HOLLYWOOD HIGHLAND HOTEL AND HOSTEL — Hotel in Los Angeles

I finally arrived at this hostel after a struggle finding it due to inaccurate directions that not so much implied, more or less stated outright that it was on the opposite side of the street from where it actually was. I walked up the steep flight of stairs, and after being directed to the reception room (which is rather curiously placed and not immediately obvious upon entering) I waited to be served behind a large group of about 6 or 8 travellers- while an extremely young and unconfident receptionist worked at the pace of a slow loris that's recovering from an anaesthetic to serve this extremely large group. When she had (finally) finished serving the whole lot of them, rather than moving on to serve my patient self, she proceeded to 'show them to their room'. Um... in EVERY hostel and hotel I have stayed in before, the receptionist trusts that the guests are intelligent enough to find their own rooms. So she goes away with the entire group, leaving me alone awkwardly in the reception room for several moments while she shows them to their room. She finally returns and I ask to check in. She then tells me I need to pay a $10 cash in hand deposit for my room key. (I wouldn't have minded but the details on the booking site said nothing about this so I hadn't withdrawn the necessary cash.) I say I don't have the cash on me and she says I will have to find the nearest ATM, which is in the liquor store below. I go back down the stairs to the liquor store to make the withdrawal, then go back up the stairs to find... an empty reception. The girl is nowhere to be seen. After several moments she finally reappears; I give her $20 in cash (the ATM only gave me $20 notes) and she scrambles for some time in the drawers for change before telling me she doesn't have the change. By this time I'm getting extremely irritated (not to mention I've been bursting for the toilet this whole time) so I tell her not to worry about it, just keep the $20. She says she will find me the change, and leaves me alone in the room... again... for several moments. She finally returns with the change, gives me the key and checks me in. She then says she will 'show me my room' (the hostel's so damn tiny I don't know why the staff have this instruction) and takes me to a room just two doors down from the reception. She then insists on giving me the 'guided tour' of the hostel. I ask how long this will take, she says not long and gives me the aforementioned tour- which consisted of her standing outside the reception door and gesturing in various directions to signal where each facility is. (Surely just telling me would have been sufficient enough?)||||After this I am finally left to go to my room (and finally get to use the toilet) but I find myself in the smelliest, shabbiest, dirtiest, most unkempt hostel room I've ever seen, in a place that clearly doesn't employ cleaning staff. The room is tiny and incredibly cramped, with hardly any space between the beds. I have been given sheets for the mattress but they don't fit the mattress and I end up just sleeping on them instead. The only air conditioning is one large fan but that alone is not enough in the sweltering heat of LA, and the whole place feels like a sauna both day and night. There seems to be no security, with the rooms frequently left unlocked, and given that the reception is often empty and the door on the street wide open (in an area with a high concentration of homeless junkies, who we could hear fighting on the street outside) anyone could get in off the street and steal from/cause trouble in the place. Although there are bathrooms, the bathroom facilities are the worst I've encountered anywhere- broken equipment, dirt everywhere and a complete lack of soap. After one rough night in the intense heat, and after hearing from other residents that dodgy characters frequently come in from off the street and cause trouble, thefts are not uncommon and the manager is apparently some shady gangster type who frequently yells abuse at the guests and his staff, I decide enough is enough, I'm not risking my safety and my belongings under this roof a moment longer, and I book a better hostel down the road, pack my bags and check out early. The kid who's on reception this time (more confident than the girl but seemingly a mere slave to the shady manager) is not surprised at all that I'm leaving early, indicating it happens all the time. He is very apologetic and says he would jump to give me a full refund if he could, but he is not allowed and has to abide by the no refunds policy. By this time I'm happy to cut my losses though- anything to get out of this godforsaken hellhole.||||It's no surprise at all to read other reviews and see that other travellers have also had the same experience and checked out early from this dump. Given that it seemingly happens every day, this place is pretty much a criminal establishment, robbing unsuspecting travellers of their money by taking it all when they check in and then refusing to refund them when they check out early after seeing how diabolical the place is. I know we don't exactly expect luxury accommodation when booking cheap hostels, but this place is just ridiculous, there's no management or security, they care zero about their staff and their guests, the place is dangerous and little more than a seedy hovel run by crooks out to fleece the public. ||||In short: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS DREADFUL EXCUSE FOR A HOSTEL. There's a lot of much nicer hostels in the Hollywood area (I went and stayed instead at USA Hostels down the road which was brilliant). This place is beyond the very bottom of the barrel, it's the deepest, darkest recesses any place could sink to, and needs to be closed down by the authorities...

