Sky Hostel

At the time of our visit, this hostel was full of foreign workers. Since they are all male, and the showers and toilets are accessed by walking through the communal area and the kitchen, it's not pleasant for females. The facilities are scant. For example, just two rings and a microwave to cook and only two showers and three WC cubicles. There are no laundry facilities. My husband's mattress must have been infested with bed bugs because he was covered in bites. And reception was never manned.

Upon arriving at Sky Hostel, where we had booked in for three nights, we were initially impressed by the great location and characterful building in which it is situated. The first night was fine, even if the bathrooms and kitchen were a little grimy. There are only two showers that are available out of four and you are asked to limit the duration of your shower to five minutes. Also, there was no toilet roll at several points throughout our stay. However, considering you pay £12 a night, this doesn’t seem too unreasonable… ..... The next night is when the trouble started, however… After being out all day, we returned to the hostel around 11pm. Upon entering our room, we find two strangers in our beds and all of our belongings gone. After some confusion, we resorted to knocking on the hostel owner’s bedroom door. When we asked her where our things were, she laughed and gestured into another of the hostel’s rooms where we found all of our belongings strewn across the floor and our damp towels (that we had hooked on the end of our former bunk to dry that morning) wrapped in a sheet with our clean pyjamas that we had left on our beds. ..... We also had no idea where our valuables were (passports, wallets, laptops) because the last place we had put them was in a safe locker in the other room, which we could now not get back into. ..... When we explained to her how invasive this was, she responded by shrugging and saying ‘it’s not my problem’. Other hostel guests were equally appalled about what had happened to us and had their own issues with the landlady too (she cancels your booking on hostelworld before you check out so that you cannot leave an accurate review). ..... Though none of our belongings had gone missing and we got our valuables back (because the guests in our former room took pity and let us in), it made us feel incredibly violated and unsafe and we checked out a night early as a consequence. ..... We had no issue needing to move rooms. We are pragmatic and understand that these things happen. What would have been appropriate, however, was asking our consent (that morning in person, by email, by phone - all of which were possible) before moving our personal belongings. ..... Furthermore, though we are not ‘princes and princesses who fart perfume and poop marshmallows’ (Landlady, 2 months ago, Google Review Response), there was blood on my duvet (not bedbugs, I checked, but still…), the mattresses were badly stained, the walls had brown stains in places, and the doors to the rooms did not lock. ..... Before the landlady accuses ‘that [we] did not take a shower for two days in hot weather’ (Landlady, 3 months ago, Google Review Response), I can assure you that we showered every day so the smell was decidedly not us… Though we absolutely ‘give a damn about the people working in the hostel’ (Landlady, 4 months ago, Google Review), it would be nice if the people working in the hostel gave a damn about their guests. ..... All in all, I would not recommend staying here and would seek out other accommodation. Also, I would recommend reading the other Google reviews, rather than the reviews on Hostelworld, as they are truly informative.