Hektor Design Hostel — Hotel in Tartu linn

Coming here for a day or two is "tolerable", but still unpleasant. Staying long term however, as they offer residency, is multiple times worse which is what I will be commenting on.

If you ever want to lose your sanity and say goodbye to any sense of peace or quiet, this is the place. You will be crammed in with ignorant and clueless tenants, often foreigners who seem unable or unwilling to grasp even the most basic rules of living with others. Concepts like respecting silence, maintaining cleanliness, or simply not disturbing people around them appear to be foreign ideas. Raising these issues is pointless. Management is incompetent, and the tenants you confront react like hostile children, playing the victim and blaming everyone around them for their own shortcomings.

Management, for its part, does not care in the slightest. Rules are written down but never enforced. Any promises made during the agreement or written into the contract are nothing more than fairy tales, nice-sounding words that collapse the moment problems actually arise. What you get in reality is noise, chaos, and a complete lack of accountability from those who should be responsible. Do not expect assistance with your inquiries. Even the simplest requests are ignored, forgotten, or delayed, just to be told "unlucky".

The building is wedged between a club, a highway and a train track, subjecting it to almost constant, unavoidable noise. Ventilation is minimal to nonexistent. Shared spaces and their contents are functional but in questionable condition, largely due to the behavior of certain foreign tenants and that is not only my own opinion, but also the managements. Walls and doors are thin. Rooms are adequate only if you accept extreme minimalism. Beds are very small, even for shorter individuals. The bathroom is cramped and smells odd no matter what you do there. The floor there is poorly designed, prone to flooding the entire bathroom when showering. As one person put it, it’s “about one step up from a prison cell.”

Another thing worth noting is the so-called 4-5 star reviews. Most of them come from shallow, blind tourists who care more about parroting clichés or external details than describing the actual experience. If you look past the meaningless lines like “the city is so nice” which have nothing to do with the hotel itself, you quickly see that this place has nothing to boast about. Look at 2-3 star reviews to actually see proper reviews and the reality of this place.

Pay a bit more elsewhere, and you’ll get a far better experience, both short-term and long-term. Would not...

It is very much what you see is what you get, so I'm not going to mark it down for not being high-end or fancy. Would've given it 4 stars otherwise, but sadly cannot rate the sleep quality at all. ||I don't mind the no reception/staff concept and having codes for doors does make it easy. However, in case of issues it does kind of leave you at a dead end, particularly at night. In our case, we arrived at Tartu when it was less than -10 degrees outside, and while the heating was on full, it just wasn't enough to heat up the room with very high ceilings, so had to wait until the next morning to be able to ask an extra duvet from the cleaners (which they did happily give us). The duvet is pretty thin & the pillows, while not horrible, definitely not great either. Same for the mattress. Other than the cold, we found that the beds were quite small - we're both about 165cm and averagely sized and even we couldn't fit our limbs comfortably at times. The pipes also make quite a lot of 'white noise' at all times; definitely an issue for light-sleepers.||Decor is fine, though a little inconsistent. The hallways have a really intense industrial colour scheme, and then the rooms are almost like a one-up from your grandma's sauna-house. I didn't mind the industrial, knowingly half-finished IKEA vibe, but I do think it would benefit from some light laminate to tie it altogether a bit better. However, in general I was happy with the room. It was decently sized for the budget, and our twin had a functioning kitchenette with a microwave, kettle and a fridge. Bathroom looks nice enough, but as others have said, it does have a slight damp smell (nothing like old English houses, though!), probably because the shower nook itself is just a little too small to keep the water from not flooding. We didn't hear much noise from our neighbours or outside (windows were facing away from the main road) except in the morning (doors in hallway). ||The location is good. It's about a 10min walk to either the train station or central; next to a hipster-restaurant area & there's a grocery shop nearby. ||It's probably a decent shout for smaller people in average weather, but any extremities, I would probably recommend a...

The bed is for midgets. The room is minimal to say the least. About one step up from a prison cell. One very thin duvet, one hard pillow and one small towel for a shower. The hotel is next to a 24 hour building site which will keep you awake all night. There is no air conditioning so if it's hot you are out of luck. When you open the window for air the construction noise will make your teeth rattle. it's also next to a main road so you can hear the hotrods and motorbikes screaming up and down. ||They will charge you 5 Euros for breakfast which may seem to be a bargain but it's full of single wrap cheese, cheap meats and diluted orange juice. ||This place has decided how much money they can save by not supplying things to the guest rather than charging a bit more and making it like a normal hotel.||Oh and don't book if you don't like the colour yellow. It's as bright as the sun with yellow paint everywhere. It's also all open wiring and straight concrete lines so no character at all. Hopefully they will have so few guests that they close within six months and a decent chain takes it over. Why did I stay for four nights you might ask? I like to give hotels the benefit of doubt and see if the staff can work with the guest. This staff was not to be seen, and everything closed for the weekend. ||Oh and I forgot to mention the tiny bathroom and even tinier shower where water flows into the hallway if the shower head is at the wrong angle.. The tiny bathroom has to be shared by two people as well. They have some sort of kitchen area where nobody could get a drink never mind cook a meal. It's just for show.||There's a KGB torture dungeon down the street. If it was painted yellow you would think ou were in...