Hostel Pirwa Colonial — Hotel in Distrito de Cusco

What to say about Pirwa? Of all the places I stayed in Peru, I have the most mixed feelings about this hostel. ||||To start with the positives:||1. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION! This place is in the best spot. It's a 2 minute walk from the historical centre of Cusco. It is located in the corner of the San Fransisco Square which is also beautiful. It's a 20 minute walk from Sacsayhuaman. It's in a fairly flat part of town which is nice since the stairs in Cusco are killer! Anything and everything you need is at your fingertips here.||||2. Safety. This place has 24 hour reception and you need to buzz in order to get in and out. It leaves you feeling very safe - Nobody will enter this place who shouldn't be here. ||||3. Appearance. Pirwa is very cute, with lots of plans and nice little seating areas.||||4. Pirwa has a kitchen, so if you want to save money from eating out, you can buy groceries and cook for yourself.||||5. Breakfast included. The breakfast here was very basic, but similar to the other places we stayed at. There was a lovely woman who served breakfast. I enjoyed this. They had delicious tea.||||The negatives:||1. Atmosphere. This place doesn't have any at all. The bar didn't open until 6pm. If you wanted to buy beers, you had to get them one at a tam (ie. can't start a tab) from the front desk. This was really annoying and a terrible way to do things. One day we drank them all (they only had a 6 pack) and they didn't restock the next day so we couldn't have a beer. The bartender was great but she was only there for a week. There's nobody to meet or chat with. Everyone just sits in the lobby facetiming with loved ones back home. To say that it's boring here is an understatement.The bar is also blasting music from 6pm til midnight or later, even though nobody is around. Can make sleeping annoying and it certainly doesn't add to the atmosphere. ||||2. Wifi. The wifi at this place was awful. It basically didn't work at all in our room and was very spotty everywhere else.||||3. The facilities. We had a private room with private bathroom. Thank goodness, because the shared washrooms were freezing cold and I was just grateful to have my own. It took about 2 hours from when you flushed your toilet to the next time it would flush. Sometimes we would have water, sometimes we wouldn't. Our room itself had only 2 plugs, one in the main room, and one in the bathroom, meaning that if we both wanted to charge our phones, and charge one camera, we couldn't. ||||Overall, the location of Pirwa is great. Certainly if it weren't in a good spot, I would not recommend this hostel at all. Staying in a private room, we were comfortable enough. If you're looking for anything out of your hostel other than literally a bed to sleep, I would recommend going elsewhere. If you're staying just maybe for 1 night to sleep, then this is a good spot. Or if you have full busy days planned and don't want to meet anyone or have drinks at the hostel, this one would be good. We were just let down by how sleepy this place was (compared to literally everywhere else we stayed).||||Like I said, I have very mixed feelings about this place. Not sure if I...

Initially I approached the hostel to see if I could transfer the deposit I paid at another location which I was unable to fulfill. Although the deposit was not refundable or transferable (as expected) a discount was kindly offered. The private room rate is reasonable, had an excellent private bathroom and good shower. However it did smell very strong of paint when first opened - maybe just lack of airing as it seemed to go away. The bed was very squeaky! The entire hostel is painted white but shows the dirt and really needs a new coat to keep fresh. Breakfast is substandard but I never expect much. The only real let down for me is the lack of help offered when my credit card didn't work in the machine and almost caused me to miss my flight. I believe this to be a obvious case of 'head office bureaucracy' that does not allow flexibly or individualistic assistance. Very good may be a little generous but overall I was happy...

This hotel has an excellent location on san francisco square. It's affordable and with some adjustments could make it to excellent.||The good: location, really right downtown. The staff was friendly and helpful. There are a lot of places to sit around. It was quiet. Yes there is a bar on premise but the noise was very low and overall very little people in it.||The meh: exceptionally small kitchen, two people can't cook at the same time, which is not ideal in a hostel with many guests. ||The shared bathrooms were very cold. Hot water took a little time to come. ||The not so good: kitchen had no utensils, like just 4 forks and spoons. Barely any plates or other cutlery. No kettle for fast boiling of water.||A great place for a night or two but not...