Cat's Hostel

Bordering on Good
I was there six days in June 2008. Female on staff rude, but prior comments warned me of that. Rooms a little crowded, but I'm low maintenance and there are large lockers. Very large bathrooms with multiple showers and sinks and hot water. Pretty hostel with stain glass. Decent size common room. Washer/dryer on site. Clean and quiet at night. Huge bar, internet room downstairs with ability to get on net easy enough. Good breakfast with croissant, coffee, and juice. Convenient location to get around city. Buy your own map, they are not helpful and their map is really poor.

Good Location and Very Social Hostel
This hostel has a very good location, clean dorms and bathrooms, free lockers, and it is a very social hostel, where you can meet a lot of travelers at the bar every night. There are too many beds in the dorms, but it is ok for me.

Terrible
I didn't like the way the rooms were kinda dirty. No Ac, which was terrible for the weather in Madrid. On my last day someone stole everything from me, credit cards, money, passport inside the hostel. The people at the lobby don't check who comes in or not, there is no security whatsoever. They did not want to help me when I took this information to the police (they had it all in video and refused to give it to the police) and they still charged me an extra night that I had to stay there even through I was robbed in their own hostel.

Great intro to spain
Personally, i really liked this hostel. It was the "coolest" one i stayed in in my three-week tour, the courtyard was great to relax in, and lovely and quiet, and beautiful as well. It had great facilities, the free breakfast was a godsend, as was free internet. The bar was great to meet people in before going on a night out, and the parties were pretty good! It was the first place i stayed in, and one of the best. Bad points -- in a bit of a rough area, like the madrid equivalent of chinatown in london! Also, the staff were just so unfriendly, and wouldn't tell you where anything was! No kitchen as well meant extra expense from eating out. But i would definitely recommend it!

Eh.
the staff here is extremely rude. if you ask how to get somewhere, their response is "look at the map." they will not help you and don't enjoy being asked questions. that aside, the bar in the hostel was cool -- we got free sangria and free paella. however the rooms are very cramped and you have to manually turn on the air conditioners which is fine because they are there but you have to actually do it because the staff refuses. it's not in a great area, it's very shady and a lot of people get pickpocketed. I would never go to madrid again itself for this reason.

This place was good. Location was great! the only problem was that even though there was no curfew if you came to the hostel late which is I believe around 1 or later, you were not allowed to talk or make any sort of noise, even if you were in your own room. There would be a guy who would check be walking around the veranda in the night to ensure that everyone is sleeping and no one is making any noises. Even if the light was on, he would ask you to switch it off. That was the only problem since once you got to the hostel late, you were extremely restricted in terms of talking and staying up in your own room. Other than that the hostel was very nicely designed and looked very pretty from inside.The rooms are small but not as small as some other hostels. They were reasonable relative to the price. There were restaurants and bars at walking distance from the hostel, which was great. They offered free internet and the hostel also had a bar on the ground floor!

It can be crowded in some of the rooms, they sure get as many beds in the rooms as possible! Not much floor space. Bathrooms didn't seem to be cleaned that often. Apart from that class place, great area for chilling out in the courtyard, nice bar with free internet and good staff. Really good location as well in centre near sights and close to lots of bars and tapas places. Funny keys though to open doors and lockers, quite a challenge after a few san miguels!

I think Cat's is overall pretty good. The hostel itself is amazing -- as people have said it is an Eighteenth Centuary palace with an inside courtyard and the most amazing stained glass ceiling I've ever seen. Also, on the plus side, the beer there is dirt cheap, only 3 euros for what is nearly a litre of beer -- nice! They also have great entertainment there and while I was staying had a funk style band from Venezuela playing jazz/funk covers of loads of famous tracks from Dire Straits to Radiohead! The main downside though is the amount of smoke in the bars. While smoking is almost as popular as Catholicism in Spain, it would be good to be able to breathe some clean air in the bar -- whereas I felt as if I was smoking at least twenty a night down there! If they could invest in a decent extractor fan, then everyone would be happy and the hostel would definitely warrent five stars!

