The Hostelz.com Review
Katoomba Mountain Lodge is a hostel you won't easily forget with its strange but charming interior design.
The Location
The location is pretty good for backpackers. It is in walking distance to the train station and right next to the city centre with eating and shopping options. The major sights of town can also be reached through a short hike, but there also is a public bus going there. Beware if going by car -- the address is a bit misleading. The actual access to the hostel is from its backside -- from the town's main road and not from Lurline Street.
Rooms and Bathrooms
There are rooms and bathrooms on several floors with a concentration of dorm rooms on the lower levels. The rooms are pretty character-free but spacious. Staff try to keep them clean but the floor and sinks (one in each room) are a bit old and might need to be replaced. There is a mix of bunks and single beds, all of which are in ok condition just as the mattresses. We can't say for sure but we had the feeling that some of the sheets don't get changed when new guests arrived. There is a system of having single sheets and a heavier fluffier blanket on top (without a cover), but unfortunately a lot of people don't know this system and use just the heavy blankets, which do not get changed in between guests.
Toilets and showers (separate) are on the hall. Toilets are ok. Showers are catastrophic, though. There is a time switch in each shower and if you turn it on, the ventilation automatically kicks in. This is a good idea to prevent mold in theory, but the ventilation is so strong and works through a window that cannot be closed that there is almost a storm in the shower -- a really cold storm! Add to that water that is either cold or really hot and you want to clean yourself in the sink in the dorm. Cleanliness of the bathroom facilities is ok.
Common Spaces
All common spaces feature kitschy (fake?) wood paneling. There is the little kitchen (a bit too small maybe) with a constant lack of cups but otherwise decently equipped and presentably clean. Next to it is the large dining room with a lot of tables and chairs but not much else, which leads to most people eating in a kind of living room that is across the hall and includes couches, a TV, books, and a fireplace. There is an almost exact copy of this room one floor deeper down. This one has a lovely extra though -- it connects to a big terrace, which affords pretty views over much of the surrounding neighbourhood and nature.
Summary
This isn't a pure hostel but also largely caters to travelers with higher budgets, but it still is a good place to meet people, especially since everyone hangs out in front of the fireplaces in the evenings.
The Location
The location is pretty good for backpackers. It is in walking distance to the train station and right next to the city centre with eating and shopping options. The major sights of town can also be reached through a short hike, but there also is a public bus going there. Beware if going by car -- the address is a bit misleading. The actual access to the hostel is from its backside -- from the town's main road and not from Lurline Street.
Rooms and Bathrooms
There are rooms and bathrooms on several floors with a concentration of dorm rooms on the lower levels. The rooms are pretty character-free but spacious. Staff try to keep them clean but the floor and sinks (one in each room) are a bit old and might need to be replaced. There is a mix of bunks and single beds, all of which are in ok condition just as the mattresses. We can't say for sure but we had the feeling that some of the sheets don't get changed when new guests arrived. There is a system of having single sheets and a heavier fluffier blanket on top (without a cover), but unfortunately a lot of people don't know this system and use just the heavy blankets, which do not get changed in between guests.
Toilets and showers (separate) are on the hall. Toilets are ok. Showers are catastrophic, though. There is a time switch in each shower and if you turn it on, the ventilation automatically kicks in. This is a good idea to prevent mold in theory, but the ventilation is so strong and works through a window that cannot be closed that there is almost a storm in the shower -- a really cold storm! Add to that water that is either cold or really hot and you want to clean yourself in the sink in the dorm. Cleanliness of the bathroom facilities is ok.
Common Spaces
All common spaces feature kitschy (fake?) wood paneling. There is the little kitchen (a bit too small maybe) with a constant lack of cups but otherwise decently equipped and presentably clean. Next to it is the large dining room with a lot of tables and chairs but not much else, which leads to most people eating in a kind of living room that is across the hall and includes couches, a TV, books, and a fireplace. There is an almost exact copy of this room one floor deeper down. This one has a lovely extra though -- it connects to a big terrace, which affords pretty views over much of the surrounding neighbourhood and nature.
Summary
This isn't a pure hostel but also largely caters to travelers with higher budgets, but it still is a good place to meet people, especially since everyone hangs out in front of the fireplaces in the evenings.
— Exclusive Hostelz.com Review
October 2011
Their Description
Katoomba Mountain Lodge is a friendly home away from home with a cosy atmosphere. We are situated in the heart of the Blue Mountains. Join us in the months of June, July and August, as we celebrate the Magic of Yulefest in the Blue Mountains.
