Patio Hostel

Good cleanliness, and the price seems fairly cheap. The hostel is close to the bus station, Old Town, and the attractions. I liked the cozy outdoor area, though it's also where people smoke. My room smelled like curry or dhal, and someone else's body odor.

I travel to Bratislava every year and had planned to spend twice as much on a June booking here. That's no longer happening. A page refresh error put my reservation on the wrong date, and I spotted it three hours later, just after dinner. I contacted the hostel right away and called three times that night, but no one answered. When they eventually replied in chat, they showed no empathy and basically said it was bad luck. Booking.com support also sent an official request to correct the dates, which the hostel ignored. They kept 25€ over a mistake I reported the same night, and lost me as a customer. It shows no business sense or compassion. Don't stay here. Plenty of Bratislava hostels treat guests like people, not ATMs.

The value here really impressed me for such a low price. Coffee is free, and it's the fancy kind from a machine that grinds the beans right before pouring. The laundry machines are free too, with more than five settings, including wool and sanitizing. They also held a free shisha night hosted by Hasan, where I had loads of fun conversations with other travelers. Fantastic hostel!

The cleaning team did a great job keeping the hostel spotless, and during my roughly two weeks staying there on and off, I had a good time and made plenty of friends. I cleaned up other people's dirty dishes, was polite to everyone, and even brought in more customers from another hostel. The bunk bed wobbled like jelly, some staff seemed to be having a bad day all the time, and the person organizing events tried hard to liven things up, but most events felt painfully dead. The bar was dull and miserable too. The problem that changed my view came after I stopped staying there. One morning I was waiting in the sitting area near reception for a friend who still lived there. It was raining and windy, just 4 degrees outside. The receptionist came over and said, "You can not get in here since you don't stay here anymore." I explained I was waiting for my friend and wasn't going upstairs. She said visitors weren't allowed. I reminded her that I'd seen friends of guests and people who worked there meet in the ground-floor public area while I was staying there. She kept questioning me, saying she'd seen me there several times, as if she'd been watching me, but nobody had ever told me former guests couldn't use the public area. I said people had invited me back to hang out and attend events. She walked away looking dissatisfied. I've traveled for more than a decade and stayed in many hostels and some hotels. This is the only place that's thrown visitors out of the lobby. The events were often sad, especially the bar, and the staff's customer service and communication were shockingly poor and provocative. But, apparently, I wasn't a customer because I wasn't staying there at that moment.