This hostel is actually a former palace, with a beautifully decorated central area. It has a popular bar downstairs with inexpensive drinks and periodic events. The good -- staff was extremely helpful and nice. Towel is free (though you must give deposit). Spacious lockers and comfortable bed. Staff cracked down on noisemakers after midnight. The bad -- smallest toilet stalls I've ever seen! My knees were against the wall and my feet went outside the stall area because of a lack of space. Though that is not as bad as lack of temperature control for the showers. They have it set to barely warm and you can't do anything about it. The sinks have only cold water. You will not experience the comfort of hot water in this hostel. Also there was only men in my ten-person dorm for my three-night stay. The odds of this happening in a co-ed hostel should be almost zero, but it happened anyway. Overall I enjoyed my experience. I recommend this hostel but next time in madrid I need to find a place with hot water.

When I stayed at the hostel in January I witnessed some seriously disturbing employee behavior. They ran the place like a police state going from door to door looking for trouble. One night while standing outside smoking with friends we heard a scuffle inside and some guys pulled out two male guests who were involved. They told us they were being attacked and they walked away from the hostel without their belongings. When they were almost around the corner, the hostel staff chased down the street after them and sucker-punched one in the temple and maced the other. They proceeded to mace them both and beat them while they were helpless. In terms of the hostel, it was impossible to control the shower temperature and they were so hot I actually got burned -- a first in my life. Don't stay here!

This was the first hostel we stayed at and also the best! Many we spoke to said "you shouldn't have stayed here first, because it's only downhill from here." It was clean, cheap, friendly staff, safe and importantly in a great location. Right in the centre of madrid, minutes from Sol and the metro. Each bed has its own locker and you get keys to wear around your wrist to open the door and your locker. What else was good was the actual quality of the hostel. We went to a few which were cramped and crowded, but this one had numerous chill out areas. The main area which was more for chilling, smoke and alcohol free. Then there was the bar area for getting messy and a downstairs area which was just an extended getting messy area, though during the day and chill out area as well with free internet access which was convenient. There were a few little problems like the showers timing out every 30 seconds and the breakfast being simple, but it's a bit stupid to be idealistic. Basically just stay here, you'll love it!

Yeah this was a pretty decent hostel. I found it a little intimidating as a solo traveller, but maybe that's just me being shy, and exhausted from being on the road for so long. It's not the type of place you stay if you want to get good sleep, people will be going in and out of your room all through the night. Decent free breakfast, great location. The bar and basement are pretty cool and the patio common room is beautiful. Seemed clean enough. The staff were very very nice and helpful.

Here is the gist on this place. It has had some fantastic reviews and awards but I'd like to think I will tell it like it is. It is a great hostel no doubt, but the breakfast is only a plain croissant and an orange juice. Oh, but you do get free second hand smoke from people smoking right by you at breakfast time. There is no kitchen at all (how can a kitchen-less hostel win awards!!). The key system to the rooms is ridiculous. Very few people have little trouble with the doors. The toilets are pretty cramped. The bar is ridiculously smoky. It doesn't really have a TV room, just MTV on in the bar. Here are the good points: it's very social and you meet lots of people unless you can't socialize properly. It's pretty clean, has great staff, a great bar with cheap beer and free Internet. It would've gotten 5 stars from me had it had a kitchen, decent key system and wasn't really smoky.

This is the best hostel I've ever stayed in. I have however only stayed in about 10 hostels in all of my travels. The rooms were clean, the bar was fun, the Internet was convenient, the staff were helpful and friendly, and the breakfast was ok. In the downstairs dance floor area a flamenco circle/jam session broke out as I was checking my e-mail. That moment will be etched in my memory forever. The bathrooms are a bit cramped, but hey, it's a hostel.

I was there December 2004 — I stayed for 4-5 days. The location was great, close to the main plazas, shopping centers, transport, and tourist office. It is safe for the single traveler. The all-female dorms were safe and clean. Great lockers, quite big for what I expected, I even had food in there! It was quiet, I was able to sleep well, and the showers were all right, clean and with large mirrors! Hee-hee. The breakfast was all right, not that great though compared to other hostels. It was safe and the staff were very helpful. I would definitely go back there again. I recommend it for the single female traveler.