Katoomba Mountain Lodge is a quaint yet grand old 18 bedroom Guest House. The Lodge is situated in the heart of the Blue Mountains, just moments away from the town centre, nearby attractions and scenic walks.
We offer a relaxed and friendly service as well as family hospitality. Your traditional Blue Mountains holiday experiences, at an affordable price.
Relax in our cosy guest lounge or enjoy a home style meal in our dining room, beside a blazing log fire. Comfortable, cosy heated bedrooms.
Our Facilities Include:
Free wireless/broadband internet
Free Coffee & Tea
free off street parkings.
Double, Twin, Single, Family
Heated Bedrooms
Log Fire
Cosy TV Lounge
Dining Room
Equipped Kitchen & laundry
Sunny Outdoor Patio & BBQ
Games Room
Discounted Blue Mountains & Jenolan Caves Bus Tours & other activities.
Bike & Car Hire
NRMA 2 .5 Star Rating
Katoomba Mountain Lodge is a quaint yet grand old 18 bedroom Guest House. The Lodge is situated in the heart of the Blue Mountains, just moments away from the town centre, nearby attractions and scenic walks.
We offer a relaxed and friendly service as well as family hospitality. Your traditional Blue Mountains holiday experiences, at an affordable price.
Relax in our cosy guest lounge or enjoy a home style meal in our dining room, beside a blazing log fire. Comfortable, cosy heated bedrooms.
Our Facilities Include:
Free wireless/broadband internet
Free Coffee & Tea
free off street parkings.
Double, Twin, Single, Family
Heated Bedrooms
Log Fire
Cosy TV Lounge
Dining Room
Equipped Kitchen & laundry
Sunny Outdoor Patio & BBQ
Games Room
Discounted Blue Mountains & Jenolan Caves Bus Tours & other activities.
Bike & Car Hire
NRMA 2 .5 Star Rating
Katoomba Mountain Lodge Details
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Map Location/ContactHow is Katoomba Mountain Lodge rated on other websites?
Not listed.
Katoomba Mountain Lodge Reviews on Other Websites
Small and cosy; everyone was very friendly. Easy to get information about anything from the owner. Clean and usable kitchen and bathrooms.
— Customer review (2012-01-06)
Hostelbookers
Good location and comfortable shared areas.
— Customer review (2011-12-14)
Hostelbookers
friendlt welcome , good advice about walks around the 3 sisters. clean room. great tv rooom and kitchen
— sam fuller (2011-11-20)
Hostelbookers
Old style building lots of character
— Customer review (2011-01-17)
Hostelbookers
Good location. There is also not many beds in each dorm, 3 bed dorms available quite cheap. Man on reception quite friendly when we arrived and gave us map and directions for walks.
— Heather Merry (2010-11-02)
Hostelbookers
very freindly staff and an great athmosphere. Nice rooms.
— Customer review (2010-09-05)
Hostelbookers
Good location to get to the hiking tracks and only 15 min walk to the echo point and the three sisters.
— Verena Wahl (2010-04-21)
Hostelbookers
The location and facilities were ok - if we had had a nicer experience there then I am sure I would not feel as negative about the place. We were kept awake until 3am by loud, drunk and rude guys in the room next to us. They came in very late and should not have been allowed to stay the night in the state they were in. During the night there was noone on the desk so there was nothing we could do about it. We couldnt change room and we couldnt report them to the reception. The next day we reported this to the reception and said we were not going to stay another night - there was vomit on the floor and we felt unsafe. As we had paid for 2 nights we asked for a refund for the second night as we were going to check out and go home early. Unfortunately, the cancellation policy is 24hrs prior to stay and we were refused a refund. We didnt stay that second night as planned and lost the $78 we paid. I think under the circumstances we should have been granted a refund as we paid for a quiet, safe place to sleep and none of those things were granted on our stay.
— Carmen Denton (2009-09-13)
Hostelbookers
Good location but so are all of the other Hostels in Katoomba...
— Customer review (2009-05-03)
Hostelbookers
the place was very cozy, clean, and homey.
— Customer review (2009-04-27)
Hostelbookers
we had an en-suite room in a bungalow a mile away from the main hostel with parking.
— Janet Aplin (2009-01-10)
Hostelbookers
the rooms
— Customer review (2008-11-09)
Hostelbookers
The hospitality of the manangers
— Customer review (2008-10-13)
Hostelbookers
This hostel is a great place to relax and have a bit of luxury. Fitted out well and minimal intrusion make for a great stay. TV and verandah and close to all the walking trails. Free internet kiosk!
