Little Drifter Canberra — Hotel in District of Canberra Central

-Good for a two star hotel. Average for a hostel. Ok for a night but not if you want/need a comfortable experience.||-Bathroom clean, shower cubicles too narrow (body touches condensation on walls).||-Room floor and desk not clean. Dusty chair. Food and rubbish on floor. Bed pillow ok. Bed comfy. Doona with rusty colour marks, I hoped were clean stains. Dirty grease, wax and food powder on desk. Hair and tiny bits of dirt in room locker. But room overall deeply clean enough otherwise (but for chair dust longer term).||-Nice large desk in room, window with ventilation to courtyard with trees.||-Door lock system not helpful. On final day before check out, twice door codes changed or locked on me resulting in me having to make two trips to reception (once in my bath towel) and while packing up. And the service support's communication meant I was left not knowing that if I had needed to re-enter my room I wouldnt know if the reception had restored my code or not. I was a couple of min late for my coach as a result (lucky it hadn't left yet).||- During night (a Monday night), doors slammed up and down the corridor till very late into the night - waking me over and over and over each time. A little raucous noise carried from the pool room to mine on the late night but not much.||-A simple place - things flow well apart from time obstructions associated with cleanliness and door locking system- has most of basically what you need, and clean in kitchen. |Could do with some hand drying towels-system in kitchen and more functional handwash in bathrooms and kitchens. People left their dining tables dirty. ||-Kind staff though one just a little too brief in communication, making it hard to get the right answers to questions to solve problems for beyond the present moment.|Plenty of power points in bedroom. -No smelly rubbish. Good air temp at night.||- Suggestions: No matter how quiet your room vibe, wear ear plugs to bed (for the door slamming in the corridor). Bring well charged phone with space for third party app to know your business (grrr!), warm clothes for wearing in bed in Canberra, a towel ("Booking.com" at the time of booking said linen supplied but I arrived to find towels were not, which is pretty consistent with hostels anyway). Ask the hostel to provide a plastic card system as back-up for getting into rooms in future. The codes thing making me locked out and having to waste time awaiting door code service from reception came at inopportune times.||-Great central location for walking to commercial retail district in Canberra. Great Anytime Fitness nearby, wonderful Canberra Theatre, lovely shaded Glebe Park, local library, good sushi joint next door. Ten minutes walk from coach terminal.||-My intent was to write a plain and factual dot-pointed account of my stay as a detailed guide for others. I am very familiar with hostel-type accommodation. This is pretty standard for minimalistic average but yes mostly clean hostel accom. Due to the key system and some other personal preferences I would try another hostel next visit, if I found that there were an alternative to try. In saying that, I wouldn't not come back here again - the location and cost suited my needs. Time taken upon booking at home with uploading apps and writing questioning the service about another third party app they then referred me to (with unnecessary |personal info to fill-in) (and discussion about personal information collection), was a bother, not to mention while staying there with having to take either my phone or trust that the door codes hadnt failed. ||The door codes thing, I can see the benefit in - no need to carry a plastic card, but then it has to be a tiny bit more fail-safe by working well, for me.||For budget accom, it's fine enough. It has all the elements of budget accom but I felt the doors locking on me was...

I stayed here for 3 nights. The place has potential to be nice but there’s obviously some serious issues with how they run the place. I couldn’t seem to catch a break as a new issue would arise every time I’d return to my room.

