Lodge In The City — Hotel in North Island

This was my worst hostel experience in the entire world. Almost every aspect was terrible. I am a frequent traveler and only stay at hostels and Couchsurfing, so I do not have high expectations.

THE ROOM. I stayed in a 4 bunk room. It was the smallest space with only a foot between the bunks. The window only had a tiny portion that was able to be opened. As a result, the room was like a sauna. This was made worse by the other guests who had never bathed in their entire lives and stunk up the entire room with a horrible stench. I couldn’t get any sleep because the person next to me snored like an animal. I asked to switch rooms and was told no.

THE OTHER GUESTS. I’m not sure why, but this hostel attracts some of the dirtiest, rudest people I’ve ever encountered. Even sitting in the common room was intolerable because of the body odor emanating from everyone. I overheard many conversations filled with hate speech and vulgar words. It was not a comfortable feeling to be around these awful people.

THE KITCHEN. I understand it’s difficult to keep a space clean when so many people use it, but I cannot describe the level of filth. There are 5-6 fridges and each one is packed with food that smells like its rotting. Some bags were labeled with departure dates 2 weeks in the past. No one cleans out the fridges, so there’s no where to put food. The fridges are CONSTANTLY beeping because the doors cannot close because they’re so full. The oven door was permanently broken and hanging wide open. Half of the burners didn’t work so I couldn’t cook my food. Absolutely disgusting.

THE BATHROOMS. I felt dirtier after I showered because the stalls reeked of urine. The ground was always flooded and the toilets weren’t flushed. It was foul.

THE WIFI. I only stayed here because it said they had WiFi. Yep, a whole 30 minutes per day. Don’t they understand that travelers need WiFi to plan their day and connect with friends and family? It’s a greedy rip off to charge for WiFi when we are already paying for lodging.

THE STAFF. This is the only redeeming quality. The women at the front desk were always kind and helpful. However, there was an incident on my last night. They assigned a disabled man to a top bunk. He started crying out at 4am because he was trapped and couldn’t get down and desperately had to use the bathroom. Everyone in the room woke up and had to lift him down from the bed. Why did the staff do this? Why did the guests have to wake up and help instead of the hostel accommodating this man appropriately?

I will never stay here again. I am so...

DO NOT STAY HERE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!!

I have been here for less than two weeks and I've had nothing but problems. Three days after I moved in, the scanner on the door started to run out of battery and kept locking me out. I contacted the managers for help and didn't receive a response. IF they respond to your query, they will outright lie. I had to contact them again the next day, and was told TWICE that someone was on the way to fix it and no one showed up! Called on the third day of having problems, finally someone came to help and replace the batteries. The batteries weren't from a new pack, they were from a random box. Less than a week later, the batteries have start to run out again. I asked about leaving my lease early due to the unreliable nature of the managers. They told me to send an email, which I did. A week has passed and they have not responded. They dont clean the rooms after a tenant leaves. I put some clothes on the shelf, when I picked them back up I noticed they were stained with yellow dust from the shelves. Only one of the lights work, there was already mold on the window sill when I moved in. The kitchen is revolting. All of the fridges reek of rotting food and it's clear they don't get cleaned out. It's difficult to find clean dishes, if you can find dishes at all. The drying machine on my floor has been broken for a week. There are broken toilet seats that are constantly covered in piss. There is one hand dryer in the bathroom, right next to one of the sinks, so if someone is standing there, you can't use it. Every part of the building has a weird smell. The common area always has either someone blaring the TV at full volume, or people drinking. Birds will there also get into the common area. There is a reception desk but I have never seen anyone there. I'll give it a four star for location as it's a five min walk from cuba street, but it has not at all been worth it.

UPDATE

The second floor dryer has been broken since I posted this review, and the elevator has been broken for a week. there's someone on the third floor with a walking stick which makes it especially egregious that it hasn't been fixed.

STAY...

I'm not sure I have ever had worse customer service in my entire life. Having tried to ring these people multiple times and leaving numerous voice messages to arrange a room for a large group of my friends, a price and a room was eventually agreed upon over text. On the DAY of our booking, I received a very fuzzy voice message which I could only slightly make out the requirement to receive extra funding for the room. I rang them straight back but only (again) got voice mail and found out later that they had tricked my friend who was arriving earlier to pay the extra amount of which we had not agreed. The stay itself was completely unacceptable, I had probably about 1cm between myself and probably the most rusted set of broken springs a mattress could harbour and the cups all had a layer of grime on them. Afterwards when I talked to them about the unnecessary extra payment they agreed to refund the amount as soon as possible. A week went by with no refund to which point (having tried to ring them again) I texted them requesting reasoning for their lack of refund and perhaps they wanted to see the screen shots of our agreed price. To this they thought that a half-refund would be an acceptable recuperation for our losses. Which, it was not. Having (tried to ring again) texted them outlining AGAIN why the full refund was not only fair but required by law, they finally agreed to refund the full price two weeks after our stay. We are still waiting on this proposed refund which has not been paid by...