Argdivan Hostel — Hotel in La Fortuna

What a fantastic place! I'm more or less a travel novice, but this was easily the best hostel I've stayed at yet! The hosts were simply incredible. They went out of their way to make sure guests were warmly welcomed, well-oriented, and fully prepared to enjoy their time in La Fortuna. It felt more like a community than any other hostel I've visited, with guests frequently planning outings or sharing rides or enjoying communal dinner. There was a WhatsApp group for guests to coordinate plans and activities and get advice, which worked out fantastically well. Each night I was there the hosts arranged a trip to the hot springs, followed by a group dinner. Most days they suggested and helped make arrangements for some suggested daytime activities; I went on a sloth tour they coordinated and had an unforgettable time watching a baby three-toed sloth climbing around above my head! Overall, a truly wonderful place. I was so sad when I decided to stay in town an extra day and they were already booked full! I would strongly recommend this hostel to anyone traveling to La Fortuna on a budget or looking for a friendly atmosphere. It was particularly great for someone like me who came to town not really knowing what to expect and with only loose plans and limited experience navigating such a place alone. I can't express enough how great my stay here was, and...

Dirty, smelly, poor quality facilities, overpriced rooms and rude manager. The entire hostel smelt of wee as soon as you walked inside which was really unpleasant, the dorm rooms were very stuffy and hot with the only window being a window that led to another inside room so practically no ventilation, small fans in each bunk which weren’t enough for a 10 person dorm room. I originally meant to stay in a dorm but changed to a private room which had a broken toilet door handle meaning it didn’t close unless you slammed it multiple times which isn’t great in the middle of the night with people sleeping. The bedsheets were stained as well as the shower floor having black blobs and hair still stuck in the corners. The fridge was dirty and all furniture and kitchen facilities were very poor quality. The manager was very unwelcoming and you’re just seen as a $ to her. I wouldn’t pay any more than £5 per night for the dorm room, it is way overpriced for the lack of quality of the facilities. However the other staff were very friendly and helpful, the hostel is decorated nicely so it looks very appealing unfortunately it all changes once you’re...

I would give it 0 stars if I could. The room has a really bad chemical smell and when I confronted the staff about it- their response was “That’s all we have available”. The explanation for the smell was that they treated the wood’s recently and since the room has Air Conditioning, the smell won’t go away and we could choose to leave all the doors and windows open to not have such a strong smell- but that’s also very unsafe considering the hostel doesn’t have enough lockers. There are close to 36 guests staying and only 14 lockers, the staff response: “You can hope for one of the lockers to be available during your stay and grab it before anyone else does”. In my previous version of the review I had mentioned there were only 6 lockers but the hostel called me and asked me to correct it since the owner was not too happy with the inaccurate information:)

However: Special shoutout to Margo for helping me out, she helped resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Lara was kind too but she could not help me with any resolution.The staff is nice and kind but these issues are something that the hostel management...