Abba Youth Hostel

Awful.
There is a reason why we were able to book this place with a two-hour notice, at 9:30 p.m. Traveling with a group of two other girls, we chose the place because every place anywhere else near the center city was booked. Although the location claims to be the best, it is actually very far from the center of Las Ramblas, which in fact is the place to stay. By staying at Abba, you neither are too close to Las Ramblas, nor are you very close to the beach. The staff at Abba are horrific. The man first asked if my friend could eat in the dark when she wanted to sit, quietly, in the salon and eat her shwarma. After getting angry at other hostile patrons for being "loud" (he was louder in yelling at them and at us, who were sitting in the salon quietly, eating our dinner), he angrily shoved a chair and yelled at us some more. He threatened to kick us out three times, when we did nothing wrong. This is the rudest and most insensitive person I have had to deal with in a long time. The amenities at the hostel were not much better. My bed shook like a wobbly table (I am a small girl, things like that don't usually happen to me). The lockers that are available are not large enough to hold a bag, so really only the most valuable of your things can go in there. The bathroom area was gross. There was no hand soap. The showers barely worked and were a pathetic excuse for lukewarm. There was also a lovely sign telling you to mop up after yourself with a dingy, dirty bucket of mop water standing in the bathroom. As we were leaving, we wanted to leave our bags for a couple of hours before leaving for the airport. While most hostels would provide the courtesy of watching your bags for you for free, since you are required to check out by 11, Abba decided it was fair to charge 5 euro a bag. We could not be happier to leave this hostel.

The owner hates your family
Stayed there about two years ago. It was filthy, crowded, and I got some itchy stuff in my eyes after every night, it got better as soon as I left the place. But not so bad as everyone else say, but maybe the price has gone up since. One night the owners son came in a fight with a girl and was really rude and called her "puta" ("whore" in spanish). So, when I later, made a half-bad review that I thought was anonymous on another hostel website that I had booked through, suddenly I got a long mail from the owner in which he repeatedly attacks my parents and how bad they have raised me. So my recommendation sums up in: stay away!

Over-priced, dilapidated, and old
I had read the reviews about this place, but had no choice but to stay here as there was literally no other accommodation that I could find in our price range for the night that we were arriving in Barcelona. I have been traveling for four months now, through western and eastern Europe and this is the worst place that I have stayed. It is over-priced which is based purely on the location of the hostel, which is good, but the facilities were awful. I don't think that they change the linen in between guests, and when I arrived there were crumbs and all sorts on my bed. The have crammed sixteen beds into a room so small that there is barely room for luggage and to walk around in. The daily clean consists of sweeping the floors and putting some cleaner down the toilet. All of the sinks in the girls bathroom were blocked so that water sat in them festering. I could go on, but will leave it there. A most depressing place to be.

Really just horrible
This is easily the worst hostel I have ever stayed at. The value is awful. For $45/night you shouldn't have to sleep in the same room as seventeen other people. The service is terrible. The people are very mean, and are really in the business only to take your money, which is all paid when you enter, and not after you see what its like for a night. The owner is quite hostile! He tried to bribe me into writing him a good review. and above all else, this place is filthy! The floors are disgusting, the shower stalls give you no privacy. All i can say is that you will thank yourself if you stay somewhere else, even if it costs more per a night.

Certainly this is the worst hostel in the world!! And definitely this is the most expensive hostel in the Europe!! The staff are very strange and rude!! Everything at this hostel is old and dirty!! You will have to share a room with more than a million people!! They never open the dorm room windo, so the smell is terrible!!

This is the worst place in the world, honestly, the people who run it are strange, and all you get for breakfast is "juice and muffin". We hated every minute here, and it marred an otherwise fantastic trip to Barcelona.

What a dive!!! You really need to go somewhere else. The place should be closed down, is all I can say.

While the front desk woman was nice enough, everything from the beds and the grammar school lockers (and a rather troubling sound of someone bound and gagged in a very, very dark corner) at this "hostile" parking garage reeked of cheats and chicanery. Out of desperation we stayed one night and quickly found an entire apartment suitable, privately, for four of us, and for 3 Canadian dollars less than ABBA...Mama Mia!

I wish I had read this before I went! This place was so bad it was funny. The owner was a weird, sketchy old guy and I didn't even dare try the breakfast. You'd sit on the toilet and it would rock like a rocking chair. The beds were old and gross. It felt like an orphanage.

Whatever you do, do not stay at this hostel. It's incredibly filthy and the owners have something large and metal stuck up their asses. Overall, I was treated very poorly and I felt as though they thought I was a filthy criminal. They also hate Americans. A stay in Barcelona should be a fun and exciting experience, but they have unfortunately ruined it for me.

This is the most expensive hostel I have stayed at, and the worst. There is no breakfast, and the guy who works at night is evil. Plus the beds are uncomfy. Their "kitchen" is two microwaves and a fridge. However, the people here were all great; we all complained together! And I guess it's in a good location. If you have a choice, don't stay here (I was desperate).

Well, it has 2 common areas, a TV room, and a kitchen, in which I met some nice people. If you are stuck for a place, it's not that bad. It's clean and it's in a great location: halfway between the beach and the Ramblas. It's nice and quiet with no curfew or lockout, so you can sleep all day. The TV room seems to be more for the staff than for the customers though: it's like you're invading their space if you go in there.

Very bad. Don't stay here. The people aren't that nice, the beds are way over-priced, and the bathroom isn't that clean. The owners are weird men, and there are usually a lot of girls staying there. If you go there that day I heard it is only $18 a night, but we booked online and paid $25 per bed one night and $30 the next night--a total rip-off. You can stay in a hotel with your friends for that price. Breakfast was nothing special. Overall, it was very, very bad.