t_maia

Dresden Hostel review: Kangaroo-Stop

This hostel rocks! Great place with a cool and spacious kitchen, clean, great lounge, free internet, friendly staff and best of all - cool atmosphere and great interior design.

They are not in the old town, but since almost all hostels in Dresden are clustered around Neustadt train station this is no big draw back. As a matter of fact they are very close to Dresden-Neustadt train station, thus being more conveniently located than others. If you stay around Neustadt train station you'll have easy access to Saxon Switzerland and to most of the trains to Prague.

Short, the Kangaroo stop is my new favourite hostel.

Overall

5

Location

5

Cleanliness

5

Value

5

Facilities

5

Service

5

t_maia stayed here in Nov 2009
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Berlin Hostel review: MEININGER Hotel Berlin Hallesches Ufer

This hostel is a large house that frequently gets invaded by teens on school trips. It has a reputation for being a party hostel. There is a bar downstairs that is always busy. The hostel is so big that Sandeman's New Berlin Free Walking Tour and New Berlin Pub Crawl make the Meininger's at Hallesches Ufer a pick-up point. As a result the bar in the hostel automatically gets included into the pub crawl; plus you got people coming home drunk at all hours of the morning. Security and hostel staff try to enforce the rules on silence, but it is almost impossible to maintain during the summer months when the hostel is often full. To top it off there is a noisy street and the Underground trains running in front of the hostel, so bring some earplugs if you want to sleep.

Facilities: They are as good as they say they are. All rooms are spotless and almost everything is new, from toilets and showers down to furniture. All rooms have cable TV (German only).

I am not the partying type, so it is the facilities and the competent and helpful staff that make me come back everytime. It is one of my favourite places to stay in Berlin.

What could be improved is the availability of lockers, not all rooms had them when I last stayed there.

The location is good too. Not too far away from the city centre and you can easily catch the Underground to Wittenbergplatz (KaDeWe) and the bus or underground to Potsdamer Platz or Hauptbahnhof. Only tiny draw back is the lack of direct access to the S-Bahn system and that you need to change trains to get to Friedrichstrasse.

Accessibility: The hostel has an elevator to get you up to the 7th floor, so it is a good choice if you are walking impared. For wheelchairs it is not a good choice because there are stairs at the entrance and some of the doors are narrow. Wheelchair users are better off at the Meininger Hotel and Hostel at Tempelhofer Ufer right across the street. If you stay at Tempelhofer Ufer you can use the facilites of the hostel at Hallesches Ufer too.

Overall

5

Location

4

Cleanliness

5

Value

4

Facilities

5

Service

5

t_maia stayed here in Mar 2008
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Berlin Hostel review: Odyssee Globetrotter Hostel

I stayed at this hostel several times. I really like this hostel because it has a cool and artsy feel to it, very Berlin. The rooms are decorated in a funky style, most likely by a street artist.

The building itself is a converted house from the 1900's, it is only accessible through the courtyard of the front house. You have to climb up some steep levels of stairs first to get to the reception and second to get to the rooms. Inside the reception you find a large room and bar that is mainly pirate and sea themed, done up in rough woods. Nice to sit at and have a chat with other people staying there.

The location of the hostel is quite good. It is in one of the hipper and less expensive parts of Berlin with a safe neighborhood. Not as central as one could like, but it is close enough to S+U Warschauer Strasse to make it a convenient base to explore Berlin. Another good feature is that it is ideal if you want to fly out of Berlin SFX at a very early hour in the morning. It is among the 3-5 hostels around S+U Warschauer Strasse that are the closest to Berlin SFX if you use public transport.

Overall

5

Location

4

Cleanliness

4

Value

5

Facilities

4

Service

4

t_maia stayed here in Jun 2008
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