— Customer review (2008-10-01)
Hostelbookers
The helpful owner and family. Given a larger room as the place was quiet.
— Customer review (2008-04-24)
Hostelbookers
Relaxed atmosphere, nice old building in the heart of Katoomba.
— Customer review (2008-03-17)
Hostelbookers
Location and that it looks interesting from the outside as it has a balcony
— Customer review (2008-01-15)
Hostelbookers
Hostelz.com Guest Reviews
Grotty but will do for an overnight Cheap, good to have pack storage for $1 too. Not well looked after though. Christmas decorations up in lounge in September. look like they have been up all year. Our room had a window opening onto a shared balcony that didn't lock. Peeling paint, rundown, and bathrooms were unclean and had no soap. No loo-paper in one of the two girls loos on our floor. Smelled like cigarettes as we came in. — Claire , New Zealand (2009-09-30) Does the job, with an owner/manager really happy to help out The facilities were old -- dorms fine but some bathrooms pretty grotty. The owner/manager was really helpful though, and not just to our large group. — Nick , Australia (2008-09-14) Great! My friend and I thought the owners of this Lodge were so sweet! They actually gave us a discount because we were broke, and for a place that only charges $22 or so for a dorm you've got to be impressed by that. About the place, the rooms were cold but we had electric blankets so that was fine (we were in room 5 -- not sure if all rooms do though). The place was a classic too -- hilariously decorated in faux velvet wallpaper, faded paintings and christmas tinsel everywhere leftover from 1963. Can't say enough good things about it! — Brett & Merle , Australia & Germany (2008-09-11) The man at the desk spoke very little English, hardly enough to discuss my booking. He charged more than he quoted, but I had to pay the higher price, or he wouldn't let me stay. I showed him the e-mails I'd taken as proof of my booking, but he couldn't or didn't want to read them. I showed the e-mails to the cleaner, who spoke better English. She explained to the man that he overcharged me. He said I must prove it first and reluctantly let me read the e-mails to him. I pointed to the price where he first quoted $19 then $20 per room. He said that was only for mixed. I pointed out where I requested an all-female dorm and the price per night, then pointed to his quoted price for such. He said he didn't know who wrote it and that it was wrong. I told him Ron wrote it and asked if I could speak to Ron. He said he was Ron, then said he didn't know what he wrote.
He gave me a refund for the overcharged amount less $10 for a deposit on the key. That wasn't mentioned in the reply e-mails when I asked about any extra expenses. He wrote that everything was provided and there were no deposits to pay on anything. He did apologize to me for the mix-up as he called it and he and his family bent over backwards to help me after that. He agreed I could get my deposit back the night before I was leaving, because the office wouldn't be open.
One backpacker told me Ron was notorious for raising his prices after the backpacker arrived. It seemed that Ron charged according to his whim. All the girls in my room were charged differently and we weren't YHA members. A number of other backpackers were discussing the same thing.
I only had one sheet and had to ask for a top one. The place was clean, but the pots weren't and the room smelt musty. It was so strong, I almost choked. There were no cups in the kitchen and I used the one from my flask until his wife noticed and loaned me one. They did have free tea and coffee as they advertised, but there was only three tablespoons of coffee in a jar, half a dozen tea bags in another one and one cup of sugar in a third jar.
The room was so cold, due to the unexpected freak weather change in the middle of summer that we all froze. Even the heater didn't help much. Ron only provided one very thin blanket to each bed, but he did give me a second one when I asked. They were coarse and prickled my skin. The kitchen opened too late to have breakfast before my walks and closed too early, so I couldn't make a cup of coffee after 8 p.m. I could never get my milk out of the fridge in the mornings before I went walking and had to eat my cereal dry. I couldn't even have a cup of coffee or fill my thermos before I left.
Most of the walks are a long way out and I needed an early start. Taking food from the kitchen to the dining room was a pain. There was nowhere close to either door to put anything down. The door to the dining room was heavy and hard to open, especially with full hands. If I put one thing down on the floor for even one second to open the door with my free hand, then someone would bound up or down the stairs and step on it. The bedroom window opened onto the balcony and wouldn't lock. I had to leave it open at night to breath, but the smoke and stench of alcohol from the balcony filled the room, which defeated the purpose of a smoke-free atmosphere inside. The seating could have been rearranged so that they sat further away from the windows.
