The Hostelz.com Review
Frogshollow is a friendly hostel situated in a quiet street just outside the main city centre area but still within a short walk of all the action. The hostel is surrounded by tropical plants and has a lovely garden area with a pool, spa, and BBQ. There is a very relaxed atmosphere here.
The facilities are good. There is a well-equipped kitchen (free light breakfast), internet access, vending machines, laundry, and large communal area for dining/relaxing. There is often a cheap BBQ evening where you get lots of yummy food at a brilliant price. If you are self-catering, there is a large supermarket (Woolworths) at the top of the road, less than 5 minutes' walk.
The dorms all have either fans or air-con and are different sizes depending on how much you want to pay. However, they are all adequately spacious with lockers provided for each person (padlock required). Some of the bunkbeds are missing ladders or the ladders are inaccessible so it may pay to touch up your pole-vaulting skills before arrival! There are separate male and female bathrooms which are kept very clean.
Free pick-ups can be arranged from train station. Call or email in advance or look-out for the van on arrival. Otherwise, the hostel is no more than 10 minutes' walk from the downtown area.
The facilities are good. There is a well-equipped kitchen (free light breakfast), internet access, vending machines, laundry, and large communal area for dining/relaxing. There is often a cheap BBQ evening where you get lots of yummy food at a brilliant price. If you are self-catering, there is a large supermarket (Woolworths) at the top of the road, less than 5 minutes' walk.
The dorms all have either fans or air-con and are different sizes depending on how much you want to pay. However, they are all adequately spacious with lockers provided for each person (padlock required). Some of the bunkbeds are missing ladders or the ladders are inaccessible so it may pay to touch up your pole-vaulting skills before arrival! There are separate male and female bathrooms which are kept very clean.
Free pick-ups can be arranged from train station. Call or email in advance or look-out for the van on arrival. Otherwise, the hostel is no more than 10 minutes' walk from the downtown area.
— Exclusive Hostelz.com Review
August 2004
Their Description
Frogshollow Lodge & Backpackers Details
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Hostelz.com Guest Reviews
A Dump This is one of the worst hostels I've stayed in. Bathrooms and kitchen are filthy and the rooms aren't that crash hot either. The staff are even worse as they have no customer service skills. They are constantly threatening guests with eviction and use physical force to wake up guests who haven't checked out on time. Worst of all is the fat blonde bitch who is always miserable and takes it out on the guests. If they are noisy she'll come and threaten them because she's "in the mood for evicting". I even heard that she once evicted someone just for sleeping with an employee's ex-girlfriend. Then of course is the old guy who works there. He's always sitting in the backyard constantly drinking and acts like he owns the place. I don't think I've ever seen him sober.
I can keep going but I think you get the picture. — Anonymous , Australia (2011-07-26) Run by assholes i stayed there for a few weeks during the dry season. the place is run by f***ing drunks. they enjoy getting pissed and starting fights with random people. the night manager is the most f***ed up. they call him pirate. he is a 40yo bitter senile old f***ing c*nt who spends his day drinking his face off to drown out his sorrows for much of a piece of sh*t he is. he enjoys getting drunk, fighting with backpackers, getting drunk, kicking out backpackers using the excuse "ill find a reason," and having an occasional beer from time to time. some of the staff are nice, the rest of the staff sit in the back table drinking constantly (and i mean constantly) and getting into arguments with other backpackers. the dorms are alright, on average. the bathrooms are sh*t, the kitchen is sh*t. the only good thing is that its cheap. — Anonymous (2010-08-01) Good nice pool. cheap weekly rates. go for air con room as fan rooms are so hot! — rachel , england (2009-10-10) Crap smelly room, dirty kitchen, stinky fridge (like rotten fish) are waiting for you! and what's more, there is haughty, insane, weak-headed staff who breaks customer's own locker key! fantastic! — jam , jpn (2008-09-29) Crooked My worst hostel experience in Australia! The place wasn't too dirty or loud, but I have a problem with the staff. On the first night someone stole my beer, and while I was complaining about it to a friend in my room, a staff member staying in my room had this to say to me -- "There are plenty of other hostels in town, you don't have to stay here, and if I were you, I'd watch my sh*t a lot closer from now on!" The next day I needed some plates, which I had to pay a $20 deposit for. Upon checkout I was told that the computer showed no record of my paid deposit. Apparently they give plates to some people for free (WTF?), so they refused to give back my deposit! So I was called a liar, robbed, and threatened by the staff. Stay away from Frogshollow Lodge & Backpackers! — Mark , Canada (2008-09-07) Rubbish I really didn't enjoy my time at this hostel. It's quite far away from the main part of the city, if you want ot stay in Darwin I would go to a hostel on Mitchell Street -- definitely don't go to Frogshollow. My room was an eight-bed dorm, dark, dingy, and smelly. I don't think the sheets on my bed were clean and I'm pretty sure they had bedbugs. There was no ladder to the top bunk so I had to try to climb up without waking the person sleeping on the bottom bunk. The kitchen wasn't nice, nor was the social area. They seem to cater mainly for couples and families, there aren't really any backpackers staying there. There were a lot of people who seemed to be permanent residents as they all had jobs. I didn't find it at all friendly or welcoming. The only nice part of the hostel was the pool and spas. I was going to try to stick it out as I had quite a big deposit on it but when they messed up my tour booking and therefore messed up my whole itinerary I transferred to a new hostel. I'd asked to book a tour, the guy, John (who I think is the manager) was very helpful and showed me all the tours I could do. I decided to do two of them, told him what day I wanted to do and found out how I should pay. John told me it was all sorted and dismissed me. I got up at 5 a.m. on the morning of the tour and waited to be picked up. It turns out that John is a complete twit and hadn't actually booked me on the tour! According to him, I'd just been making an enquiry, which is complete rubbish -- I went over our whole conversation which made it pretty clear that I was booking a tour, not enquiring about one. He didn't even apologise properly. Even if it had only been an enquiry he still hadn't bothered to follow it up. I really didn't like this hostel -- even before they messed up my trip. Don't go here, it's a depressing dump. — Cat , England (2007-07-07) Very Poor I found this hostel to be one of the worst hostels that I have stayed in. The facilities were ok, although it was really quiet when I was there, so I don't know what it would be like in the busy season. And I got put in a room full of guys, which wouldn't normally bother me, but one of them was a very strange guy, Ozzie, who insisted on waking me up during the night to tell me that he wanted to go traveling with me! I was very scared, and when I told reception, they told me that he had been warned several times before about not hassling women. So, if you are a female traveling along, I really would not stay at this place. I have never felt so unsafe in my ten months of traveling, and the lack of support (from female reception staff) was unbelievable. — Liz , UK (2007-06-06) We stayed here in July 2005 for one night. The communal bathrooms were excellent, well ventilated with ceiling fans and kept clean. The rooms didn't have air conditioning but had high powered ceiling fans, which were great. When you check in they give you a pack with your bed sheet, cutlery and crockery, which was great, and everything was very clean. Breakfast was free toast, which was good. The hostel was quite social with lots of people hanging out around the television and in the pool area. The staff were friendly and welcoming. All in all, we had a good time and wished we could have stayed longer in Darwin. — MC (2005-07-17) Really nice place. Staff are very helpful and our room was clean and the bathrooms didn't smell, which is always good!! — Anonymous (2005-06-01) We had a great time, and the comment book at the hostel reflects this. Top spot! — Anonymous (2004-10-19) It's the very best!!! — every1 (2004-10-10) An average hostel. The dorms are okay, and the kitchen is a bit small. However, the staff are informative, and it's located on a quiet street. — Anonymous (2004-09-06)