Hostel Chameleon

The shower had no door, so other women would come in to wash their faces and brush their teeth while I was showering. It was really uncomfortable. I also had trouble getting help: before 10 pm I told the worker my mattress was awful and asked for a blanket and an extra pillow to put on it, but he just kept playing on his phone. After 10, nobody was at reception. I slept only 2-3 hours because of that mattress. I wasn't told in advance that payment had to be in cash. I only found out at 9 pm when I arrived, and the worker said I should have known because I hadn't paid through booking. I had no local currency, so he took my last euro. I saw a card terminal at reception the next day. He said it had been broken the night before, which looked like a lie to me. There was also a bar across the street, and most of the hostel windows faced that road. After 10 pm, the music was so loud it felt like a party was happening in our room.

The central location was the one good thing. My bed shook so much it felt like it might break, and the room had no AC, so the window was open beside the bar across the street. It felt like partying from bed. The green room smelled like sweat and other bodily odors, really unpleasant. The staff were rude and not very nice. On the day I booked, I was told a towel would be free, but staff tried to charge me for it. There was no room key, only a small key for the locker. Bad experience.

The manager's service was terrible. In the middle of summer, he said there was an AC problem, as someone had told him, even though it worked fine the night before. It seemed like a way to grab money, since the AC remotes had been hidden in all the rooms. The location is fine, and if you bring your own IR device, you can manage in summer. The bathrooms were clean enough, but there was only one shower for all the men. The laundry setup didn't seem worthwhile: they take your clothes and handle them, but as a traveler I didn't feel comfortable trusting this place, so I used a self-service laundromat. There was nowhere to store luggage before or after check-in. We were just told to leave it in the lobby.

I left before my checkout date. The staff were very rude, and I didn't want to stay another minute after finding someone else's things on my bed. My roommate's food was stolen from the fridge. When he checked out and needed somewhere for his bag, we tried my locker, but it wouldn't fit. I bumped my arm on the lockers while we were trying, and felt something in another one. The desk guy came over and blamed us for the broken back of that locker. It was already broken, though, and I'd checked it at check-in, as I always do for safety. We left the bag on my bed. A couple of hours later it had been moved onto the table. My roommate took his backpack to another hostel, and I went with him to the museum. When I came back, someone else's belongings were on my bed, meaning the staff had given it away. I was furious, though I kept my thoughts to myself. When I handed in my key, the desk guy had the nerve to ask why I was checking out before night. I told him I didn't want to stay after he'd given my bed to someone else. At the start, I was also surprised they only took cash, since I'd had to confirm the booking with a credit card. The AC was broken, so we had to sleep with the window open because it was too hot. Across the street, a bar played music so loudly we could still hear it with the window shut. I think it stayed open until 3am. The bed wasn't comfortable, and I could feel the springs, though I could have put up with that for a few nights. The old shower was between the toilets, with only a shower curtain for privacy, and the bathroom didn't feel very clean. The worst place I've stayed.