The curtains were almost transparent, with a 10-centimeter gap in the middle. I had to pin them together and that gave us a bit of privacy. The people on the balcony were very noisy until 3 a.m. and the noisiest of them all was Ron and his family, despite the signs saying no one was to use the balcony after 10:30 p.m. in respect for others trying to sleep. Even the toddlers Ron's wife cared for were running around the balcony and crying until 3 am.
One of my roommates almost lost her bed and if I hadn't been in the room at the time she would have. Ron didn't know who'd checked out and who was still there. There were two windows in the bathroom passersby could see through and only one of them could be covered. The other one wouldn't even shut and a cold wind blew through constantly. Every time I needed something that wasn't provided in the kitchen, or the use of the laundry, I'd have to go several times to the office to ask because Ron wasn't there and the other members of his family couldn't speak any English.
I was shocked. — Anonymous (2005-03-09) The man at the desk spoke very little English, hardly enough to discuss my booking. He charged more than he quoted, but I had to pay the higher price, or he wouldn't let me stay. I showed him the e-mails I'd taken as proof of my booking, but he couldn't, or didn't, want to read them. I showed the emails to the cleaner, who spoke better English. She explained to the man that he overcharged me. He said I must prove it first and reluctantly let me read the emails out to him. I pointed to the price where he first quoted $19 then $20 per room. He said that was only for mixed. I pointed out where I requested an all female dorm and the price per night, then pointed to his quoted price for such. He said he didn't know who wrote it and that it was wrong. I told him Ron wrote it and asked if I could speak to Ron. He said he was Ron, then said he didn't know what he wrote. He gave me a refund for the overcharged amount less $10 for a deposit on the key. That wasn't mentioned in the reply e-mails when I asked about any extra expenses. He wrote that everything was provided and there were no deposits to pay on anything.
He did apologize to me for the mix-up as he called it and he and his family bent over backwards to help me after that. He agreed I could get my deposit back the night before I was leaving, because the office wouldn't be open. One backpacker told me Ron was notorious for raising his prices after the backpacker arrived. It seemed that Ron charged according to his whim. All the girls in my room were charged differently and we weren't YHA members.
A number of other backpackers were discussing the same thing. I only had one sheet and had to ask for a top one. The place was clean, but the pots weren't and the room smelt musty. It was so strong I almost choked. There were no cups in the kitchen and I used the one from my flask until his wife noticed and loaned me one. They did have free tea and coffee as they advertised, but there was only 3 tablespoons of coffee in a jar, half a dozen tea bags in another one and one cup of sugar in a third jar. The room was so cold, due to the unexpected freak weather change in the middle of summer that we all froze. Even the heater didn't help much. Ron only provided one very thin blanket to each bed, but he did give me a second one when I asked. They were coarse and prickled my skin. The kitchen opened too late to have breakfast before my walks and too early, so I couldn't make a cup of coffee after 8 p.m. I could never get my milk out of the fridge in the mornings before I went walking and had to eat my cereal dry. I couldn't even have a cup of coffee or fill my thermos before I left.
Most of the walks are a long way out and I needed an early start. Taking food from the kitchen to the dining room was a pain. There was nowhere close to either door to put anything down. The door to the dining room was heavy and hard to open, especially with full hands. If I put one thing down on the floor for even one second to open the door with my free hand, then someone would bound up or down the stairs and step on it. The bedroom window opened onto the balcony and wouldn't lock. I had to leave it open at night to breath, but the smoke and stench of alcohol from the balcony filled the room, which defeated the purpose of a smoke-free atmosphere inside. The seating could have been rearranged so that they sat further away from the windows. The curtains were almost transparent, with a 10-centimeter gap in the middle. I had to pin them together and that gave us a bit of privacy.
The people on the balcony were very noisy until 3 a.m. and the noisiest of them all was Ron and his family despite the signs to say no one was to use the balcony after 10:30 p.m. in respect for others trying to sleep. Even the toddlers Ron's wife cared for were running around the balcony and crying up until 3 a.m. One of my roommates almost lost her bed and if I hadn't been in the room at the time she would have. Ron didn't know who'd checked out and who was still there. There were two windows in the bathroom passersby could see through and only one of them could be covered. The other one wouldn't even shut and a cold wind blew through constantly. Every time I needed something that wasn't provided in the kitchen or the use of the laundry, I'd have to go several times to the office to ask because Ron wasn't there and the other members of his family couldn't speak any English. — Anonymous (2005-02-11)