The Naughty Squirrel Backpackers Hostel

- Lots of bed bugs

- In response to your comment, I did notify the front desk lady in advance of checking out later so I can visit the library right when it opened because it was closed the day before. The lady who was in charge of check out on Monday, June 30 needs to have basic customer service training (otherwise I would’ve given you a 10 star rating - she was that rude)! Also, the hostel was not fully booked. My room was 40% sold in the 4 nights I was there. While I appreciate you standing up for your staff this is a friendly reminder that without paying customers their job wouldn’t exist!

- I met some nice people at Naughty Squirrel, however, in the 1,000+ hostels I’ve stayed in over 75 countries I never came across someone so rude as the lady at the front desk while checking out on Monday, June 30. I informed her in advance I was going to be checking out late because the Riga library was closed the day before and I wanted to visit it at 10am when it opened (I ended up checking out 40 minutes past 11am) and she told me it wasn’t possible and she had to charge me 10 euros. At first I told her I didn’t think it was fair to pay because the hostel is empty anyways then we agreed on 5 euros. Then she changed her mind and told me I had to leave immediately and the cleaning guy physically threatened me to leave as well. I still can’t believe a place with such high reviews would treat their customers this way. Now I know why everyone told me Cinnamon Sally is better!

+ Rien

- Par où commencer… Je dirais l’odeur de canalisation, de pisse et de rat mort. Ça pue partout, il n’y a aucune fenêtre (et quand il y en a elles sont bloquées). Pour lutter contre cette puanteur, ils mettent du désodorisant pour les toilettes donc ça pue encore plus. J’ai passé deux jours avec la nausée. Pour le reste tout est maculé de saleté c’est immonde. J’ai fait changer mes draps qui étaient tachés de pipi et troués, pendant que le monsieur me disait que ça a été lavé malgré les taches (bah jette le à la poubelle alors). Mon lit superposé bougeait littéralement trop il y aura sans doute un accident un jour. Bref catastrophe du début à la fin. Heureusement que mes compagnons de chambre étaient sympas. N’y allez pas pour ce prix là dans des villes bien plus touristiques et sympas, on trouve dix fois mieux. Je leur conseille de commencer par faire le ménage tous les jours.

+ Not many positives unfortunately, except for the location.

- Check-in was only available more than an hour after the stated time (although it is peak season, and somewhat understandable, so this is the least of my concerns). Upon eventually checking into a private room on the 4th floor, there were multiple wasps in the room. Even after attempting to close the windows as tightly as possible, more wasps seemed to be able to find their way in, presumably through cracks in the window. I have an allergy to bees and did not enjoy having to continually try and kill the wasps to avoid being stung. Furthermore, keeping the window continually closed in an upper floor room during hot summer days was also not ideal. (I heard that another guest had to borrow tape from reception to tape up gaps in the window to prevent wasps from getting into their room too, so I suspect there must have been a nest brewing somewhere outside). The hallways of the hostel had a foul stale urinal stench. Continuous loud door slamming throughout the hostel well past 5 am meant zero sleep. I had originally booked and payed for 4 nights. I checked out after 1 night, citing the wasp issue as one of the primary reasons, which should be understandable. I requested a partial refund and was assured that the manager would contact me, likely via email, regarding this. I have not heard from them for 4 days and now left the country. My attempt to follow up via booking.com message has been ignored. I am a very frequent traveller and this is the worst accomodation experience that I have had in recent memory.

+ It’s in a good location.

- Staff member AJ got arrested on bar crawl, proceeded to pick fights with multiple guests on different nights. One toilet was clogged for 3 days straight which means the bathroom probably never gets cleaned at all. The vibe in the hostel also is really bad.

- Noisy. There is bar on stairs. No air-conditioner.

- 사물함 열쇠 보증금 5유로 냈는데 아침에 체크아웃할때 사람이 없어서 못돌려 받았다. 아침에 사람이 없으면 미리 애기해줘야지.