I finally arrived at this hostel after a struggle finding it due to inaccurate directions that not so much implied, more or less stated outright that it was on the opposite side of the street from where it actually was. I walked up the steep flight of stairs, and after being directed to the reception room (which is rather curiously placed and not immediately obvious upon entering) I waited to be served behind a large group of about 6 or 8 travellers- while an extremely young and unconfident receptionist worked at the pace of a slow loris that's recovering from an anaesthetic to serve this extremely large group. When she had (finally) finished serving the whole lot of them, rather than moving on to serve my patient self, she proceeded to 'show them to their room'. Um... in EVERY hostel and hotel I have stayed in before, the receptionist trusts that the guests are intelligent enough to find their own rooms. So she goes away with the entire group, leaving me alone awkwardly in the reception room for several moments while she shows them to their room. She finally returns and I ask to check in. She then tells me I need to pay a $10 cash in hand deposit for my room key. (I wouldn't have minded but the details on the booking site said nothing about this so I hadn't withdrawn the necessary cash.) I say I don't have the cash on me and she says I will have to find the nearest ATM, which is in the liquor store below. I go back down the stairs to the liquor store to make the withdrawal, then go back up the stairs to find... an empty reception. The girl is nowhere to be seen. After several moments she finally reappears; I give her $20 in cash (the ATM only gave me $20 notes) and she scrambles for some time in the drawers for change before telling me she doesn't have the change. By this time I'm getting extremely irritated (not to mention I've been bursting for the toilet this whole time) so I tell her not to worry about it, just keep the $20. She says she will find me the change, and leaves me alone in the room... again... for several moments. She finally returns with the change, gives me the key and checks me in. She then says she will 'show me my room' (the hostel's so damn tiny I don't know why the staff have this instruction) and takes me to a room just two doors down from the reception. She then insists on giving me the 'guided tour' of the hostel. I ask how long this will take, she says not long and gives me the aforementioned tour- which consisted of her standing outside the reception door and gesturing in various directions to signal where each facility is. (Surely just telling me would have been sufficient enough?)||||After this I am finally left to go to my room (and finally get to use the toilet) but I find myself in the smelliest, shabbiest, dirtiest, most unkempt hostel room I've ever seen, in a place that clearly doesn't employ cleaning staff. The room is tiny and incredibly cramped, with hardly any space between the beds. I have been given sheets for the mattress but they don't fit the mattress and I end up just sleeping on them instead. The only air conditioning is one large fan but that alone is not enough in the sweltering heat of LA, and the whole place feels like a sauna both day and night. There seems to be no security, with the rooms frequently left unlocked, and given that the reception is often empty and the door on the street wide open (in an area with a high concentration of homeless junkies, who we could hear fighting on the street outside) anyone could get in off the street and steal from/cause trouble in the place. Although there are bathrooms, the bathroom facilities are the worst I've encountered anywhere- broken equipment, dirt everywhere and a complete lack of soap. After one rough night in the intense heat, and after hearing from other residents that dodgy characters frequently come in from off the street and cause trouble, thefts are not uncommon and the manager is apparently some shady gangster type who frequently yells abuse at the guests and his staff, I decide enough is enough, I'm not risking my safety and my belongings under this roof a moment longer, and I book a better hostel down the road, pack my bags and check out early. The kid who's on reception this time (more confident than the girl but seemingly a mere slave to the shady manager) is not surprised at all that I'm leaving early, indicating it happens all the time. He is very apologetic and says he would jump to give me a full refund if he could, but he is not allowed and has to abide by the no refunds policy. By this time I'm happy to cut my losses though- anything to get out of this godforsaken hellhole.||||It's no surprise at all to read other reviews and see that other travellers have also had the same experience and checked out early from this dump. Given that it seemingly happens every day, this place is pretty much a criminal establishment, robbing unsuspecting travellers of their money by taking it all when they check in and then refusing to refund them when they check out early after seeing how diabolical the place is. I know we don't exactly expect luxury accommodation when booking cheap hostels, but this place is just ridiculous, there's no management or security, they care zero about their staff and their guests, the place is dangerous and little more than a seedy hovel run by crooks out to fleece the public. ||||In short: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS DREADFUL EXCUSE FOR A HOSTEL. There's a lot of much nicer hostels in the Hollywood area (I went and stayed instead at USA Hostels down the road which was brilliant). This place is beyond the very bottom of the barrel, it's the deepest, darkest recesses any place could sink to, and needs to be closed down by the authorities...

