Pop House — Hotel in Parroquia Manglaralto

Before I start, I'd better just point out that I have made many contributions to trip advisor and have never given less than 3 stars before, so I am not a serial complainer or difficult to please. However, this place took the biscuit. To start with the positives, this place is very cheap - the only reason we originally planned to stay for a couple of weeks. It is away from the noise of the road and the town at night. It also has a communal kitchen and a large flat screen TV next to the dining area. But the negatives go on and on and on...||||To summarise:||- We had to clean our own room. I have never minded commune life, so didn't complain - but this wasn't offered to us in 12 days. Whilst looking for cleaning products I nearly poisoned myself by inhaling chlorine from an unmarked bottle in the kitchen, which is presumably used in the owner's jacuzzi.||- We were offered one bar of soap and one toilet roll throughout our stay.||- We were offered clean towels only once during our stay and clean bedding once, only when I asked for it. I attempted to look for more towels and bedding but found only a stack of dirty washing. This was due to the tumble drier having broken and no attempt being made to fix it.||- We were given a damp set of drawers to put our clothes in, which we had to request. I lined it myself to stop our clothes from going mouldy.||- The room was full of large spiders and infested every night by huge ants. I know this can't always be helped, but I think a proper clean every day could have mitigated it.||- Albeit away from the noise, dogs barked every night and a cockerel from next door would start crowing at 4am every day. Not a problem unique to this hostel, I know, but something to be aware of nonetheless.||- The neighbours also have a pair of vicious ducks who attack guests every time they try to leave or return to the hostel. This sounds like a joke but it's actually not so funny when they peck your ankles repeatedly!!||- The room smelt so badly of damp that we had to keep the fan on at all times to minimise it.||- The shower was either only freezing cold or scalding hot, and pressure dropped so badly during our stay that we had to take the shower head off to be able to use it at all.||||You may ask yourself on reading this why on earth we stayed for 12 days. Well, like I said, we are very easy going people. Added to this, we made the stupid mistake of paying for two weeks up front (something we will never, ever do again). Although it was cheap, it wasn't worth losing out on more than 2 days lodgings. And the straw that broke the camel's back? Well, on the eleventh day of our stay, there was no running water at all. We didn't moan in the morning, but spent the day on the beach and were shocked to return and find still nothing and no explanation. We asked what was wrong and were told an engineer was on his way to fix it. He never turned up. The excuse changed. By 8pm, there was "no water in the whole of Montanita". Before making a fuss, we popped into the town to check - and sure enough, the first three hostels we came to had hot running water. We went back, told the manager (Andres) and asked for a refund for the night. Given what we had been subjected to, this was not unreasonable. However, we were told there was no money kept on the premises.||||It gets worse. That night, we can only assume in revenge for our terrible request, we were woken up by a knock on the door at 1:30am insisting that the incredibly bright "security" light outside our room was to stay on all night for "the cameras". Funnily enough, this request had not been made before on any of the previous 11 nights.||||The next morning there was enough water for a shower, but on returning from the beach that afternoon,again, no water, no explanation and to be expected to stay for two nights in a hostel where you couldn't use the toilet, was enough to drive anyone to despair. We left that night, sacrificing the last two nights' lodging payment. I wouldn't wish this place on my...

My boyfriend who is from Guayaquil and I decided to spend a weekend in Montañita which we've done before a few times. We made reservations and went Friday night and also made reservations for 4 more friends there. In total we reserved two matrimonial rooms and one double or whatever they had for two friends. When we arrived we were happy with the surroundings and the room was nice although more worn down then the online photos show. The woman then told us that there was no water, that there had not been for 8 days, and that it was going to be fixed in the morning. We are chill people who were happy to be on a minivacation so we didn't mind too much as they promised it the next day anyway. Sure enough in the morning the water came on and we went on our merry way. We spent a long day on the beach and got covered in sand. So we took the 15 minute walk back to the hostal to shower before dinner. As soon as we arrived the woman told us there was no water and didn't apologize, but got defensive and rude and said the whole sector had no water. So I called up some friends who were staying in town as well and we walked less than a block away and showered their with no problems. ||When are friends came later on in the day we led them to the hostal and the woman then told us that "her boss" cancelled our reservations and now she only had a four single bed room available. The reason for canceling our reservation was that other people came looking for a couples room and since it was "the weekend" they gave it to them?? We don't really understand any excuse you could give for canceling reservations while we were already there. On top of this, the woman gave us such a snarky attitude about it and made it seem like we were spoiled for being upset that we didn't get the rooms we reserved and planned for. We didn't even get an apology from anyone who worked there yet again. Also when our friends questioned about the water, the woman changed her story and said there hadn't been water since the new year. ||I get it, it's hard to get water further out of the city, but don't lie about it, and either give us a cheaper rate or offer us bagged water or something. Don't try and make your guests feel bad for being a bit shocked about no water, you don't expect to be at a waterless hostel for 20 dollars a night 15 minutes away from the city.||We left the next morning to what looked like the relief of the people working there. However, I did see one of the men working there being incredibly nice to an American family with young children. Maybe they just have harsh judgements against the young adult crowd.||We ended up questioning around some hostels near the end of the beach by the point about their rates. A room on top of the ocean with a nice environment runs around 15-25 in that area. My suggestion is to stay there instead of you want your money's worth and...

We booked one night here at the beginning of our stay in Montanita since I had reserved our intended hotel one day later and it was not available when we arrived. It was the most affordable option given the circumstances and for $40 total I won't complain too much. Honestly we did not experience to much of the place since we arrived late and proceeded to our intended hotel first thing in the morning. We had a room in the main building. It served it's purpose. But it was not as clean as I would have preferred. The beds were clean as far as I could tell but the rest of the room was quite dirty. Also the window would not shut all of the way, allowing bugs to enter. Also there was not any hot water, it was just warm enough to shower, but I soon realized that this was common in Montanita. The young man who checked us in was very nice. Overall good value, good location if you want to get away from the constant loud music of the town center and don't mind walking, but some better attention to...