John's Cozy Little Backpacker Hostel Berlin

Quite unpleasant!
We arrived in this hostel only to be nagged at for four straight days. Many things went wrong. The walls are covered of ridiculous rules, such as "penalty for not doing dishes," "taking off shoes," and yes, even, "peeing sitting down." In my experience, accustomed travelers already follow a code of conduct, respecting fellow travelers and the hostel. But the pieces of paper on the wall weren't enough -- they kept telling us not to make any noise, although we were really quiet. We were constantly told to leave the bedrooms, even in the middle of the day, in case someone was trying to sleep (which wasn't the case). We were also nagged at for using the internet, using too many tourist maps and flyers, and so on. Since we had been traveling for a month, hostel life was not new to us; we felt like we were being treated like children. While we were there, the owners also decided to have a fridge binge, and proceeded to empty the entire fridge, even though people had clearly labelled their food as was asked of them. When I went over to make sure they didn't throw away our food, he said that the food had been in the fridge for over a week, which was clearly not the case, as we had only gotten in Berlin two days prior. I had to practically beg to keep our found in there. We also paid the 2 euros/day for breakfast which was not anywhere to be found in the morning. We had to ask several times, each morning, and only toast was given to us. The very worst part of our stay was when the maid and one of the owners started fighting each other, screaming right in front of the guests. As if that wasn't enough, one of the owners also screamed at a guest, when another guest accused her of not doing her dishes (and this was unfounded, as the owner hadn't actually seen any of this). When it was finally time to leave, we couldn't find any staff to give us our deposits back. When we finally found someone, he was trying to say we didn't leave deposits but our passports, which of course, was not the case. One of the main bathrooms broke down, and they made no attempt to fix it, leaving everybody to fight for one shower. But I guess that was the least of our problems. Thank goodness Berlin was a great city to visit, because our stay would have been completely ruined.

Not impressed
I was rather disappointed by this hostel. The reviews made it seem quite decent and it has a good location close to a railway station and a bus stop for Tegel airport. But, it seems that the owner stays in one of the dorm rooms and has rather definite rules for people staying in that dorm room -- it is ok for him to get up early and make a lot of noise but he complains when people come back a little late and try to go to sleep, albeit making as little noise as possible. There are much better places to stay in Berlin.

Excellent
This is an excellent place to stay -- very friendly staff stayed up late to meet me, directions on website to the hostel are perfect and very accurate, very efficient and helpful welcome and check in -- own keys. Very quiet four-bed room with comfortable beds and reading lights, clean bathrooms and useful kitchen all leading off small hall. Close to U-Bahn. No smoking! Nice bar next door, no problems getting key deposit back, I would certainly come back here again without doubt.

I found this hostel to be quite interesting, and i really enjoyed the mattresses on the floor idea. I stayed in what could be considered an apartment, with two separate rooms of four beds, a bathroom, shower, and a small (pretty much unusable) kitchen. The witty staff was amusing, but the day i went to check out (after confirming a time the night before), i could not find anyone from the staff to return to me my 20 Euro deposit fee. We waited around, searched, and called the hostel number (turned out to be disconnected) in search of anyone on staff. Two and a half hours later, i got my 20 Euro back but was frustrated beyond belief.

The rooms are good. the atmosphere is rather gay as are the owners. no smoking is allowed and the bathrooms are barely good. The location is good and the staff is helpful. But most of all it is a Gay-Hostel.

I was disappointed with the hostel. I walked there a long way and then nobody opened the door, though I rang the bell many many times. I waited outside about a half an hour. Some employee came but didn't let me in and told me to wait for the boss. I was sad and didn't want to wait. So I had to travel like an hour to the next hostel. Really rude, thanks for nothing!

The good is it's cheap and small, so there aren't many people to make noise at night, there's a kitchen and free internet and a living room. The not so good is doesn't seem very clean (especially the kitchen), everything is old, it's kind of far away from everything and in a boring neighborhood. I guess I'd try a different hostel next time, I was a bit diappointed after reading so many great reviews. It might be a good place to socialize, bt it's so small that we actually didn't meet many people there.

Despite what others might say about this hostel, there is not an overriding gay energy about the place. Yes, David the owner is gay, but it pretty much stops there. The people who stay there are a good mix and generally very pleasant to be around. I stayed there for two weeks and met all kinds of great people. I slept comfortably and found the facilities to be just right. But by far the best thing about the place is the staff. Megan and Madonna are absolutely the greatest. They will phone museums for you, recommend plenty points of interest and help you with directions. And if you're lucky, Megan will give you British accent coaching lessons and Madonna may just dance you into the ground. (More fun than it sounds) I highly recommend this place, no matter what your race, gender, nationality or sexual orientation is.

John's Cozy Little Oriental Hostel is homey, little with just a few rooms, a small kitchen and a larger living room with DVDs and Playstation games to use for free. The highlight for me was the special gay boys' room, which I found very much fun, with four other gay guys, which I found quite rare. And there is mainly gay staff as well. John's is in fact a branch of David's Hostel, five minutes away, which is run by John's father David. I was first in David's and moved for the gay crowd to John's. But I recommend both places.

I found it very friendly and nice there, more like a bed and breakfast in fact. It was small and had very nice guests and staff. Highly recommended. The owner speaks several languages, like Arabic, Italian, and English. It's very central, two minutes from the underground station.