Ideal Youth Hostel

Miserable! Horrible! Unfriendly and aggressive!
I've been there for three nights with my girlfriend. The room was dirty. The toilet/ bath was unsanitary; it was never cleaned during our stay. The staff was unfriendly, partly aggressive (an indian coworker even shook his fist at me). They even cheated us (they cashed 35 EUR as refund for the magnetic keycard, but they just payed us 30 EUR back!). They refused to give us the remaining 5 EUR back and didn't engage with discussion). So if you want to have a nice and relaxed time in Barcelona, you should avoid this hostel! I cannot recommend it and would disadvise everybody from booking a room there!

The worst hostel I've never been
I had a private room en-suite, and I couldn't use my bathroom most of the time because there was a leak (and the staff didnt apologize for that, and nobody told us to use another bathroom or to change the room), the staff entered the room without asking at any time (we could be changing our clothes or having a shower or sleeping, and they simply entered the room), one day when we returned to the room after the staff cleaned it, the door was completely open!

Well situated in the center of Barcelona and affordable
I had nice time staying there. The rooms were cleaned daily and everything worked well. Price/quality comparison was great. The staff were nice and helpful.

I really think that it isn't so bad. i've read this about the hostel that isn't true. there are no bugs and there are sheets. you just have to see it for yourself.

The Ideal Youth Hostel is deifinately not ideal, but it wasn't awful either. We stayed for two nights in April, drawn to booking here for the location and inexpensive price. We did get bumped up from a sixteen-person dorm to a four-person en-suite room with a balcony, but it was still kind of gross. No sheets or pillows or even a covering on mattresses and they squeak so loudly you can't move at night or risk waking the entire building. Breakfast was tiny, but at least they provided something. I would suggest emailing for more specific directions to the hostel because they're very vague and you can easily go in the opposite direction from the building. We had to find an English-speaking guy to help us find it. I probably wouldn't stay here again, but if you're a budget traveler it isn't that bad.

A word of warning -- don't let the bedbugs bite. Me and bunch of other guests got bitten during the night, red itchy spots all over the body, though i mostly slept in my own sleeping bag and had the hostels sheets on the bed also. The matress was lousy anyway and the whole place was shaggy, locks on the doors didn't work, locks on the lockers you had to go buy yourself (if you wanted a proper one), peoples bags got stolen from some rooms and you just couldn't feel safe there. Over a month later when i had gotten back home, I started having a very itchy rash, which later on was diagnosed as scabies, a contagious skin infection caused by the itch mite. The mite stays alive for few days in towels, linen, matresses etc., spreading easily to the next person. The infection takes many weeks to develop and for the symptoms to appear and the dates just so happened to match nicely to my barcelona visit. Not a very pleasant souvenir to take with you, i can assure. I'm still being paranoid about those damn mites crawling somewhere in my apartment. All this said, I can hardly recommend this hostel to anyone who cares about their health. Keep away from this hostel, but not from Barcelona!

Hello! It wasn't so bad. The air conditioner was working, the bathrooms weren't so dirty, but the beds are really uncomfortable, they make loud noises and have dirty mattresses. Breakfast is just coffee or juice with a twirl. The staff were quite nice. The best thing about this hostel is the location.

Nah, I wouldn't bother really. Bad vibe — nobody talks to you and the reception people were a bit snotty. I agree that it is okay because it is close to La Rambla, but there are lots of other nice places within walking distance. I stayed for two nights and then went to Kabul.

The hostel is ok, but surely not great. My friends' money and cell phones were stolen during their sleep! People can just open your room if they have a special keycard, which you can easily get at the reception! Our window didn't close either, which was annoying at times. But the rest of the hostel is ok. It was clean, and the food was ok. Something positive: the fire alarm went off one night because someone was smoking in his room, so if there really is a fire, you'll know and can get out of there. :)

As you are probably doing now, I read all these comments before going to stay at the Ideal Youth hostel and thought, no they must be exaggerating. But let me tell you, these people are not! I had my bag stolen from my LOCKED locker within an hour of arriving there. I paid 4 euros for a padlock for one of their lockers. It was such a flimsy little plastic lock they gave me that someone had just snapped the lock open. Several of our bags were taken. Luckily we had had the sense to take much of our valuables with us. As if having our bags taken wasn't enough, the staff refused to acknowlegde that we had had our stuff taken. Even when presented with the broken lock. They were rude and shouted at us and refused to let us even speak to the manager. What's worse is that we found out that the people that had stayed in the room the same day before us had also had their bags stolen out of their locked lockers, and when we were leaving we saw the staff giving out the same locks to the next person who was going to stay there. Either dont take anything with you to Barcelona, or stay somewhere else! Staff were rude, the alley outside stank and we dreaded leaving our stuff there everyday.

We have reluctantly awarded this place one black star as we think it would be an excellent place to keep livestock. If you, like us, have read the comments and are for some reason still tempted to go, realize that we made exactly that mistake and only lived to tell the tale because there were eleven of us friends in one room. Otherwise, had we been alone, we might have jumped off the balcony to a splendid death below, in the urine-soaked, whore-strewn streets. It is a Kafka-esque hellhole, where the locks do not lock, the receptionists answer in barks and all light and warmth is sapped from your young soul. Several of our bags were hilariously stolen within an hour of our arrival, and the staff shrieked at us when we complained. We even tried to offer money (20 euros!) to the bitch at the desk in order to get the manager's number. Surprisingly, our generous request was refused. They took all our money for the stay before we had a chance to escape. This place is the end of the world. Bon voyage!

I'm used to five-star hotels and I fitted in perfectly here. Yes, the beds did make a lot of noise and some people I know got their stuff stolen while they were sleeping (they didn't lock their door). But I must say that if you are careful with your things and lock them up in your suitcase or keep them with you during the day, there'll be no problem at all. I do have to confess that we stayed here with our school and that's probably the reason why we didn't get into any trouble with the staff. Bathrooms were okay. The rooms were small but nothing you can't overcome. It's really not as bad as it seems. I liked it and had a lot of fun.

I have been to more than ten countries in Europe and stayed in numerous hostels, and this hostel definitely is the worst. I normally do not complain much but the attitude of the staff (the Filipinos, not the charming Spanish girls) is just so bad that I felt helpless when I needed assistance. They are always annoyed and yelled all the time. I couldn't get any information from them at all! I do not recommend anyone stay in this hostel. But if you really have no choice, remember not to take the coffee yourself, despite the fact that the ugly old Filipino is busy chatting with other staff people, or she will yell at you and keep nagging for the next five minutes as if you have killed her mother! Also, if you need any assistance just go to the tourist information office, which is not too far from the hostel. Don't ever ask the staff, unless it is one of the Spanish girls behind the desk, because the Filipino staff will not even look at you and they will either answer in one word or tell you that they do not know anything and just continue chatting.

The Filipino staff are rude. They poked at us when we complained that my perfume was stolen and spoke in Filipino language as if no one can understand them. I saw the cleaner opened my toiletry bag when I was just about to go to sleep. Having said that, I met some nice mates here. It's just that the staff are unreliable, bull-shitting and make fun of the lodger. Avoid this crap.

This hostel is fabulous. I stayed in an eight-person mixed room for a week and I never had so much fun in my life. I brought my own bedding so I did not have to pay their prices. My roommates were friendly. There were mostly girls during the week I stayed, which was a bonus. There was constant hot water and the room was always nice and hot. Do check your doors before you leave, including the bay doors, as the staff have a tendency to not lock properly. So give everything a slam. Other than that, this hostel was great fun.