This happened under the current management although they claim it didn’t. Pretty much the worst hostel I have ever stayed in. I’ve stayed in dozens. Bullying staff and management, actually emotionally abusive. The decent one or two staff members don’t know how to handle the crazy staff. Apparently those nasty staff were fired or left - Max and Lorna - but not until the new management enabled them to harass / bully guests and throw them out in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason. Staff play varied between being your best friend and your worst enemy, keeping everyone off kilter and on edge. They were either on a crusade of righteousness or ganging up against some guests with other guests in really nasty ways. Weird quiet guests in the shadows, saying really strange things to people, lots of mind games - and the management kick out anyone with no notice or explanation - about 10 people kicked out over the course of 2 weeks for having harmless fun or “not telling, just go - rumours”. Staff members would get very overly close to some guests and bully other guests and even kick them out in the middle of the night - without verifying the truth. This happened under current management. The same staff who claimed to be against extreme racism & sexism that was rampant at this hostel. Suddenly they very guest that they were protecting from racism and sexism was the guest they kicked out in the middle of the night because one of the bullies turns out to be one of their friends. Horrible stuff. The staff get uptight and close up any social outdoor seating and the tv room after about 11 pm. Even if you’re not disturbing anyone. You have to wait till they go home, but they make sure everything is locked up so that no one can actually relax. Then, they go around blacklisting at other hostels anybody who says that they want to check out early, or who they kick out, to try to prevent them from checking in anywhere else, even if they haven’t told them what is supposedly done wrong. That’s how insane they are. Or for minor misdeamnours. The hostels humour them, and then ignore them. Many guests left early as they felt uncomfortable, several of my mates left, we all went to a hostel elsewhere and relaxed and laughed and felt way better - the other hostels had all heard of Band laughed when we mentioned it, their reputation as the last place to be for travellers precedes them. Guests are aggressively threatened and rebuked for peacefully congregating one minute, and then sidled up to the next, very strange. Then, they will be smiling and collecting stories on somebody else and threatening them. It’s just a very strange place. Most who say “it’s great!” stay short term before they realise. All outdoor areas are smoking and staff were flaunting the no smoking section of the outdoors, so everybody else does, too, which is great if you are a chain smoker like most of us and sucks if you are not or are tying to give up - absolutely no chance in this plac
25 Reviews