HOSTEL GREENLIGHT — Hotel in Taganga

It's situated up the hill, so it's one of the furtherest away hostels from the beach. However this is a bonus in my view, as is quiet, and it takes no more than 10 minutes to walk down the beach or up the hill. However it's one of the most expensive hostels in Taganga, for instance compared to one of the best hostels in town, such as the D'Mer, which is nearest the beach but at the last block of the town, so equally quiet. The Green Light hostel is newish, so you're first impression of it is good. However we had unpleasant experiences one after the other, as follows. ||||When we arrived we said we had a booking.com reservation (for the price of 90.000 cop at night, not including the 16% tax), they said it didn't matter, and would give us the room for 100 cop at night. Not sure why they said that, perhaps they didn't want to pay booking.com for their service or didn't want to pay the council tax. ||||We were taken to a double bed room and we put the air con on. We went to the swimming pool, and the water was opaque. I told them it was dirty, they said there had been a lot of wind (implying that it brought sand and dust in, I guess) - which it was true about the wind, but I think it's still their responsibilities to keep it clean. Actually most swimming pools are dirty with sand and dust in the Colombian coast, so don't choose a hostel for the swimming pool if you want a clean one. So we went down the beach, which I had not intention to, that was why I had booked a place with a swimming pool away from the town centre. When back in the late afternoon, the room was still hot. We told them the air con had not been working, and we were able to change the room.|||| In the next room there were water on the bathroom floor, we told them and a guy came in with a mop. We left the room for 10 minutes so they could find what the problem was - well in my imagination! When we went back the water was back too! So we tried to repair it. We found out the air con pipe was disconnected, so we connect it, then we tighten the sink pipe too. We transformed in plummers on our holiday! ||||Afterwards my partner went to buy water, as their prices were so high. At the shop a 1.5 lt bottle costs 2.000 cop, they sold a small 0.600 lt bottle for 4.500 cop! Much much higher price than in the best Tatanga restaurant! When my partner returned with the water, the night porter told him that the day after "I will sell you the water". He had been very unpleasant with my partner, who was let in the hostel only10 minutes earlier, but this second time - seeing he had the water with him - he told him he should be wearing the hostel bracelet! (we saw no one wearing it, and nobody gave us one). Surprised by the reaction, we red again the drinks list. We noted that it was written that clients CANNOT take into the hostel any drinks nor food. What did we book in? A prison? What would be their next step? would they check our bags? Not even at the Four Seasons they would dare to put on a sign like that. And this was a HOSTEL! ||||Inside the hostel is very noisy at the ground floor, as the 4 bedrooms are near the reception, the swimming pool and the kitchen. However staff didn't make any effort to keep quiet. So at 11 pm I was still awake. Then it quietened, but soon I could hear a walky-talky. After a while I thought it belonged to the Police, so I went out to check what was happening, to discover that the walky-talky was being used by the night porter! Thankfully he switched it off as soon as I told him. The second night was difficult too, the light went off at around 10pm, which from the noise point of view was bliss, as everyone went to bed. However we couldn't have the air con on, and we had a hot night. ||||The morning after the first night we went for breakfast, which consisted of 2 slices of toasted bread, 2 scrumbled eggs, butter, a slice (a slice!) of papaya. To drink we had a small glass full of ice with fruit juice. I cannot tell what fruit it was as it was so watery, probably maracuia or lulu. Then a cup of coffee ,,, well a small cup of coffee and the coffee didn't even reach the middle of the cup. Too shocked to say anything there and then, the morning after I was prepared. When I finished my half a cup, I asked for another cup. I was told that I would incur an additional cost! I informed the waitresses / room lady that the cup was only half full, so I was given a second cup of coffee for free. ||||Happy to leave the hostel after breakfast, my partner went to pay the bill, expecting to pay 200.000 cop for the 2 nights. Surprise surprise, the bill was 234.000 cop! The reason, according to them, we had booked a fan only bedroom, but then we got the air con one! She said she asked if we wanted air con, but we have no recollection of this, and certainly there is no way that she told us the price was 117.000 cop a night! I showed her our booking showed the room was 90.000 a night, and we should compromise at 100.000 cop a night. I added we didn't use the air con the last night anyway. She replied all town was without electricity, and I responded this was not my fault and they should have a property electricity generator. She proposed we paid 1 night with air con and 1 night with fan only (pity we couldn't use the fan either...), so se ended up paying 220.000 cop for the 2 nights, including vat tax. What could we do if not paying up? There was still no electricity and we couldn't contact booking.com. We asked for a receipt as we'd hoped in this way they would pay their vat tax and not keep the extra money in their pockets; as you can imagine we were made to wait for the receipt, so we left without one. Further, we discovered that foreign do NOT pay vat tax! So we really feel money was...

Don’t let the pictures fool you! This hostel is HORRIBLE! We paid for two people, two beds and when we showed up they tried to give us one bed, even after I showed the booking clearly stated we paid for two beds they moved us. They even tried to charge us more money even after seeing the picture I received from them for the booking for less. Then when we got to the room you cannot turn on the AC, turns out you have to pay an extra 20 mil (Columbian money) to receive air conditioning. I showed them booking.com states “each air conditioned room” and that it said no where it would cost more and they refused to give us air conditioning without paying. Everything you read online is untrue. Check-out times are different, the pictures look nothing like it does in person, nothing is maintained. The view at the top is very nice however the pool up there has 5 inches of green water with trash in it and is out of order. There is trash/building materials laying around everywhere that is broken and not even picked up. This hostel has great potential if it was kept up and if what it says when you book for||Prices and AC is true in person. Only the glass entrance photo is true. No one even stayed here besides us and now I know why. It is in a good location. Take care of your guests better, don’t try to upcharge prices in person and if it says air conditioned room but you have to pay more it must stay that when you book. We didn’t have time to switch hostels at that point. Other hostels in the same town are very similarly priced so do not waste...

DO NOT BOOK DO NOT BOOK This is why; we booked a 3 bed room but what they didnt write. is that the room itself is birds nest, roof is made of leaves they were spider webs inside and no killa on the beds while the room has only one window that u cannot close we asked to switch to. another room and it had cockroaches inside. the crew does and sais whatever they want for example the cook that was in the kitchen when we asked for breakfast started screamin at us sayin that the other cook got fired so its not her job to cook for us, one of the crew. said that breakfast is till 10am and when we came half an hour before they said its closed and when we asked to talk to the manager the crew said that theyre. not authorized to let us talk to him/her the pools always remain dirty aswell so make urself a favor and think twice before....