Let me tell you about the worst hostel I have ever experienced. I booked a private room with Hotel Utopia, but I realistically would have been more comfortable and probably safer sleeping on the ground in Vondelpark. The staff was rude, unhelpful, and unbelievably shady (when I asked one of the employees for his name following a verbal altercation regarding the state of the room/hostel, he responded with "Why do you need to know my name?" And then with a smirk, heavy middle-eastern accent, and clearly sarcastic tone, said, "my name is Jimmy"). My room was on the top floor of the building, and without air conditioning or a functional window, the room was incredibly hot and stuffy - I had to use a Pringle can to keep the 10"x10" window propped open. And when I asked for a fan from a employee, she scoffed and quipped, "um, no, this is a hostel". Wifi was spotty at best, inoperable and unusable mostly. The walls were paper thin (with holes, even! And graffiti), and any time someone on the floor flushed the communal toilet, the (albeit random?) sink in the bedroom would gurgle loudly. Additionally, there wasn't even a shower on the top floor. Within the bedroom itself, the mattress was caved in in the middle, and was so short that with my 6' stature, my legs hung off the bed. The room was ridiculously claustrophobic, and the building as a whole was clearly neglected - knew that in the event of a fire, I would, in all likelihood, not have made it out alive, between the insanely narrow staircases, the lack of large windows/fire escapes, etc. There were even signs posted in the stairwell indicating that, in the event of a fire, it was "the responsibility of the guests to contact the front desk" seemingly before even contacting authorities, additionally indicating that none of the employees stayed on-site to address issues in the evening. Believe me, this as it was is an abbreviated list of the neglect by which this "hotel" is maintained. read more