Amsterdam body to body massage in spring, in tulip season

The season the city changes shape

From the end of March the visitor numbers climb steeply and they do not come down again until autumn. The bulb fields to the west of the city bring day trippers in for six or seven weeks, the light lasts until nine and then ten, and the terraces along the canals fill from the first mild afternoon. For anyone staying here it is the pleasant half of the year arriving. For anyone trying to arrange something in the evening it is the half of the year where planning ahead stops being optional, because the city is working at capacity and so is everything in it.

Why a spring booking gets written at lunchtime

In February a message sent at nine for the same evening is answered easily. In late April it frequently is not, and the reason is availability rather than policy. More visitors are in town, more of them are awake late because the light keeps them out, and the roster is finite at twenty-three. The practical advice is to write in the afternoon for the evening, which also puts the booking under the advance deposit rule and gives the room time to be got ready. A same day hour is still arranged often enough. A three hour session on a Saturday in tulip season, asked for at half past nine that night, is a harder ask.

Light until ten, and what it does to timing

Northern latitude gives Amsterdam long spring evenings, and by the middle of May the sky is still bright at half past nine. That changes the hour people book more than it changes anything else. Where a December booking often starts at seven because the evening effectively started at five, a May booking commonly starts at ten or eleven, after a long light evening outdoors has finally run out. If you want an early one, say so and it is straightforward, since the early hours are the quiet ones in this season. Blackout curtains matter here too, and hotel rooms vary considerably in whether they have them.

The room, for once, is not the problem

Spring is the season where none of the usual warnings apply. A mild evening means the heating needs half an hour rather than an hour, the bathroom is not a gamble, and the room is neither holding the afternoon's heat nor losing its own through a sash window. That opens the whole list rather than narrowing it. Nuru is a genuinely easy booking in April and May, where in January it comes with conditions attached. Soapy needs no special thought. Tantra has the calm room it wants. It is the one time of year when the choice can be made on what appeals rather than on what the building will support.

Body to body in a mild month

The format that carries an Amsterdam winter does not stop making sense when the weather improves, it simply stops being the only sensible answer. In spring it is booked for what it is rather than for what it solves: continuous contact over a large surface, warm oil, nothing to set up and nothing to clear away afterwards. Sixty minutes is a complete session in a mild room, which is not quite true in January. Ninety remains the common choice. The format page sets out how the hour runs and what the room needs, which in this season is almost nothing.

Peak dates inside the spring

A few dates each spring are busy enough that the house treats them differently, and the national holiday at the end of April is the obvious one. On a peak date half the fee is asked for ahead of every booking regardless of its length, the date, or how well the house knows you, and the house names which dates those are when asked. That is a deposit rule and not a surcharge: the total is the same figure it would be on a quiet Tuesday in February. What genuinely changes on those dates is how early the roster fills, which is measured in days rather than hours.

Couples, and a city that suits them in April

Spring brings more couples than any other season and they tend to book differently: earlier in the day, more often for two hours than for one, and more often with a therapist each. One therapist between two guests costs half what a therapist each does, and in a mild month with a decently sized room either works without the heat considerations that decide it in August. Say in the first message which of you is booking, that there are two of you, and which arrangement you mean. The couples page sets out how each one runs.

Deposits, moves and a trip that shifts

Half the fee goes ahead on anything arranged more than twenty-four hours before it starts, which in this season is most bookings. One change of date is free provided the request reaches the thread more than a day before the booked time and the new date falls inside fourteen days, and the deposit travels across whole. A second move, or one inside the final day, is read on the notice scale as a cancellation sent at that moment would be. Cancelling never leaves you owing damages, and if the hour you released is taken by somebody else the deposit comes back in full.

Writing it while the evening is still light

Where you are, the hour in Amsterdam time, how long, one therapist or two, and whether there are two of you in the room. In this season add one more thing, which is how flexible the hour is, because a range of two hours makes a busy evening far easier to arrange than a single fixed minute. Every person in the room is twenty-one or over, and proof of that may be asked for when she arrives. Your therapist decides what a session includes and names her limits at the start of the visit. The booking page sets out the order, and the questions page covers the rest.