I was disappointed by my stay here. My head was a bit all over the place before I arrived and I was looking forward to chilling out. I don’t usually spend this much on hostels but decided to make an exception for a night or two. A big part of the reason I chose the stay was the beautiful yoga room. My plan was to spend an afternoon doing yoga, dancing, and hula hooping as this usually helps to clear my mind and I haven’t been able to do this in a long time.

The morning after my first night, there was a yoga class until 12pm. At 12.30 I asked could I go to the yoga room now and spend a few hours there. I was then told that the yoga room is not available for general use. Not available for general use??? As you can see above, their title inclides eat.sleep.yoga.surf, and this is on a big sign outside the hostel too. Their marketing heavily heavily features pictures of the yoga room, I was shown the yoga room when I first arrived, and their website says it is a “space for self practice”. I feel like all this should come with an asterix *terms and conditions apply, yoga room is not available for personal practice, only available 1-2 hours per day during scheduled classes, $8 per class. In my year of travelling I’ve never stayed in a yoga hostel where they do not let customers use the yoga room.

When I tried to have this conversation with them they made me feel like it was weird that I would be expecting to be able to use it. They said twice or three times that it doesn’t explicitly say on the website that it is available for use. One of the women told me I was welcome to use the surfboard storage room, or to move some furniture and make a space for myself in the common area Obviously I’m not going to do that. I’m not travelling with a yoga mat so I need access to the equipment, and I also don’t want to do yoga/dancing/hooping, any of that in public.

After a bit of back and forth they did let me use it for half an hour before the cleaning staff were due to come in to wax the floor. A rushed half an hour didn’t really help my mindset at all as it’s hard to get into the flow when you are watching the clock.

The attitude was as though I was being unreasonable, which I really didn’t feel like I was. Apparently they had some issues with yoga equipment and money going missing from the room. Which first of all is not my problem, second of all why were you keeping money in an unsupervised room, third of all put the equipment away. It wouldn’t be that difficult to buy a cabinet and put a lock on it. Then you can have a person write down that they take and charge them if they don’t bring it back in good condition.

It was a weird experience overall. I still give it 2 stars because the bed was comfy enough, and the rooms were very clean. Breakfast was a decent portion. But the WiFi was pretty patchy. And the WiFi worked fine in the hostel next door where I went for dinner one evening. So it’s not an area thing, it’s just their problem. Anyway, rant over. I’m moving to a much much cheaper hostel today as this one is just not worth double the price of a lot of other hostels in town.