sudden non-Europe trip (now with hostel problems)

[me]

Doug,

you hacker, you!

- d

dumbdiety said:

Ohhh this isn't good. You just lemme know paint, and their website just may have some problems in the near future...

[paint]

Ok so update - I got an email from hostelz.com telling the hostel how to find the reservation, and they said that the hostel staff I talked to should have already known how to retreive it. I also got 3 emails from the hostel, confirming 2 different reservations for me, for different dorms, for the same nights. I emailed them to cancel the second one, the higher priced one, which I booked directly through them. I told them exactly which confirmation number to delete. I had to cancel one of them to avoid getting charged for a "no-show," and I've already paid a non-refundable deposit on the reservation through hostelz.com. If I get there and they've accidentally (~) cancelled both reservations, I'll call my friend in Berkley and sleep on her floor (she's got sleeping bags).

Hopefully after all this the hostel staff won't be awful to me, and if I get there and it seems like this really was just an odd misunderstanding and comedy of errors, I'll be fair in reviewing my stay there, ignoring the booking mess. But I'm still suspicious of all this.

I still haven't figured out what I'm actually going to see once I get there. I'm thinking of maybe a ferry to Alcatraz.

[paint]

The hostel cancelled the reservation I made through them and kept the one I made through hostelz.com, and they seemed friendly enough. We'll see how it goes.

[paint]

Allright - I'm leaving tomorrow for the airport - (cross-country, woohoo!) - wish me luck!

[dumbdiety]

Good luck! Let us know what happened with the hostel when you get a chance!

[paint]

And I'm backkkk. It rained the whole time I was in San Francisco and I pulled my hamstring on the Golden Gate Bridge (still glad I walked it though), so I just took a red-eye flight home Saturday/Sunday.

The hostel situation was very interesting. All the staff I saw were about age 20 or so. They charged me the balance of the reservation I booked through Hostelz.com, which is what I wanted them to do. The bed they assigned me to was a lower bunk in the good upstairs female dorm - 8 beds, 6 occupied. First sign of strangeness was the older lady who had been assigned to an upper bunk. She wasn't the type of senior who you'd probably see in one of those "golden-age energy drink" commercials. She wasn't allowed to switch to an empty lower bunk, and was shown where it's in writing on our receipts that the staff does bed checks between 3 and 4 am - if you're not in your assigned bed they wake you up. A younger girl in a lower bunk offered to switch beds with her and aparrently that wasn't allowed either.

As for the pricing thing, the two different prices I was quoted were for the same room! The woman in the bed next to me was also quoted two different prices for the same room... $23 US and $29 US. She thought it was because she's an HI member and that maybe the second price was for non-members.... but the hostel is in a national park and they're not allowed to charge extra for non-members.

Questionable morals aside, the hostel is in a great location - I walked down a hill to the bus stop and it took me right to the Golden Gate Bridge. Go downhill and walk about 15 minutes in the other direction and end up at Fisherman's Wharf. Shuttle service to/from the airport is easy and takes about an hour (costs $15 to the hostel and $12 to the airport). Beds were comfortable and if you get cold you can get a blanket or two at no extra charge from the desk. Linens are clean. Pillows are flat but large, I folded mine in half inside the pillowcase and it worked great. Free wake-up calls (they use a flashlight) - I did that so as to not wake up the dorm at 6 a.m. with my alarm clock. Free bagels or waffles and orange juice or coffee at breakfast... lunch and dinner filling and inexpensive. I had quiche, rye bread, and a glass of soda for $3.90. They even decorated the plate with paprika. My flight home was at 11:30 p.m. and checkout is 11 a.m. so I used the locked luggage storage, which is free.

Staff were knowledgeable but borderline impatient, and not necessarily friendly. 24 hour reception and no lock-out though.

I'd probably stay there again, but book through hostelz.com not directly through them... and I'd fax them the reservation confirmation from the booking site rather than call with with my name, etc.

[Jules80]

glad you had fun!

Jules

[paint]

Well I don't know about fun but I got a few cool pictures, and maybe I'll get a job (which is why I went out there)~

Still undecided about the hostel though - something seems fishy about it