Dengba Inn (Shanghai Laoximen Subway Station Branch)

The overall experience is good. The layout of the hostel is good having rooms at the outer circle while bathrooms area is located in the center. Toilet bowls and shower area are separated for males and females but the wash basins are mixed. You will need to pay for towel if you need one. Staff is not quite capable of English but they are friendly and will try to help you. The hostel is just a 5-minute walk to Laoximen subway station.

Very creepy place. The bathroom is the worst part of this hostel. They did not indicate that the bathroom will be shared with men in their trip.com description. They posted clean-looking photos of corridors and newly refurbished rooms at the time of refurbishing, but nowhere did they mention the one and only photo of the bathroom posted is actually men and women shared bathroom. Had I known, I would not have spent my money on this misleading fraud. I would have zero intention to share bathroom with men. During my 2-night hell of a stay, I have not gone further than the corridor and used bathrooms in nearby good hotels. The same applies to the smelliest toilets, which have no windows and ventilation. The stench was unbearable, so I never used them, but went to toilets of good hotels and in nearby Starbucks. The hostel toilets were also filthy. Some locals behaved inappropriately, as well, including the receptionists who illegally allowed people to smoke inside of the building and one of them held my passport in his hand after he already checked me in for too long, ushering me to go to my room, but not giving back my passport. Only once I told him to give it back, he returned passport to me. The service was non-existent. Nobody spoke a word of English. This is to warn the foreign travelers, this hostel is not what you expect, it is just a cheap place for Chinese people to stay. I have not seen a single foreigner there. Nowhere in their trip.com posting did they mention quite a large number of stairs to clime with your luggage. As you can see from the photos, the stairs outside are filthy, locals hawk and spit there and they smoke in front of it. But, that's not the worst. Locals also smoke cigarettes inside of the hostel on the stairs, as you can see from my photos. I reported to the receptionist, but she said that these stairs inside of the building are their designated area for smoking. In China, smoking is forbidden by law in all indoor public areas, including the building corridors and stairs. But, these people were so unprofessional that I was speechless. Also, there were locals camping in the corridors of the hostel, in front of their rooms, so the place is crowded. Locals use this hostel for their commercial affairs, as well. Sending large packages to crowded rooms which they share with others was something I also experienced. Strange high steps in the hostel corridor are another obstacle for your luggage and daily entertainment. Overall, bad experience in a highly overpriced dirty, smelly, unsafe dive.

I guess it is okay as long as you don’t mind sharing a room with others. Not a fancy place but nice and convenient in terms of saving some money and having some rest.