Pros: Location is decent Rooftop area can be a nice place to hangout App system is modern and convenient 2 pillows was nice to have

Cons (see below for more details): Electrical wiring is dodgy Maintenance and housekeeping staff don’t respect your stuff or do a complete job. I slept one night without pillow cases.. Top bunks don’t block out any light. Recommend taking an eye mask. No shelf or anything on the bed to store phone, water bottle, etc. unlike most other hostels I’ve stayed at Showers and toilets were not great Had to buy a towel (thankfully not too expensive) but there was so much dust and fibres in it that I felt less clean after drying off than I did before I got in the shower. Would be nice if they wash the brand new towels first to avoid this App locked me out of the hostel and my room before checkout

Had my phone plugged in to the power point via usb and when the bunk below me turned on their light it cut power to my phone. After that the power point didn’t work at all. They “fixed” it the next day while I was out and when I got back I plugged my charger back in and it sparked and cut power and lights to the room. They reset the fuse and I tried the other socket. Same thing happened. I ended up getting moved to a different bed. The next night they then put someone else in that same bed without fixing the power point. I also found one of my shirts and water bottle in a communal space the following day. Turns out the maintenance guy had taken it off my bed to fix the power point and not returned it. I mentioned it to the front desk. Not long after that housekeeping went through and made my bed, again taking stuff off my bed and leaving it in the communal space. There was no info about beds being made throughout the stay otherwise I would have made sure to take stuff off. After talking to staff it seemed like they weren’t even meant to be doing my bed in the first place. They also left me without pillow cases. I went down again to the front desk to mention it and they said they’d be straight up with some pillow cases. I got back later that evening to find there was still no pillow cases. On my last day I had selected 10am check out on the app. I got back at 9.40 to grab my bag and the app had already checked me out so I had no way of getting either into the hostel or my room as the key is electronic and accessed via the app.

Overall it seems like there’s a major problem in how the place is run and a serious lack of f’s given by the management/staff. I’m a bit confused because there seems to be a bunch of really positive reviews which helped in my decision to book the place. But my personal experience was anything but positive. I’m hoping I just had an unlucky run and that it isn’t like this...

Update: The Village I stayed only one night (luckily) and has been NOT a good experience.

First when I arrived at 1130 am the doors were closed and nobody was at the reception. I was tired and it was cold outside. I rang the bell and called the number on the door multiple times but nobody replied. A man who was working arrived and needed to get in to swap the free cards and posters there, and he couldn't get in either. Then a host got out and so let us in and warm up. There was a sign n the counter saying we'll be back in 15 minutes. After 30 mins nobody still there. In the meantime other 2 guests came in for check in and we opened the door for them. The man who was there for work couldn't access a room where he needed to swap some posters but gave up as he couldn't wait longer, and went away.

A guy who's brother works in the hostel called his brother but he wasn't working that day. This guy went to look for the hostel people himself and found them, and after 45 mins I was there one girl and a guy came and I could check in.

The worse thing was that they new I was arriving at 1130 as we spoke via email just one hour or so before my arrival. I was afraid I could be late and they said oh don't worry we have a 24hr check-in service. They also new that I had a medical appointment far away at 2 pm so I didn't have much time to waste. So because of the delay I had the time to just go to my room for a minute and run away to get the bus to Queanbeyan for my doctor appointment.

What upset me the most was that when they came, the receptionists said nothing, just pretended nothing happened. They didn't apologise nor gave any reason for making us wait for so long. When I said to the girl: you knew I was coming at 1130, she just said yes I saw your email. Unbelievable.

Then I had a lot of trouble sleeping in the dorm. The room was incredibly dusty (see photo) and it was difficult to breath. I had to move to the bed above so I could stay a bit farer from the dust in the corners and on the floor. It was also incredibly hot and I asked the guy to lower the temperature in the room multiple times. Even when he turned it off completely, it was hot and difficult to breath in the room and we had to open the window to be able to get some clean air.

There were no plugs near my bed and other beds, the only plugs available were near the beds next to the window so I couldn't charge my phone over night. The two light switches for the whole room were placed one next to the entrance as it should be and the other one next to one of the beds (!). In the bathroom there was no soap in the dispenser.

All this is not fair considering that we pay good money to stay in this place. I paid 44 dollars for one bed in a 8-bed women dorm. I encourage everybody to make reviews even when they are not happy so at least we speak up and the situation can improve. Otherwise they will just keep...