Dreamkapture Hostel, Guayaquil - Ecuador — Hotel in Guayaquil

This review is slightly biased because we arrived in Guayaquil after two days of all day bus travel. We took day buses because I had insomnia and can't sleep on night buses as it is. In addition, I got a cold while riding on the buses, so we arrived in Guayaquil exhausted, sore from bus travel, and I was sick and tired. We planned to stay in Guayaquil only for the night, so I did my research in advance and saw that Dreamkapture had good reviews for their mattress and bed.

Then and now I am blown away by how (relatively) expensive hostels are in Ecuador, in general, particularly in a non-tourist friendly city like Guayaquil, but I knew that the price to expect on arrival was in the mid $20s. Upon arrival at Dreamkapture, in our exhausted, sore, and sick state, we were informed that the price was actually $34, which we stated must be incorrect since we saw the price already. Miguel proceeded to explain that this was incorrect and the only rooms available were $34. Being exhausted and in a semi-sketchy neighborhood at 9 pm (the taxi driver hesitated when we asked him if it was safe, so not making this up), we did not want to walk out on the streets to find another, more reasonably priced hostel.

After getting to our room, I immediately checked Booking, and the price was $26.50 for the room we were in. Like most people, I really dislike being lied to and taken advantage of. If Miguel or management read this review, I hope they can make some adjustments on how they manage their business. I rarely hand out 1 star reviews, as few places truly deserve such a rating, but in this case I believe the actions of the Miguel justify this rating.

As to the hostel, if I had been charged the correct rate of $26.50, I would probably give the hostel a 3 star place. It's in an objectively bad neighborhood, the title of the hostel is basically a typo, with no obvious symbolism or further meaning to the misspelling of Dream Catcher. The private, unventilated bathroom, reeked of cleaning product upon entrance, so we kept the room fan on while we went to dinner in hopes of clearing the smell. The, AC/fan itself is loud and I had a terrible sleep, regardless of the high quality mattress and bedding. The wifi did not work from the room, so we couldn't research or book a hostel for the next day, which I was extremely motivated to do, given the overcharge of that day. Couldn't book the next morning either from the common area, due to poor internet. The breakfast was quite poor, as most included breakfasts tend to be. The coffee was like drinking hot bitter water, Instant is better. The 200mL juice was a sugar bomb, and the 2 pieces of toast with an egg, margarine and jam were forgettable.

There are definitively better places to stay in Guayaquil if you are just staying the night by the bus station. Hope Dreamkapture can improve their service, their breakfast, and...

My girlfriend and I stayed here on a one night stay after we landed in Guayaquil airport. We were greeted by super friendly staff who were happy to assist us with all our needs. They spoke perfect English and we had a good chat with a few of them.||The rooms are clean and comfortable and quite spacious. It came equipped with a fan which really didn’t do much and therefore the room was quite hot which made it little|difficult to sleep. The rooms were quiet however.||The showers are hot which is great, and the room comes free with soaps and towels.||We ventured out 5 mins down the road for a taco however the area seems really sketchy. We were watched by many of the locals as we were walking and it was as if they found it odd to see two tourists buying food from the local area. We actually felt very uncomfortable and were glad when we got back to the hostel.||The hostel isn’t exactly centrally located but it is handy for the airport.||The hostel also offers breakfast until 10:00am. We left our room at 9:30 but we were told that the lady who does breakfast had left and therefore we were unable to have breakfast. This was really frustrating.||The hostel offers beer and water for sale which we took advantage of.||All in all not a bad hostel and I would recommend a short stay here if you are looking for somewhere...

The hostel looked quite nice and we had some good first impression. The guy at the reception checked us in and was showing us the room by opening the door, turning on the air condition and handing us the keys (15 seconds). As we later opened the bathroom a weird (very chemical) smell could be smelled. It came to the other room and gave us headaches. I don't know (and do not want to know) what they were trying to fight with these chemicals. Because we could not get rid of the smell, we were asking the guy at the reception who said he will check and then DID NOTHING for about half an hour until his shift was off. The next guy said he does not smell anything (which is very weird) but was friendly and after talking to the owner we could get our money back (because no other room was available at that time).

The whole thing seemed on purpose to me but I can imagine that the stay could have been good in another room and 2/3 persons were at least...