In Milan, we stayed in
Sofytel Hostel, because Mia and Chels found it on hostelbookers and
it was cheap. It turns out that it was a brand new hostel that had
just opened in late September/early October. We booked in November so
there weren't that many reviews for it yet. Well... we didn't recheck
the reviews before coming on the trip. My review would go something
like this:
My
initial thought upon entering this hostel was that it was a trap to
lure in young girls to be “taken” as we have all seen in the
movies. I walked into the main room of the hostel which was
advertised as a lounge and bar area. I suppose the lounge was the one
long red couch and the bar was the table on the side of the room that
housed several empty beer bottles and four unwashed plastic champagne
flutes. There were many people just standing or sitting around, and I
had no idea who was in charge. But once I met who I assume was the
owner, he was very pleasant and helped the four of us with our
luggage (as there is no lift). As he thought I was in charge, he
showed me the dorm room we had paid for, which had two sets of bunk
beds and a shared bathroom, and then showed me a private room with a
bathroom ensuite and said we could have it for no extra charge - we
just had to wait an hour for it to be cleaned. Bingo. But then we
were instructed to leave our luggage sitting out in the middle of the
lounge area and he said he would look over it. With all the people
around, this made us very uneasy. Nothing was stolen, but the whole
atmosphere seemed very unsafe. The room itself, though, was very nice –
the beds, bedding, and towels were all in great condition. The
bathroom was clean, and the shower only flooded because *some* girls in the room were idiots and didn't know how to use a shower
curtain effectively (though I really shouldn't complain because I
only recently learned the art of using a shower curtain so that you
don't flood the bathroom). I guess our great flood leaked through to
the floor below, though, because we had to leave our one and only
room key with the owner so that he could deep clean the bathroom
while we were gone for the day.
With it being New
Year's Eve, we came back to discover two things: One, he had removed
my bed (the top bunk above an unusable lower bunk that didn't even
leave enough space between the two beds to sit upright) – this
would have been fine had he warned me that he was removing the extra
bed – buuuut he didn't warn me and instead just moved all my stuff
and I hate, hate, hate when people touch my stuff – espcially
strangers. The second thing was a bottle of white wine with a note
attached that read “Happy New Year Crazyyyyy This night Get very
Drunken But Please not wack up the people” (The previous night we
had gotten a little loud playing cards and I guess woke up the
downstairs neighbors. Good thing that night I didn't get "Drunken" nor did I "wack up" the people). But rather than let us enjoy the wine alone in
our room as we got ready for the evening, he soon knocked on our door and urged us to come out to the lounge, where he had
already poured us more drinks. While I'm sure it was all a nice New
Year's Eve gesture, it came off super, super creepy. One girl refused
to drink what he had poured because she was afraid of not only an
ingredient that she was allergic to, but also fearful that he had put pills
in the drinks and she wanted to make sure we didn't die. Clearly, we
are still alive, but that was the sort of atmosphere that this hostel
has. It seemed that he was trying to create a "party hostel" but just knew no way to a) run a business or b) talk to female guests appropriately.
(Side note: a weird, drunk Japanese guy apparently thought that since I (and the other girls) took a picture with him, I wanted to make out with him. Never have I so aggressively pushed someone away. I guess it should have been an indicator of how the rest of the night was going to go. Oh, to be a natural blonde in Italy.)
Furthermore, we
overheard an argument between one of the two owners and a girl in one
of the dorm rooms our first night there. Apparently, he had knocked on the door, she told
him not to come in, but he came in anyway to find her changing
clothes. She was extremely upset, but he just yelled that she
shouldn't be changing in the rooms anyway, since they were only for
resting. They also argued about the amount of noise she was making,
even though there were people in the lounge making much more noise.
He told her that if she continued to argue, she would be given her
money back and be forced to leave. The other owner shortly came to
apologize, but it was still an uncomfortable thing to overhear. The
walls are very thin, as are the floors (afraid of getting kicked out,
we were trying to maintain indoor voices yet still got a noise
complaint from downstairs), so everything you say or do is overheard.
I arose early New Year's Day to catch my train, but no one was at the front desk to check out with or to buzz me out - so another guest let me out of the front gate. This was another major inconvenience of the hostel: the website boasted 24 hour desk service, but this was only because guests were not given a key to the front gate. Instead, we had to be buzzed in by someone upstairs in the hostel each and every time we left or came back to the property. Also, "24 hour service" meant that whoever was on duty slept on the couch and showered in the shared bathroom. Did these guys not have a place of their own? I think they inherited a large apartment and thought "I'll bet that we could turn this into a hostel and make money!"
Overall, I would
summarize my experience with this hostel as: nice beds, creepy
atmosphere.
At least we didn't get taken!
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