Hostel Marin Dvor

Terrible, worst ever!
Absolutely the worst experience my partner and I have encountered on our round the world trip! Free pick up is actually receiving instructions to walk to the Holiday Inn (not easy to find) so the hostel manager can drive by and check you out before you are accepted into their accommodation. When the manager finally met us he walked us to a massive apartment block where the accommodation is actually a flat with no kitchen, internet, washing, common room facilities at all. We booked a double bed and were allocated two singles and told to push them together. The manager then charged us 3 euros each, per night for sheets, blanket, and a pillow! So after paying the 2 euro per night tourist tax (which is probably a sham) we were up by 5 euro per night. There is no reception here and no way of contacting the manager for information, assistance or to check out. We had to leave early in the morning and they must have forgot to come and meet us to check out (as we had previously organised) and consequently did not get back the photo ID we had to provide. Don't give them you photo ID! Actually, just don't stay here. Explains why the place was empty!

I have been hosteling for seven months straight and Marin Dvor was by far the worst experience I have had and frankly the worst expeience of my entire trip. First, this is not a hostel, it turns out to be some family rooms in a twenty-story, old Soviet apartment building run by two brothers in a business called Sartour and they have another one on the other side of the city. Marin Dvor turns out to be a neighborhood in Sarajevo, not a hostel with a sign. There is no street number listed so you cannot get there on your own. After help from five people on the street and walking with a heavy pack for ages I gave up and begged a desk person at the Holiday Inn hotel to call the phone number listed. When the owner came to get me at the hotel front I told him his internet description was very misleading and he immediately got angry and said he would just leave me there without a room (ten p.m., exhausted in the dark). I had no choice but to go with him. The rooms were very clean and nicely done but you had no keys and had to have his non-English speaking father buzz you in, no reception or staff on duty, no internet, no laundry, no smoking, no eating in rooms, ten Euros to use the kitchen per day, 3 Euros per night for sheets, not even a pillow unless you paid for it. So it is not anywhere near the price listed on the internet. There was list of rules on the walls like the military. The next morning I received a call from home and it answered in their flat upstairs. They came to get me and a woman said it was ok to talk but when the call was done later the two brothers and old man went absolutely ballistic and claimed I had probably made a reverse charge call. Their list of rules apparently said no phone calls too. How does one stay in hostels unless you have numbers given out to family? They wanted my passport and 50 Euros from me and old man threw papers at me screaming in Bosnian and German. This went on in front of other guests and lasted for ten minutes while I tried to tell them the person calling had used a phone card and they told me I could take the call. I was scared for my safety with three men yelling at me. Their behavior was shocking and they told me I was the one who was unprofessional and not to order them around -- I thought a Bosnia scam was going on. At five the next day after I called them they told me the phone company told them they had been charged nothing and they gave me the money back. I was packed ahead and gone within thirty seconds and forfeited the last night I had already paid for. No wonder most of the beds in the place are empty! This completely ruined my Sarajevo trip. Avoid this place like the plague! I have never been treated this badly in traveling in sixty-six countries.

Don't do it. We made the reservation, and found the place after a long time. The man at the front desk didn't speak English, and he showed us a room. It looked like a gym locker room. We shook our heads "no" and left.