Most advice about preparing a room for an evening session assumes the room is too cold, and in this city for most of the year it is. Then July arrives, a week of thirty degrees settles over the canals, and the same advice becomes exactly wrong. A hotel massage in a heatwave asks for a different room, and because Amsterdam's hotels were mostly built for a mild climate, getting that room takes a little more thought than simply turning a dial.
Why a hotel massage in a heatwave is its own problem
Heat affects both people in the room differently. The guest is lying still, and a body lying still under oil sheds heat, so even on a warm night a room that is too cold becomes uncomfortable after half an hour. The therapist is working, and working hard in a hot room is tiring and makes her hands less steady than she would like. The right temperature sits between those two needs, and it is lower than the winter advice and higher than an office.
Aim for a room that feels pleasant to sit in wearing a shirt. That is usually a little cooler than the street after dark and noticeably warmer than the arctic setting most air conditioners default to.
Rooms with air conditioning
The newer hotels and the business towers are fully air conditioned, and in them the task is mostly restraint. Set the unit about an hour before the session rather than when the confirmation arrives, because a room chilled hard for an hour and then warmed back up feels clammy. Point the vents away from the bed if they can be adjusted. A cold draught across oiled skin is felt immediately, and it is the single most common complaint about summer sessions.
Remember the key card slot. In many hotels the air conditioning shuts down when the card is removed, so a room left all day while you were out will be at whatever temperature the sun made it. Come back in time to put the card in and let the unit work before anyone knocks.
Rooms without it
Plenty of canal-house hotels and small boutique properties have no central cooling, or a portable unit in the corner, and the top floors of those buildings are the hottest rooms in the city on a July evening. There the options are simpler and older. Keep the curtains closed during the day so the sun does not load the room. Open the windows once the street has cooled, usually after ten, and close them again before the session if the room faces a busy canal or a bar. A fan is useful, but aim it at the ceiling or the wall rather than at the bed.
If you know before you arrive that the room is an attic without cooling, a later start helps more than anything else. The same session at half past eleven happens in a room several degrees kinder than at eight, and the city outside is quieter too, which is part of why the late-night hours fill up in summer.
Open windows, insects and light
Two small things catch summer guests out. The first is insects. A room on a canal with the window open and a lamp on at night will collect them, and the moment to shut the window is before the lamp goes on, not after. The second is light. The sky here stays bright until after ten in June and July, so a session at nine happens in daylight unless the curtains are drawn, and the note on lighting a hotel room properly has more on getting the room dim enough.
Oil, gel and the heat
Oil work suits a warm evening well, and a sensual massage in a pleasantly warm room is one of the better summer hours the city offers. The oil is still warmed before use, since even on a hot night cool oil straight onto the skin is a shock. Gel formats are fine in heat as well, though the shower afterwards matters more than ever, and a lukewarm shower is kinder than a cold one after an hour lying down.
If the room is an attic or a top floor without cooling, mention it in the first message. It changes nothing about the booking, but it lets us suggest a later start on a hot day, and it means she arrives expecting a warm room rather than discovering one.
Keep water beside the bed for both of you. A warm room and a long session is thirsty work on either side of the towel.
What does not change in summer
She arrives dressed for the weather and the building, the arrival window in the centre is the same twenty to thirty minutes, and the rate is €180 an hour in July exactly as it is in January. Summer weekends bring more visitors and slightly slower streets around the squares, which the confirmation will mention if it affects the time. The last twenty minutes before the knock are still yours to use, and the earlier note on the twenty minutes before the knock applies in a heatwave with one amendment: turn the heating advice upside down.