Can the block start after midnight?

Yes. The eight hours can sit anywhere in the night, so a start at one in the morning is as possible as one at nine in the evening. The start and the finish are both agreed in writing before she sets out.

What if the heating goes off in the night?

Then the room will cool through the small hours, which matters far more over eight hours than over one. Check with reception before booking and ask for a heater or spare blankets.

Is the block a good idea before an early flight?

Only if it ends well before you need to leave. A block that runs into check-in time leaves no room for sleep or for the trip to Schiphol, and the morning turns into a rush. In that case three hours in the evening is usually the wiser choice.

Overnight Body to Body in Amsterdam's Long Winter Nights

Overnight body to body in Amsterdam, when the winter night runs to sixteen hours

Around the winter solstice Amsterdam gets under eight hours of daylight, and the night runs for roughly sixteen. For a visitor in a city that shuts its shops early and rains often, that is a great deal of dark to fill. The eight hour block is the booking made for exactly this, and body to body sits naturally inside it.

What the eight hour block is

It is a fixed sum for a single guest rather than an hourly rate left ticking, and the eight hours fall wherever in the night you decide. Think of it as a night with body to body inside it rather than a session stretched to eight hours: stretches of work, stretches of rest and, for one or both of you, a spell of sleep.

Placing eight hours inside a sixteen hour night

Because the winter night is so long, the block can sit almost anywhere. Starting at nine and finishing at five suits a guest who wants both the evening and the small hours. Starting at eleven, after a late dinner, carries it through to seven in the morning, which in December is still fully dark. A flight the following day changes the sums: a block that ends three hours before you have to leave for Schiphol is sensible, one that ends at check-in is not.

Whatever the timing, both ends are agreed in writing before anyone travels.

The room has to hold its heat all night

An evening session needs a room that stays warm for a couple of hours. An eight hour block needs one that stays warm until morning, and in an old building those are different things. Some canal houses and older hotels turn their central heating down after midnight. Ask reception before you book, and if the answer is yes, ask for a heater or a room lower in the building. The guide to keeping an old room warm has the details.

Spare blankets matter too. She brings her own towels and linen for the session itself, but the bedding you sleep under belongs to the room.

Body to body through the night

The first stretch is usually an ordinary session with the lights down, full contact and unhurried. After that the night finds its own rhythm, often with a second passage of body to body somewhere in the small hours. Her limits, given in her own words when she arrives, stand until she leaves in the morning; the length of the night does not reopen them.

Arranging an overnight

Half the fee goes ahead on every eight hour block. The block has its own fixed figure on each therapist's profile, and couples and nights with two therapists have fixed figures of their own. Weekend nights in December go early, so an afternoon message is wise. The overnight page and the glossary entry on the overnight carry the rest.