before she has left, half the deposit is kept and half returns. Once she is on her way, the whole deposit is kept, unless someone else takes the hour, in which case it is repaid in full. Alternatively, the booking can move once to a date within fourteen days, free, if you ask more than twenty-four hours ahead. None of this makes you liable for damages, whatever the reason for cancelling.

A first booking done this way takes perhaps ten minutes of attention spread across an evening. Every booking after it takes less, which is the whole point of doing the first one properly.