Royal Bayswater Hostel

Great Location, Poor management
The good points about this hotel are the location and proximity to Queensway underground station. And that is about it. Rooms. I was with a party of eight people and we were allocated in a room with four bunk beds and six lockers -- suspicious, isn't it? Of course the space was very limited, a six-bedded room quickly converted into a eight-bedded room. We had our own bathroom if you can call "that" a bathroom. The toilet was broken, the curtains for the shower had seen better times, and the cold water tap only worked when it fancied so. Good job it didn't rain until the morning we checked out. We could see the privilege of our room, "a wall spring," not kidding, the water was coming through the wall. Hilarious! in thirty minutes pooled a quarter of the room. This hostel needs lots of TLC. The pictures in the website are not even close to the general aspect of the hostel. I have been in many hostels, backpackers, and youth hostels, and this has been the worst by far. Avoid it if you can.

This hostel is really well situated, one minute walk from Queensway Tube station, and well served by buses. The negative is that it is rather dirty because it needs new carpets on the floor, the ones existing are old and dirty. The walls and the ceiling were being repainted during our staying. When we arrived we were put in a six-bed room and we even had no room for our luggage, but the girls at the reception were very kind and moved us to a larger room, which was quite better. There are no elevators to the first and second floors but once again the staff was very nice and helped us carry the luggage. The breakfast was ok but may be some trays would have done better, since the tables were not clean. The use of the internet is good, you can pay once and have the opportunity to use it whenever and for how long you want for a total of seventy-five minutes within twenty-four hours, I found it excellent. And the opportunity of keeping your luggage is cheap and safe. The hostel is not the maximum you would expect, but has also some positive aspects. I recommend it for one or two nights. Were it not so dirty, I would give four stars.

My biggest complaint was that the pictures of the hostel shown on the internet is nothing like the place itself. When making an internet booking you trust that the pictures are the real thing. What a shock! I cancelled my booking immediately and will also loose some money, but I just could not stay there. I hope the hostel I booked in Florence is not a shock.

This was a horrible hostel, it is the worst one I have stayed in. My friend and I were originally put in a six-bed dorm shared with four other people. Now, we understand that when you book at a hostel there are people staying with you that you don't know, so you have to expect some craziness. However, when we stepped in the room, we couldn't tell which beds were free, and which weren't. There was garbage everywhere, dirty plates, holes in the wall, and everthing was filthy. The bathroom didn't look like it had ever been cleaned and never been vaccumed. We decided not to stay there and went down to cancel our room. However, the manager was extremely rude and said that we had to cancel forty-eight hours in advance. (I don't think he got the point that the room was prety much inhabitable.) So we cancelled anyway and lost our money. I have never been so mad and annoyed and disgusted all at the same time. Needless to say, my friend and I are on a personal mission to make sure that people know how bad it is. Many websites book for this hotel, and the information is wildly inaccurate, none of the pictures are right. On a lighter note, it is in a good location. So, if you have to decide between sleeping on the street and this place, I might pick the street.

This was my first hostel experience. My room is clean and warm...the showers have hot water that last for plenty of time. The lockers are huge and secure. The beds are decently comfortable. The staff is nice. Don't be fooled though, there is NO laundry here. The internet cafe is 24 hrs and very nice and cheap, only 1.50 £ per hour. The location of this hostel is nice...across the street from Hyde Park, and very very close to a tube station (the Bayswater tube station). Everything in this city that you could want to do or see is only a 15 minute tube ride at most, if that. The "free" breakfast sucks so don't count on getting much out of it. It is over at 9 am and includes only white bread, boring cereal, and whole milk and jam. If you are expecting to drink skim milk here - forget it. They barely use skim milk in anything.

The Royal Bayswater Hotel (note the lack of 's' in the name, a glaring misnomer on the Royal Bayswater's behalf) is a place where you should only stay if you have a choice between it and the street for the night. The staff are either indifferent, or sleazy men who openly crack onto any female who goes to the desk for any reason. IN the reception area there is a weird vibe, made worse by the near florescent lighting. The clientele seem to be odd, vagrant types, who may not have any other hostel experience with which to compare their stay at the Royal Bayswater (which would be the only explanation as to how they can possibly stand to stay there for so long). The whole place is a little on the run-down side, which combined with the general unsafe feeling makes the experience rather unsettling. The rooms are very small and cramped, and those that face on to the street below are very noisy during the day and night due to the heavy traffic the road gets. Be sure to bring earplugs. I bumped into a cleaning lady who must only have been there for show, as the rooms were not any cleaner upon returning at night despite her presence. There are no lockers, just some cupboards. I did not feel at all safe leaving my belongings there. There are little bathrooms in the room in which the wall provides no sound buffer between the room and the bathroom. This certainly makes for interesting situations if you are sharing the room with total strangers! The only way to air the room is by opening the sole window, thereby increasing the noise. The bathroom was not super clean, but a pair of thongs for the shower (and maybe some gloves!) is most useful. The shower in my room was broken, and the curtain wasn't very good and the bathroom ended up slightly flooded as a result. It was indeed very easy to get to, minutes away from Bayswater Station on foot(Queensway Station, the website fails to mention, is closed until mid-2006). There are a couple of supermarkets close by, and lots of restaurants. Just next to the other side of Hyde Park, which is a great place to go walking! I stayed here two very, very long nights as I was very, very desperate, and I will never stay there if I can help it ever again.