R.K. Hostel — Hotel in San Diego

R.K. Hostel isn't a terrible chamber of horrors like Lucky D's hostile hostel on skidrow. It's small and informal, apparently most popular with older guys, possibly the same men who'd be renting the old SRO -- single room occupancy hotel -- that Lucky D was lucky enough to snatch up and rent to airy-headed Europeans too oblivious to realize they're paying top dollar to live in a slum.

The guy who runs the desk here -- he opens around 7 pm -- is nice, unssuming, and a life-long player in the US experience. This is in contrast to the people they've apparently snuggled in from the remote planetary corners to snap at us at Lucky D's.

I started my R.K. Hostel experience with a young, well-educated and possibly terrified guy. He was my only roommate. After talking with him a while, I went to sleep. A few hours later, I awoke and noticed that the guy had packed up and vanished. Possibly he is unaccustomed to sleeping near a cow. I need to know what drove him away. Maybe it was my knowledge of the airport? Maybe I snore? I need to know. A log should be mandatory at the hostel: "I fled this room because...."

Keep in mind: if you can't get into that hostel on 6th near University in Hillcrest, come here to RK in Little Italy. If everything is full except at Lucky D's, consider sleeping free with the others living on the sidewalk out front by Lucky D's door on 8th Street.

Skidrow in San Diego is known by many pretty names. My favorite is The East Village (of the purely destitute). Another is The Gaslamp Quarter, a name that references the minimum that a panhandler will accept.

Stay in Hillcrest if possible, the ITH or something Balboa Park (they don't want to scare the homophobic in advance). Then, if that's full, stay here. Little Italy is just as expensive as Hillcrest buy not as...

I straight-up told the receptionist that I didn't have a good stay, and he proceeded to tell me why that wasn't true.||||When I got to the hotel at 1PM, I was told check-in wasn't until 7:00—ridiculously late for a hotel or hostel of any kind. I was able to put my stuff behind the counter, a mercy because I ended up walking around town for six hours. When I got back to check in, I waited in the dark lobby for someone to come back to the desk. The check-in process took forever because everything was done by hand on paper slips.||||In the lobby, there are pieces of 8½ x 11 paper taped everywhere, and all of them are rules and penalties. From the moment you walk in, you feel like you're not wanted there. There's a $10 deposit for the key, for some reason.||||No towels in the bathroom, you gotta bring your own. I dried off with a T-shirt.||||Checking out, I said it wasn't a great stay, and he asked why. I told him, the service wasn't great—for example, check out is set at 11:00, and I waited at the front desk at 10:50 but the staff didn't show up until 11:02. Why can guests be penalized for lateness but the staff don't seem to give a damn? When I told him how long I had been waiting, he said, "What do you mean? I just went upstairs real quick. We're short staffed, we don't have people who JUST do front desk." He then pointed out that I could have called the hostel while waiting at the front desk to get someone at the counter. Well, sir, that sounds like it's your problem, just like the rest of everything in this wretched hellhole which somehow costs the same amount as the really nice hostel up the...

10/10 would not recommend going here. The place is disgusting, couldn’t even spend one night here as it is way too over priced to sleep somewhere that you could catch a disease! First we arrived and check in is meant to begin at 8:00am and the owner didn’t arrive until 8:30 after ringing several times and getting no answer. So we were locked outside with all our luggage for someone to make an appearance. The place smelt like urine all around which just made the place unappealing from the very beginning.We were then told our room wasn’t ready and asked to sit outside while it was cleaned. The room had a fridge which was full of fly’s both dead and alive. We went into the kitchen which again was full of flys and somewhere you could not eat anything because of the smell and the unclean environment that it was. Dogs being kept in reception leaving the smell of urine around the whole building and somewhere I and my friend did not feel comfortable staying at all. As we were not going to spend the night we went down to reception and nobody was there all day and again nobody answering the phone as we rang numerous times. Eventually we found someone who worked there who appeared rude when we requested a refund as we were not going to spend the 2 nights there and had found somewhere else. As we were leaving to go to another place to stay we found a giant cockroach crawling around the floor. Save yourself time and just don’t go there and spend your money on somewhere else. It may be cheap but once you get inside it’s really not...