HOSTEL perch

This place felt poorly suited to families with kids. I was there with my four-year-old son and one-year-old twins, and we often felt in the way, even just walking through the property from the front door, through the “lobby,” to our room. The room itself was modern and comfortable, and the hotel’s rustic design was pretty cool. But the owners and staff came across as unfriendly and self-important, like they looked down on me and my small children. The owners, with their beanies, trendy haircuts, hipster goatees, and Snow Peak gear, seemed cold toward the kids and gave the impression they didn’t belong. Another staff member, apparently part time, with peroxide hair and long nails, didn’t greet us in the morning and mostly answered anything we said with “...yes... yes...yes...”. When we went to speak with staff at the front desk, they were always using their MacBooks. They didn’t close them when we approached, just looked up bored, gave us minimal attention, then went back to their screens once we left. On both Saturday and Sunday mornings, the local Silver Club were noisy outside our room cleaning the shrine, shouting to each other and using leaf blowers and grass strimmers for about two hours. Two of my kids had fevers and couldn’t get decent rest either night. When I raised it with the front desk, a tall, skinny guy with braces shrugged and said, “I just work here, there’s nothing I can do about it.” The customer service was really terrible. There was no TV in the room either. Thank god I’d packed my projector. Better for introverted hipster types who don’t like communicating, I suppose.