City Hostel Ipoh

Firstly, the positive feedback: My room was clean and they provide you with a towel and a bar of soap. The building is air-conditioned. The staff were friendly. Generally speaking the place looks newly refurbished and what you get for the price is decent. There is a well equipped common area on each floor with a microwave, fridge, toaster, sofas and racks to hang clothes to dry. The hostel is also in a pretty good location. Be aware that they don't allow any alcohol in the hostel, and they have other strict house rules, which some people might not like. Now for the negative feedback: It's a shame because if just a few basic things were done, then I would have given this review 4 stars. The bathrooms weren't clean, there was no toilet paper in any of the stalls. The stalls are showers combined with a toilet, which is fine, but they weren't cleaned once during my 3 night stay. The WiFi doesn't work, and when I asked about it the staff said that it wasn't very good - but it just didn't connect at all. Although this place does give you more privacy than a regular hostel, the rooms aren't completely private, there is a large gap between the top of each room wall and the ceiling so that you can hear everything other guests are doing, and if they turn on a light in their room, you'll wake up. This really isn't a big issue if you have respectful people staying there, however I struggled to sleep because some guests were inconsiderate. They'd be slamming doors, talking loudly at eachother, turning on lights at 1am and again at 7am. I think that this issue isn't so much of a problem in regular hostels, since you're literally sleeping in the same room as other guests, therefore you're naturally more aware of being noisy. The separate compartments at 'Spot On City Hostel' make it easier for guests to be rowdy. I know that this isn't technically the fault of the hostel itself, but it is a fault in the design of the place. The last thing to mention would be that there are bats in the building next door that are constantly squeaking. I mean genuinely nonstop, all day and they get louder at night. I've seen some people in the reviews for this place call them rats or birds, but they are definitely bats. Overall, if you're looking for somewhere cheap for a short stay, and if the cleaning and restocking was done better, I would recommend this place. I do however think that if you don't mind staying in a regular hostel, then you'd be able to find better accommodation elsewhere.