Spain & Portugal Hostel Observations
The Ideal Hostel
On the recommendations of "Hostels," several other people, and the general chatter on this board, I have headed over to the Iberian peninsula to do some hostel recon.
I landed in Madrid and am staying at MAD Hostel. This place is owned by the same people that own Cat's Hostel just two blocks away. This place is clean, nice, has ensuite bathrooms (as an option), and the staff is friendly and attentive. Unfortunately, it doesn't have nearly as much character as Cat's, which is one of the best hostels I have ever stayed at. Part of it is probably the social factor. Cat's has a great bar in the basement that is reminiscent of those Flamenco caves in Granada.
More updates to follow...
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14 years
I spent three days at the Porto Spot Hostel in Porto, which is in the north of Portugal. The hostel was simply stunning. The location isn't quite perfect, but everything else is. The hostel, which just opened in May, is in a beautiful old building that has been renovated (really well I might add). The best part of the hostel is the staff. They managed to find a dozen of the most friendly, outgoing, helpful people in Porto.
Copy-and-pasted below are few random notes I wrote down while there:
When you walk in the door they say hi to you even if they are busy helping someone else.
After they have checked you in, they give you a personal tour of the hostel.
Hostel staff remembers your name and talks to you like a friend, doesn’t act like a maid/butler/concierge
Everything is from IKEA.
Eat-as-much-as-you-want breakfast
Dishwasher and other Bosch appliances in kitchen.
There's a Chalkboard in kitchen that has the day’s weather, activities, what’s for dinner, etc.
All the walls are painted in cool, crisp, and subtle colors. No crazy oranges, yellows, or reds. If it were not for the dorm sleeping arrangements it would feel like a sleek, modern boutique hotel for wealthy thirty-somethings.
Living room has 46 inch Samsung flat screen w/ playstation. 1 couch, 1 loveseat, 2 bean bags.
Beautiful patio in the back w/ 4 picnic tables w/ umbrellas
Only 4 beds in a room that some hostels would try and fit 8 in
17 E/night during week
Gorgeous hardwood floors, not laminate! I cannot tell if they are restored or new. If new they put them through some sort of artificial aging process that gives them great character.
Dinner for 6 E.
Insanely fast wifi, I ran speedtest.net, got 43 Mbps down & 4.28 up
They were renovating their bar area, but I am sure that will be great once it's finished as well. Overall I would say this is a great hostel and would highly recommend checking it out. Porto is a great city too.
14 years
how big - ie. how many beds - are these places? i love the idea of personal tours etc but im used to working in bed factories... sorry, larger hostels (250-400 beds) and a lot of these excellent services just arent feasible. :(
oh and for those of you running/owning larger hostels, please dont take offence at the term 'bed factory', its in not way reflective of larger hostels in general, just a couple ive worked in.
14 years
Ugh, been meaning to get caught up on this thread for weeks, but was I traveling and trying to work on my laptop while I was traveling (not easy). Add to that all the travel related fun I was having and this thread fell to the bottom of my to-do list.
how big - ie. how many beds - are these places?
Gordo, to answer your question with a rough, back of the hand calculation, The Porto Spot Hostel seemed to have 70 to 80 beds, not sure though.
14 years
I stayed at the Traveller's House in Lisbon and all I can say is wow, all the hype about that place is true. I think the TH has been discussed quite a bit here, so I won't write a book about it, but just make a few comments. I was going to check out another hostel in Lisbon too, but I had made friends with a bunch of people at the TH and was enjoying it so much I couldn't leave ;)
The location is just about perfect, right on Rua Agusta, the main pedestrian street in Lisbon. Their building set up is less than ideal (for example there is a dentist office on the floor between the reception/common room/kitchen floor and the floor where most of the rooms are) but they make it work very well, it really is not an issue that negatively affects the guest. They make you eggs for breakfast, which I think moves their breakfast a notch above those of most other hostels. They have a very comfortable common area with bean bags and a plethora of other places to sit and relax.
Like the previous hostel I had been to, what really struck me about this place was the staff. They basically seemed like other travelers (extremely happy, outgoing ones) who just happened to be working at this hostel for a while and were very happy that you were there for a few days. They would remember the guests names, ask how your day was (not in a rhetorical way) and provide suggestions for what to do the next day. After seeing the staff at this place and the previous one, I was really thinking about how the managers were able to find such good people, and how the staff themselves were able to keep such a good attitude when surely some of the guests are not so easy to deal with.
All in all, this was a great place. Now I just need to go back to Lisbon for several weeks to check out all the other apparently great hostels there.
14 years
The one other place that I wanted to mention specifically is Oasis Backpacker's Hostel in Granada, Spain. This is a really cool hostel in a great old building right in the historic section of Granada. I had been hearing about this place on my last couple trips to Spain and had been wanting to visit and it did not disappoint. The aspect that really makes this place is the building. They have a ground level patio, a rooftop terrace, a dedicated kitchen and eating area, a comfortable common room with computers, and a nice (if a bit small) bar area that connects out to the ground level patio.
14 years
I was traveling for about six weeks total and went to a number of places and stayed in a wide variety of hostels. Some of these hostels were pretty good, some were terrible.
Unfortunately, I encountered the most blatant case of Hostelworld ratings manipulation I have ever seen. I made a reservation at a hostel that was the highest ranked place in the entire city. I was quite surprised when I showed up as the place barely even fit the definition of a hostel (see this thread http://www.hostelmanagement.com/forum/f15/definition-hostel-284.html). In staying there for a couple nights, myself and several other people witnessed the owner ask (beg/pressure/cajole) guests to leave 100% ratings and positive comments on Hostelworld. Apparently, most people indulged the owner in this request. When I went back and read the reviews, most of them seemed contrived. This was depressing because HW ratings used to be my primary method for finding good hostels; the vast majority of the time before this, I had found HW ratings and comments to be more or less fair and accurate. I was really disheartened to see the system hijacked so easily.
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