Check in was a pain in my butt, but the staff was patient and made efforts to assist me in resolving the issue. Communication in person was decent. By message was not.
Yesterday I had a hellish time getting to Australia. My Hawaiian Airlines flight malfunctioned at take off and had to turn around. So I missed the first night of my reservation. Some places will cancel your entire stay for that so I emailed them to let them know and make sure they'd keep my room. By the time they responded I had already landed in Australia, still unsure if I had a place to stay.
I started to just ditch the reservation and get a room at Moxy Sydney for comfort and to be in the city, but I travel for the adventure so I headed out to Bondi with my fingers crossed.
Found out they don't take Amex, they don't take USD, and my debit card was acting erratic. They suggested I go to the ATM for AUD, which was great, but for an international hostel, I'd expect different currencies as part of doing business. Anywho, my card didn't work at the ATM so I came back and just after I'd asked her to run it again and before we saw it was approved, I'd gotten the idea to ask to charge the card on file electronically. She said she hadn't suggested it because they don't like to do that, it may charge guests on the other end. I can respect that. It all worked out and check in was eventually a breeze.
Here are the things:
Stairs. I was briefly surprised that they didn't have an elevator. If you have heavy luggage, be prepared to climb at minimum one full flight of narrow stairs with it.
Size/layout. It's smaller than other rooms, especially for a mixed one. The rooms are NYC small so be prepared to just sleep in the room. There's plenty of open space elsewhere in the facility. The room is suffocatingly stuffy at times during the day. There is a window but there's no screen/nothing to prevent bugs getting in.
Bathrooms: Lines. I may have lucked out at other hostels or I've not been at one this large, but I'm not used to a wait. The bathrooms were clean enough, I saw a large cleaning staff but there were broken/empty soap dispensers. You'll need to bring your own everything to this one. Shower shoes, towel, soap, etc.
Decent place if you don't wanna spend more than you have to. Excellent place if you just want the beach location. Lots to walk to and see. Metro nearby. Restaurants, convenience stores, shops. read more