Help Yourself Hostels - Carcavelos Coast — Hotel in Cascais

It was nice of them to keep my backpack while I went to the beach. They had a problem with overbooking and made me wait at 22:00 for like 30 minutes.They kept saying '5 minutes, 5 minutes'. The people at the reception mostly talked between themselves about what to do and didn't seem mutch bothered about the fact that it's 10 and I'm tired. The fridge is packed with food and the kitchen looks dirty. It's far from everything but the train station. The beds are bad, the sheets and walls are strained, the rooms stinky and packed, the toilets old and wet. The mattress is very thin. They only have 3 bathrooms in the hole hostel. There's a lot of sounds outside and it's soo hot that we need to keep the main window open and theres only a little fan for the whole room. By the way I'm staying in one of the good rooms.... The solution they find was that this couple who sleept in different beds in the room I'm suposed to be in --- well, they're sleeping on the floor toghether now... on the small mattress from one of the beds so I can have a bed. It doesn't matter thet the couple accepted to sleep like this, it's weird, absurd and super unprofessional for the staff to allow something like this. They told me that the hole hostel was packed and there's no more beds available only to ask me later if I wanted a private room. Why in the world didn't they give the couple a private room?? It's not owr fault that the overbooking happened and the hostel should have either find me another hostel or give me another bed ( it doesn't matter that theres a price difference.) --- I've worked in the hotel industry and it's standard practice in this situation. And I'm preatty sure they didn't change the sheets of the bed I slept in because they looked crumpled like someone has slept in them already, but it was so late an I was so tired at this point that I just went to bed. This is the bed that I got --- next to the people on the floor. I traveled around a lot in europe, staied a lot in cheap hostels and I just finished El Camino Frances and I'm one of the people that stayed mainly in the municipal albergues... I never had a situation like this one. The pictures that they have online are not what you'll find, I'll attach some curent ones just for reference. This is more like a bordel than a hostel. I booked in a hurry and didn't read the reviews (last time I'm doing that). Booking should thake this one down...

Deeply Disappointed and Unsafe Experience – Help Yourself Hostel Carcavelos||||I regret to say that my stay at Help Yourself Hostel Carcavelos was one of the most distressing travel experiences I've ever had. Despite this being a non-refundable booking, I'm formally requesting a refund due to multiple serious incidents that made the environment hostile, unsafe, and emotionally harmful.||||From the moment I arrived, staff denied access to the common area, forcing me to wait outside for hours with no support or courtesy. The check-in process was unnecessarily hostile and rigid, and things quickly deteriorated from there.||||Most disturbing was an incident in the bathroom where staff turned off the lights while I was inside, refused to turn them back on, and forced me to leave mid-use so he could clean. This dehumanizing behavior was compounded by frequent inappropriate comments, inconsistent facility access, and aggression from staff when I calmly tried to raise concerns.||||One staff member escalated matters by repeatedly threatening to call the police without cause, simply because I reported poor service. I felt intimidated, disrespected, and entirely unsupported. Attempts to reach management were met with silence, dismissiveness, and ultimately, being hung up on.||||Booking.com refunded part of my stay but has not honored the second confirmed booking, despite me submitting all requested documentation. I should not have been forced to endure such treatment, nor left scrambling for alternative lodging at personal expense.||||This hostel appears to lack professional structure, basic accountability, and any sense of duty toward guest wellbeing. I strongly caution others considering...

There is a lot to say about this hostel but I'm not going to say just bad things because I stayed for two months||||It's a spacious place with a swimming pool near a train station, a wonderful beach for surfing and there are a lot of shops around||||The reception maintenance team is renewed quite often but generally they do their job well, they are people who come from afar for the most part, they are looking for recognition and a better quality of life.||||now we are going to talk about the big problems of this place caused by poor management of a surely negligent owner and one or more incompetent and irresponsible Manager||||During my stay here I saw five assaults, mostly on girls who work for the hostel.||||I never saw the owner or the Manager come to see anything or try to comfort his team, I had to intervene myself on aggressions inside the hostel to make the attackers leave||||we had to leave the place about ten days because of bedbug's||On our return we had no compensation for this and the manager asked us to pay again the tourist tax that we had already paid, we should never have returned||||To newcomers, guests, or workers you can now have your own opinion before coming to these places think carefully many people left very quickly because they did not come to Europe to relive the same scenes of violence as in their country of origin. ||||Cheers and...