Hostel Stars

We arrived at night, and with the poor outdoor lighting it was hard to see how things looked. The room was the only part I’d call okay: it was spacious, had a ceiling fan, and seemed clean. The bathroom was very old but okay. The shared kitchen was in bad shape. There were lots of ants on the dishes in the drying rack, the cupboards were extremely dirty and falling apart, the microwave was very old and dirty, and the kitchen trash bin was full. The owner said the cleaner had left shortly before we arrived. The pool was the worst part, covered in sludge. It didn't look like it had ever had chlorine. The barbecue area was also filthy, with leftover food, overflowing trash, dirty dishes, and beer bottles. It seems like the owner is making good money but is careless about the condition of the house. I wouldn’t go back or recommend it.

The bathrooms and pool were clean and well looked after, and the employee there was polite, welcoming, and willing to fix problems. The management, though, was careless. The WhatsApp service was terrible and rude, and the phone service was even worse. The check-in cutoff time was wrong. We booked a room for one night so we could sleep Friday, spend the next day at the beach, then go to an event and stay with a friend who was arriving Saturday night. We chose a cheap hostel and only needed somewhere to rest and leave our things. We booked another hostel owned by the same person Friday morning and planned to leave São Paulo that evening. Just as we were about to go, we learned on our first contact that our reservation, made eight hours earlier, had been canceled and moved to a place much farther away than we wanted. We were already packed and ready to go. After dozens of unanswered calls, the person who answered was extremely rude and told us to find somewhere else. We did, and by bad luck found another hostel owned by the same person. We didn’t know that until we first contacted them about the second booking. This time they got back to us quickly, and we transferred a deposit to confirm. No one replied after that, but we assumed everything was set. The check-in cutoff was midnight, and we arrived at 11:50 p.m. The doors were shut and there was no employee there. We were stuck on an empty street close to the middle of the night, waiting outside with our bags and trying to reach the number that had confirmed our reservation. After our calls failed again, we started knocking continuously so we wouldn’t have to sleep on the street. Luckily, guests in nearby rooms came out and told us Fabrício (I'm not sure if that was his name), the owner, sent the door code by WhatsApp. It was already 12:30 a.m. Those guests helped us get in touch with the person who could authorize our stay. While our very gracious host slept comfortably at home without answering the phone, my wife, all our belongings, and I were still outside waiting for him to respond to the people helping us. After more failed attempts, he finally answered close to 1 a.m. and let us in after a short interrogation. We were hungry and needed to go out for food, so we unpacked and tried to charge our phones. Only one of the two sockets on the extension worked, so we could only charge one phone. At least we had a bed and somewhere to store our things. Then we went to the door, which had a broken handle. We tried Ifood, but Wi-Fi didn’t reach the room. That was okay, the places were all closed anyway. I improvised a fix for the door and we went out. From 1:45 a.m. on, things were “fine.” To be fair, our host let us store our things in a little broom closet and stay at the house until late afternoon so we could enjoy the beach. That was a sort of “deconstructed late checkout,” to borrow the irony, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful. Still, if I owned the place, I’d apologize and give a discount, or not charge us at all, since without our persistence we wouldn’t have got in. I won’t return or recommend it.

The price matched the condition, and the owner could make the place perfect by fixing a few things. It’s a spacious, quiet hostel with bathrooms in the rooms, plenty of mirrors for photos, fridges for guests’ things, and a kitchen you can use. But it felt abandoned. The pool and leisure areas were dirty, the microwave didn’t work, and the sofas were dirty. It seemed like only the rooms were cleaned. The place needs a thorough clean.

Ellem was wonderful, with excellent reception service and a very helpful attitude. The hostel is too large for one person to take care of everything, though. The result was that things looked clean but weren't properly sanitized. The sofas were dirty, the oven smelled bad, the microwave was dirty, and the pools had a black layer of grime. The cleaning was inadequate. There’s no washing machine for guests and no cleaning supplies available for them. My son had an allergic reaction on the first night because the room wasn’t sanitized, even though it looked clean. There’s no air conditioning, and only one shared bathroom inside the house plus one shared shower. I won't return. The one star is solely for Ellem’s service. The owner is responsible for the hostel, not the employee. Ellem was really upset when the owner passed my complaints on to her as if she were to blame. It’s regrettable, and I won’t be back.