República Hostel Santa Marta — Hotel in Santa Marta

Well...||The place is quite badly taken care of. From an architectural and design point of view, the common places around the pool and the bar look very nice, great, they have good vibe with a lot of vegetation, nice colors, nice music all the time, the space is very well organised BUT! ||- the showers dont function too well. On the right side, out of 4 one had no "head" so empty cabin. In one the water couldn't stop until i called somebody, in one cabin it kept leaking after i stoped using it.||- THERE WAS NEVER SOAP AT THE TOILET! This was by far the most amazing thing! In the era of coronavirus, when all the planet stress the importance of hygene (and generally speaking Colombia is a good example, responsible and active), Republica says "noo, no soap here, tourists should get their own soap"... ?!?! Wow! Who goes to the toilet having the soap in the poket?! Dios mio... Soap at the toilet is a BASIC, ELEMENTARY rule! Is not spoiling! This was the first time ever when a hotel refused to provide soap at the toilet. ||- sometimes there was no toilet paper either in the toilet. And there were like... maaximum 10 people in the whole hostel :)) Today i tried all the cabins on the right of the reception and none had paper in the middle of the day. ||- the doors of the toilet cabins don't close easily. You have to push and pull and rise the door for that. ||- no coffee (paid, of course). ||- ants on the beds (lucky for me i saw them in the last day, after 4 nights sleeping there)||- the staff is hm.... unfriendly, especially the blonde girl Natalia (i guess). I felt i bothered them everytime i asked something.||- they messed the payment. When i extended my stay first they took more money, then after i told this, it took a lot of time, unpleasant time to figure how much money did they really mess, this after the guy who i guess is a kind of manager said "well...it's only 5k... here, take it" BEFORE the calculation, and then they gave me 5k in plus so i had to tell them again that the calculation is wrong. ....."a lot of care and attention" for the guests :))||- i gave to the laundry some clothes to wash and they lost one pair of underwear. ||- i booked a bed in a 6beds dorm but i slept alone in the room 3 nights out of 4 and used another bed and they made me pay in full for that even though... i didnt prevent anyone from sleeping there. Anyway, i used the lingery, they had to clean it so there is a bit of reason for that but considering that before that they lost my underwear (!) and that there was no request for the bed maybe should not ask the money for a full day for that bed. Of course i paid.||- the showers and toilet cabins were dirthy. Especialy the "white" wall tiles in the shower... ||- the rooms were noisy from the outside (nobody fault)||||-...

I'd like to warn anyone against staying in this hostel. Following eight months of travelling around South America this is possibly the worst hostel I've stayed in. Aesthetically it is very nice, however, the customer service and charging policies seriously need to be reviewed. I'll put my complaints into points to avoid this review running too long.

1-My friend and I booked the same room several hours apart and were charged 8,000cop(25%) more for the slightly earlier booking. Apparently there was no way to change or refund this.

2-In an attempt to offer some compensation I was told I would have a 8,000cop discount on my breakfast. However, the morning of the breakfast I was told this wasn't the case and the staff demanded I pay more.

3-I feel there are some issues with security; during my time staying there two guests had large amounts of cash stolen from their rooms. This was on two separate occasions and different rooms.

4-The consumables in the hostel are grossly overcharged. I understand the need to make profit but charging 5,000cop for a 800cop bottle of water from exito is ridiculous.

5-Some members of the staff have a seriously strange approach to customer service. For example demanding the names of guests who are attempting to relax. What is more, I was ordered to go to the ATM (after I had offered to pay twice) because the hostel has no change; something that somehow became my problem.

6-Finally, the showers. The showers are awful. You have to pull a chain constantly to make the water flow. Many showers don't have chains and even in the ones that do, it's impossible to wash yourself with two hands.

I'm summary, this is a chain of hostels that focus more on profits than the customers. Put quite simply there are better places to stay in...

I had an very bad and unsettling experience with one of the staff members (the male volunteer) at the hostel. After returning from a bar with others, I found him waiting outside my dorm. He explicitly expressed a desire to sleep with me, despite not having shown interest before and we even didn't know each others names. I firmly told him I was not interested in sleeping with him. Then, he followed me inside my dorm, and initially, I thought he might be assigned to the same dorm, but it turned out he did not belong there. He attempted to sleep with me again. After I declined his advances once more, he left the dorm, and I walked to my bed to sleep. Despite rejecting him twice, he came back again. Later, while I was in my bed with the curtain closed, he returned and further invaded my privacy by opening my curtain of my bed. That was making me feel extremely unsafe in what should have been a secure space. I had to loudly demand that he leave, so he'd fear waking up the other dorm residents if he didn't follow through. His behavior was completely unacceptable, especially considering his role. It left me feeling anxious and sleepless, especially since the dorm did not have a lock; I worried he might return again.

On a brighter note, another volunteer, Erica, was incredibly kind and supportive, which I greatly appreciated.

Given these circumstances, I'm giving this hostel one star, hoping they understand the need to take this incident seriously and implement preventative measures to avoid any future, potentially more...