Hostel Castello Maggiore

Hello sir madam, We are reaching out to you, as hostels, following our accommodation in Rome May 20-25 at the Castello Maggiore Youth Hostel. We only stayed there for 2 nights when we paid for 6 nights….. We have always been accustomed to youth hostels (abroad and in France), we like this type of accommodation for the conviviality, the meetings, the respect of the applicants although the price is adapted to a modest budget. For the first time we did not understand what happened to us. Here are the facts: We wait for the bell to be answered at the foot of the building. Fortunately, a resident comes out. We arrive in the apartment: we had reserved 2 beds in a room for 6 non-bunk girls, room seen on the site. We are presented with 2 small rooms saturated with 6 beds. One for girls with only one place and the other mixed with 2 places. The entrance to the bedroom is occupied by a double bed for couples. Without the possibility of returning we accept for one evening the 2 beds in a mixed room but demand a discount: by miracle, we are opened a last door and recognize the photo of the large room of 6 girls which is now a mixed room of 8 beds . We are told that there is only one man: surprise of this change, we accept the last 2 non-bunk beds. The man will multiply in 4 and 5 if we add the night watchman who will come to sleep there. No bedside lamp, no electrical outlet. At night to charge our digital devices, we had to put the devices in an unsecured place in the hallway. Given the number of people in the room, the night will be punctuated by the opening or closing of the window either for too much heat or for too much noise (the room overlooks a very noisy square). The toilets… do not close, the door of a shower is broken and the flush buttons have disappeared…. At the end of the day of the 3rd day, the manager is surprised to see us come back and had decided without informing us, to change our room. Our belongings were piled up, not in the future bedroom but in a corner of the old one: we had been freed from our morning beds. Our belongings were left by a window, piled up and we had to check in a hurry to see if anything was missing. Our old room had become a male room…..and all the beds were already occupied, even ours in the morning. As we were looking for a plan B, it was confirmed to us immediately that a room had become available elsewhere and we left this place, a real sleeper, and not a youth hostel. Our departure after 2 nights did not bother the person in charge of the place, who could have filled the vacant beds (if it had not already been done because it was not clear when she saw us). What are we asking for with this letter? the reimbursement of the 4 nights, where we did not sleep there, or even compensation. We do not worry about the opportunity given to fill our duly settled beds. But above all, that these slumber merchants are not associated with your organization. We do not know what is the charter that you sign with the persons in charge of the dwellings put under your name. More than 20 years of travel with youth hostels: this is the first time that the announced conditions are not respected and that we are thrown out of our beds like that. We will reserve the right to tell about our misadventure on social networks. We keep full confidence in the organization of youth hostels which continue to offer us beautiful moments for acceptable prices for small grants. Best regards Chantal Laurent, Blandine Gravelin

Big anything. No reception, I search, I find a lady who tells me that she should still have a bed for me (even though I have a reservation and I paid in advance). She tells me that there is finally no female room only (even though that is what I booked). She offers me a bed in a dirty mixed room where the door stays open all the time. She redirects me to another hotel to have an exclusively female room and gives me the address telling me that it is the same hostel and that it will be ok. I arrive there I am told that they do not know them and that the situation is very strange. I understand that they got rid of me because I was starting to express my dissatisfaction with this SCAM! I find myself in Rome at 8 p.m. without a hotel room. Fortunately, I had an acquaintance who lives there to help me out. Upgrade your budget and go elsewhere. It's not worth losing the money once you arrive!

I had reserved a female dormitory room, arrived there the lady who greeted me explained to me that I would be in a mixed dormitory room because people arrived earlier than expected. There is almost no equipment, everything is broken, sockets, switches, showers... one bathroom out of three closes properly. It was not very expensive yes but that does not prevent the respect of travelers. I don't recommend this place at all.

We stayed for 5 days with my girlfriend and the truth is that the hostel met our expectations. It is about 2 km from the center, but a distance that can be walked easily. It has many bars and restaurants nearby. The best: the treatment and friendship of the manager, who treated you as if you were part of his family and was always in a good mood. The worst: the lady in charge of cleaning, always in a bad mood and treating badly the people who came to the places she was cleaning. She always began to clean at the time that guests need to use the kitchen for breakfast or the bathrooms. In short, it's the cheapest hostel in Rome so you can't expect a 5-star. In the same way it is a place that I would go again.

The reserved place was not available accompanied to another structure nearby booking female room two places arrival mixed room 6 beds one sheet per bed only according to them blanket directly on the skin disgusting

We have not been well in this hostel. The beds were very uncomfortable, people did not respect the hours of sleep (they played music in the room at 5 in the morning), and it was not very clean. The rooms smelled very bad and the atmosphere was very strange. There was no security: we had no keys to lock things, we had no shelf space and anyone could get into our room (no room key). We paid more to be in a room with only girls, and there was no control and it was not respected. We have not been comfortable in this hostel, although the staff has been nice.

Ugly hostel, nonexistent hot water and scruffy toilets.

What. A. Scandal. Paying over 50€ for a single-bed in dorms in the least welcoming and looked-after hostel. Situated on the 2nd floor of an old-looking building, the entrance door was not that appealing. When I opened it, I thought I was in the cheapest guesthouse of Vietnam. White eye-hurting neons in a corridor, far on the left the bathrooms and the kitchen, on the right the rooms. The kitchen I wouldn't set a foot in it, so decrepit as it was. Should I talk about the bathrooms ? The once huge bathroom (the place seems to have been a single apartment before it was made into hostel) was split into three cramped bathrooms, where one has no place to stretch out. No window and an unpleasant smell of moisture, the floor getting flooded whether you be careful or not in the shower, and the untamed mixer tap made it impossible to actually enjoy the moment : you either have the choice to burn alive or freeze to death. It may sound futile and spoiled-child-like, but it really had me blow a fuse. Same neons in the room, no bedsheets, only a blanket and a worn-looking pillow. Still it's in this room I met nice girls : what brought us to chat and get along, was first our shock and dismay about the reality of the place. Then the situation is really good, not too far from the city center to walk (a half hour roughly), and the people who work here are not unfriendly, though not friendly as well. I refuse to feed the AirBnB system and deliberately choose to stay in hostels, but knowing I could have had a luxurious FLAT of my own for the exact same price (I checked, some were even cheaper, and same distance from the city-center), well it certainly makes me bitter.