A Room in the City - Hostel San Sebastian — Hotel in San Sebastián

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed with the hostel. The rooftop terrace and the patio bar are both closed "for covid." It really ruined the entire vibe of the place. I went to other hostels in the area, and every one had group activities and bars that were open. I stayed in this hostel because it claims it's a great place to meet other like-minded solo travelers, but this is not the case. There is no community here at all. They do claim to have a whatsapp number you can text in order to connect with other travelers. I messaged a question about restaurants and dining recommendations, received a short response from a staff member, and didn't hear anything on whatsapp again at all.

I stayed in a 6 bed female dorm. The beds are nice because there is a privacy curtain, however, there is no air conditioning or fan. The room got so muggy at night I couldn't even stand to shut my privacy curtain. There is absolutely no air circulation. The only option is to leave your curtain open and open the window (the whole six inches it can open) in order to just barely breathe at night. At least add a fan!

Why am I allowed to sleep three feet from 5 other people in a room with absolutely no circulating air, but I can't enjoy a beverage on the outdoor patio or rooftop bar?

The best part about this hostel is the location. It's 3 mins from the beach and 5 mins from old town. It is also decently clean, although the en suite bathroom in my dorm room didn't match the pictures in the slightest.

I think if I returned to San Sébastien, I'd probably look for...

Disappointed would be an understatement.

A bit unusual as I had stayed here before. We arrived at:

5:00pm I went with high hopes but I got a bad feeling when we went to the reception they took all our details and photocopies of passport etc. Only to be told “to go to the other side”. Which meant there are two sides to the hostel. So after this and passing other people who had been told that they had “to go to the other side” as well.

When we arrived over to the other side and queued at the reception while we listened to someone giving out about being sent over from the other side, we gave them the benefit of the doubt considering we were on our holidays and not in any rush. There ended up being a queue of 4 groups and we waited 30 mins before being dealt with again. We checked in and they took all our details and finally we decided to make our way to our room. When we arrived to the room, it was similar to entering a hospital ward. 10 beds were lined up which were not what we expected. We expected more private bunk beds which we had no problem with.

However we had just paid and decided that if we couldn’t get that option that we would try and find somewhere else and we had to proceed with a refund which added on more time. It was disappointing and I can’t stress the frustration of having to spend so much time checking in, it must also be a common occurrence, considering there were numerous disgruntled customers.

By 6:10pm we had spent 70€, got refunded, spent a full hour in the place and ended up booking elsewhere. Shambles. Lovely...

Awful. Awful. There is no air conditioning in the middle of the summer, which is ok due to the location being a cool area most of the year. But they don’t have fans either. It was extremely hot! We sweated all night.. several of us in the room had to get up at 3 am to go take cold showers. We asked for fans and they said they don’t have them.. and the front desk guy tolm in other words that if I siding like it I could go somewhere else. The staff was very unfriendly and rude. The night desk guy told me it was too expensive to buy fans and Spain was going through a heat wave. Sorry to inform you, Spain goes through a heat wave every year…. Hello…. They could have been nicer and empathetic and that would have helped, But they were just outright nasty.. that did it help. The hostel has no atmosphere to socialize with others. Has a bar but was not open.. has a patio but you can’t bent there late even if you are quiet…. Most of the rules were like “you can’t do this and you can’t do that “””. Very unwelcoming. Also. There are 2 windows in the room but you can only open the 2 inches wide so there is no much air from outside circulating. Most of My roommates were also very disappointed and frustrated. I would no recommend this hostel and wouldn’t stay there again…. Too bad because it’s a good location and beds are comfy … but that’s it. ...