El Zapote

The rooms are clean, with private bathrooms and lockers, and the location is really convenient. The staff are welcoming and happy to help with bike rentals or tips on where to eat and go out. Shambalam is a lovely new hostel. The kitchen could use a little work, but otherwise I had a great stay.

We left a day early, once we were finally feeling better. When we asked about a refund, a staff member said he needed to speak with his business partner and promised to reply within 24 hours. We still haven't heard anything. Earlier, while we had food poisoning, one staff member kept trying to sell us a ticket for an excursion run by his other business. The hostel itself was a miserable stay. There were no clean towels until our second night, and we had to pay for them. None of the bathrooms had hand soap, and the bathroom in our room smelled rancid. The three-tier bunks were uncomfortable, too cramped to sit up in, and shook and squeaked whenever anyone moved. The locker locks were unreliable. This was the worst hostel I've ever stayed in. Don't stay here.

The Wi-Fi was great and the location was good. The hostel was fairly new, in decent shape, and cleanliness was okay overall, though the bathrooms needed more attention. Everything else was a problem. There was no security, so anyone could walk in and out. One morning at 5 a.m., girls who weren't staying there came into our dorm and talked with another guy. Staff didn't seem to care that we'd lost sleep. The next night, the person running reception got so drunk and played music loudly until 5 a.m. that he couldn't check people out the following morning. Some guests left without getting their 300 pesos deposit back because they had to catch a bus to the airport. We waited more than 60 minutes to check out, with no receptionist in sight. It felt like anyone could have taken things from the hostel. Any request we made seemed like too much trouble, and there was nobody around to help. The place is run by what I saw as failed DJs and stoners.

I wouldn't recommend this hostel. The bathrooms are awful, and the shower barely gives you a few drops of water. Sleeping isn't easy either, since you can hear the bar music and people talking outside from the rooms.