The Anderson Estates — Hotel in Los Angeles

Great mansion, great staff, and formerly owned by an uppity black man in the vaudeville circuit. You would think I found my kinda hostel!

Even considering the lack luster frozen breakfast prepared by the nicest lady you ever want to meet, I still enjoyed breakfast here. It hurt her feelings tho when I shared that I prefer fresh breakfast options to microwave frozen breakfast options, but she understood it wasn't personal. I did try her handmade fruit salad, but who puts bananas in fruit salad that sits at room temprature for 2 hours but a cook who was instructed to keep breakfast costs low? They should have given the cook a bigger budget to buy tree-ripened fruit.

The rooms were cold since it rained most of my trip and the mansion has no heating system, but they gave me a personal heater when I checked in whereas my German roommate received no heater. If your cold, ask for a personal heater. My German roommate checked out on my first morning here complaining of a cold and upset that no one offered him a personal heater. I told him that in America he has to be his own advicate, which the management team proved by the end of my stay.

The manager tried to move me to a new room when my German roomate checked out saying that the rain would flood the room I was in, but after smelling the other room I decide to take my chances with a flood. Turns out the room never flooded, but someone rented the single bed room next to my 8 bed room I was in, so I assumed that the manager tried to move me to give the big spender more privacy. In the end, I had an 8 bunk room to myself for most of my stay here because I paid for the room I was in and recognized that the manager, though nice, valued money over a good guest experience.

I tried to extend my stay here but no matter what you pay on Expedia to book your bed, you will have to pay their non expedia rate to extend your visit, which is close to double Expedias rate. They also have a $20 late check in fee and a $15 cleaning fee which defeats the purpose of booking a hostel on expedia...no hidden fees is kind of expedias mantra. This was the only hostel I ever visited that worked so hard to nickle and dime guests who wanted to extend. However, their $800 monthly rate means I will only stay here when or if I have to spend a whole month in LA. I just hope that 800 covers all of the hidden fees that they don't advertise on Expedia.

It's a shame too bc the staff make it 5 star worthy but the management team is milking everyone for everything they can get. Check out Walk of Fame Hostel and you'll agree that this place is overpriced after hidden fees, uber, and external breakfast cost...

My husband and I had a nice stay. The main problem was some guest who didn’t give a damn about preparing weed cigarettes inside the apartments, but we survived (I even started writing some Scripture verses on stickers and let them upon the remains of pot let on the surfaces).

Since day one, staff was really friendly and helped us with everything. Now I want to say a personal THANK YOU to the Belgium guy who greeted us every single day in our language (Portuguese) and sometimes he even sang some Brazilian songs to us! Thank you, man! You made most of out days, you’re awesome! We ain’t forget you! ❤️❤️❤️

We stayed in a 10-person bedroom, we feared that the amount of people there would be a problem during the night, but we were wrong, most of the guests really followed the “silent time” rule after 11pm. In the apartment we stayed there was a toilet downstairs and two bathrooms upstairs, as we arrived at 7-8pm everyday we could have baths without being worry if there was a line outside or not. Well, another issue I have to point out is the dirtiness of the kitchen during the night, not because of the staff (cause they were there cleaning every single morning) but for some guests that let food scraps in the sink, on the stove and countertop what was an “open door” to some bugs 🐜 🐜🐜. It was really hard to find space inside the refrigerator to put our stuff ~ thanks to our not so friendly buddies!!!

The free breakfast was a killer!!! We are already missing the breakfast sandwich and waffles! 💔! They vary between pancakes and burrito, and waffles and breakfast sandwich, in addition, everyday we could opt for yogurt, oatmeal and fruit salad; there was always orange juice, coffee and milk. Having breakfast in a room full of people from all around the world was AMAZING!!!!

The location couldn’t be better for us as we were riding only the public transport (Metro rails and buses), we were only 5 minutes walking from one of the main routes of the METRO lines (Expo/Western Line). And 7 minutes from a bus line to Downtown LA or to LAX. By the way, if you are riding Metro 🚇 🚌 , consider buying a TAP card for it’s really worthy!

Well, the experience at the hostel was beyond our expectations, we didn’t expect to be happy and amused with it after 15 days,maybe it’s because we really don’t care about comfort and luxury, however, if we are ever going back to LA we are truly booking here again.

And, Mr. Anderson, we expect you in our city in Brazil to hang glide...

We weren’t expecting much prior to arriving but it was still worse than that.||Staff seem friendly, Mr Anderson let us check in early which was good for us. 3 of us stayed in the two bed private room.||Upon entering the room it was visibly obvious that it wasn’t the cleanest. Dead insects on the floor and in the wardrobes, the towels that were given to us smelled strange too. Privacy is really not great in the room, the curtains are incredibly thin meaning that the room will be light from sunrise. You can hear noise from literally all directions of the room and is very loud, you can hear full conversations of anyone stood outside your room as well as the door shutting in the room above.||We stayed for 4 nights and on the first 3 mornings a member of staff tried to walk into our room. We don’t know why on the first morning. The second morning a staff member asked if we were checking out as they had guests who had arrived, it turns out they didn’t realise the room was occupied. The third morning the same staff member came to tell us we had to check out now, we said we had another night she said the system said otherwise we showed our booking and then she left. God knows what would’ve happened if we weren’t in the room at the time.||The location isn’t great, you have decent transport to Santa Monica but that’s it. Our uber driver grew up in the neighbourhood and couldn’t believe that a ‘hostel’ would be situated there, saying ‘it used to be a really bad neighbourhood like really really bad’.||Although none of us personally experienced bed bugs it certainly seems to be (or at least was) an issue.||The free parking is literally because it’s a residential area so you park on the street outside, you’ll have to be awake by 7:30 on Wednesday to move your car for street cleaning. We asked a staff member where exactly we move it to, he basically shrugged his shoulders and told us another street, very insightful!!||I implore anyone considering staying here to read the yelp reviews, specifically the one written by a former staff member who claims that they are forced to write (positive) reviews about the place and describes the property and how it works.||Try to stay elsewhere in LA. If you really can’t then it’s not the end of the world but seriously do not expect it to be an enjoyable...