YHA London Lee Valley Hostel

Apr 28th, 2023

I would so much have loved to give a stellar review- much more fun to regale a bad experience. But here, unfortunately, we are. Two stars. First, the good part: the accommodation looks really nice, both outside and in. The staff is very friendly. But. My impression is that current staff have no real experience in this line of work, and have had barely any training or instruction. Several issues occured, and none were solved by the staff without me begging and pleading and/or handwalking them through solutions. Issue 1: Checking in was very hard, because of an issue that could have been easily resolved Issue 2: A late arrival was refused check-in because of the same (already resolved) issue, suggesting that no correction had been made in the system, and no information had been relayed from shift to shift. Issue 3: After it had been confirmed that my room would be available the next day, I returned late in the evening to discover that it actually was not. Issue 4: Staff knew there was an issue, had my phone number and could easily have called me, but left the issue for me to discover too late in the evening for me to make good alternative arrangements. Issue 5: The room had not been cleared out, my backpack and dirty laundry were still in the room, it was hard to convince staff to risk bothering the new occupants of the room, and at least retrieve my luggage so that I could on on my merry way (I ended up sleeping on the floor of a church hall- so all's well that ends well, and five stars for both the vicar and the Church of England ;-) ) I truly believe that this was no ill will, but also that, since so many things were botched so weirdly by so many people, that the issues there are structural, and this might happen to other people as well. And no worries about me, I am resilient enough to figure something out, but imagine a teenager who in the morning hears that they will be accommodated, and when they return are told that they need to leave. Without their luggage, and without having another place to go to. It's just not responsible. Seriously, YHA, sort this out, because it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Apr 22nd, 2023

Apr 19th, 2023

Apr 6th, 2023

Apr 2nd, 2023