Okay so let me give some background: we booked this a week in advance and I looked at the reviews on the way to the hostel. Reviews were mixed to say the least as you can see; some saying it was the worst place ever, other were singing it's praises. I'm my opinion, it is more the former though not entirely. To give you an idea of what this place is like, Google asked me if this place was more of an indoor lodging than a hostel... I believe it might be.

Location: The location is great if you want to be in the heart of Hollywood because it is right on the walk of fame opposite the Chinese cinema. That being said, Hollywood can become a tad sketchy past 8pm. If you are someone who wants to feel safe in the neighborhood they're staying in this is probably not the place for you. This is exemplified by the fact that the various staff were having a conversation with one another about how many times the liquor store owners next door were beaten up while working the store. Furthermore the doors are left open for the world to come into, we experienced this one night after we were rudely awoken at 3am by a man looking for "White Boy". My friend proceeded to tell him that there were 4 "White Boy's" in the room and that he would have to be more specific. All in all the location is inherently given its also very close to the Metro, however you have to take into account the environment of the location too.

Bedroom: We stayed in a room for 6 people i.e. 3 bunk beds. The room itself was quite small and not the nicest however it did the job and I had few complaints. Yes the mattresses were past their time and a bit squeeky but they did the job. More comfortable ones exist, but so do less comfortable ones. The size of the rooms makes it a bit difficult to store luggage etc and have room to still move about.There was a working AC which was fantastic so I have no complaints there.

Bathroom: the bathroom was an ensuite which is great. The bathroom itself is far from it (and we had one of the nicer ones). The bathroom floor is raised from the bedroom floor so there is a weird step making for a tripping hazard. The tap is fine and so is the toilet (the seat is slightly broken). The shower is where the issues occur. The shower has a wonderfully diverse microenvironment of mould on the walls and ceiling. There was a tonne of mould also on the shower curtain until that was changed, I can only imagine that this was changed for the first time it was change in a few months at least. This made showering experiences quite unpleasant despite the shower pressure and temperature being perfectly acceptable. I mentioned that this was one of the nicer bathrooms as we saw a bathroom that had a shower over a bath as opposed to a standalone showroom. The bath tub floor was disgusting and dwarfed our shower problems; thus I'm sure this issue is present in all rooms.

Food: There is a complimentary breakfast of cereal and coffee. We decided to skip this every morning mainly because the table only sat 2 people and there were people there more often than not.

Staff: The staff were lovely and friendly, they if anything improved the experience and always had a smile on their face.

Price: This place is the cheapest hostel on Hollywood Highland and yeah obviously for the price one shouldn't expect the world. That being said I would personally pay more for a better experience. Equally a private room in an Airbnb comes to about the same price and I would definitely do that next time! There is one more thing I would like to mention that I want to tread carefully about. As this is the cheapest place it does tend to become (like I mentioned earlier) an indoor lodging. Some people who have been staying on the streets will stay there which is fine obviously. We had someone like that in our room who was lovely and we enjoyed having him to chat with but I think it is something that should be taken into account.

In conclusion, it should definitely drop the hotel part...