Santa Barbara Tourist Hostel

Staff is unnecessarily mean. Dirty bathrooms. Smelly hallway. Rude. Noisy. If you can find anywhere else then go for it. Sad too cuz great location but these people are inhospitable and just want your $$. Embarrassing way to host SB :(

The staff wasn’t nice at all, at the phone and at the front desk, and the place was dirty and messy.
I have such experience on hostels. and let me say that I was surprise when I saw the place. I didn’t spend the night here, I found an hotel, less expensive with a private bathroom.

I stayed in a private room with an ensuite bathroom this past weekend and it was a pretty okay place. Way cheaper than booking a hotel room, that’s for sure! But at almost a hundred bucks a night, it wasn’t THAT great. I’d rate the cleanliness of the room at a 7. The overall feel of the hostel just wasn’t a good one, though! It’s the only hostel I’ve stayed at where they lock up the lounge area/​kitchen overnight! Therefore, no one really hangs out at the hostel once they get out from their nightly excursions. I got home at 10:30 one night and the whole place was dark an quiet… pretty creepy!
The staff was nice and the location is central to the bars and the beach, however you are right by the Amtrak station, so the sound of trains shake the building.

Pros:
-$ 30-​$ 40 a night, compared to the cheapest motel 6 which was $ 75+tax
–Close to train station, state street, beach, wharf, tourist areas
–Parking (although there was construction going on that blocked about 15 spots)
–Men’s shower-​heads were strong and hot!
Cons:
–Breakfast: PB & J is + coffee is not breakfast
–Bunk beds are squeaky as hell
–Next to train station
–Ladders to climb onto top bunk are blocked by the walls, I had trouble getting up as a 5’11″ guy, you have to step on the bed of the person below you
–My dorm (#3) smelled like a football team’s locker room
–Top bunk has no guard rails, #yolo
–Very few electrical outlets by beds
–No refunds if you paid for 2 nights but decide to stay 1
–Dorms just looked run down and old
–If you’re top bunk and want to get up before 8, enjoy annoying everyone else in the dorm
–Carpets are very thin, do not jump down from top bunk unless you’re light, your feet will thank you
–Towels cost money
Tips:
–Don’t pay for all the nights at once, pay day-​by-​day in case you decide to go elsewhere
–Bring your own towels and amenities
–Ask for a bottom bunk unless you have a fetish for top bunks with no rails
Only reason I give this place 3 stars is because of the price compared to other hotels, although there is another hostel in the area, I might try that one next time.

I must say that I’m surprised at how negative the reviews of this place are. It’s a hostel: you get what you pay for. For $ 30/​night, I was not surprised to be in a packed dorm room with worn linens. What I wanted was 3 nights there for the price of 1 in a cheap hotel elsewhere, and that’s what I got.
The breakfast was not really my speed, though. Part of that was that it was at 8:30, which was too late for me generally but definitely when I am on Eastern time and up each morning around 5:00. But I also don’t feel that tea and bread with peanut butter constitutes breakfast, so I just didn’t really partake in that.
Other things to know: I stayed in early March, so I can imagine that it can get hot in there. The hallway was sweaty on the day I arrived, but the temperature outside was in the 40s-​60s, so it was fairly easy to get some cool air through here. Also, the linens and the rental towels and the showers and the beds are not the kind you’ll see at Holiday Inn. You’re paying for budget accommodations, and that’s what you get. My biggest gripe with the bathroom is that I’m 5’11″ and the shower heads all seem to be around 5’9″. I also did not feel the burning need for flip flops, but I shower in hockey locker rooms barefoot, so maybe I’m just reckless.
A couple of other things I didn’t like: even though I expected it, I wasn’t particularly keen on the packed dorm room. This was mostly because people with hard suitcases left them in the aisle. This is a fire hazard, this is inconvenient, and this makes things LOUD when people are coming in at 1:00 AM or going out at 5:00 AM. In fact, I might tattle today, because I really don’t want my obituary to say that my last moments were spent on a squeaky bunk in a packed hostel.
After reading that, you’re probably wondering why this got four stars from me. Here’s why: $ 30/​night, parking, mid-​morning tea, a shower, and wifi. I didn’t come to Santa Barbara to spend time in my ho (s)tel. I came to get out and do things, so staying somewhere where there’s little on offer beyond a bed and a shower is fine by me. I also wanted to stay here because I’m thinking of moving to the area (this is basically a scouting mission) and I assumed that the staff would be chatty 20-​somethings who know the area and can give me the rundown of what it would be like to live here. I was right. The staff was consistently very nice and helpful.
In short: if you want luxury accommodations or even what you’re used to at home, go somewhere else. If you want to spend a portion of your visit to Santa Barbara lounging about your lodging, go somewhere else. If you want to save money and only need a bed and a shower, this is your place.

My girlfriend and I stayed here over our holiday break only expecting a place to rest our head and a place to shower. That’s pretty much what we got. The idea was that we would be getting into Santa Barbara late that night so it didn’t make sense to book more expensive lodging. We found the place adequately clean and quiet, and were surprised at how centrally located it was. It’s still kind of a dump, but most hostels are.
The only thing that kind of ruined it for me was that at $ 80 for our private room, I don’t think we got a ton of value out of it. For only a few bucks more I feel like we could have stayed somewhere much nicer and gotten more per dollar.

Ich hatte ein ‘female dorm’ gebucht, war mir also bewusst darüber, dass ich in ein Mehrbettzimmer käme. Ich rechnete mit ca. 6 Leuten. Tatsächlich war es ein 12er Zimmer. Wenn die Dorms mit so vielen Leuten belegt werden, sollte das auf der Homepage auf jeden Fall deutlicher stehen!
Abgesehen von den 6 Doppelstockbetten gab es praktisch keine Einrichtung, so dass man nicht anders konnte, als direkt aus dem Koffer zu leben. Für die abschließbaren Boxen für Wertsachen musste bezahlt werden, sobald man das Schloss verschließen wollte es gab also keine einmalige Bezahlung/​keinen Schlüsselpfand für die Aufenthaltsdauer, sondern für jede Benutzung. Wenn man Handy und Laptop aber nur nachts abschließen möchte, muss man jede Nacht dafür zahlen. Es war nicht besonders teuer, aber trotzdem fand ich diese Lösung sehr gast-​un-​freundlich.
Die Bäder hatten Hostel-​Standard.
Die beiden Mitarbeiterinnen waren ziemlich unfreundlich und das Frühstück bestand nur aus Toast mit Marmelade oder Erdnussbutter und Kaffee. Das ganze kostet dann ca 50 EUR pro Nacht.
Ich weiß nicht, ob es viele Alternativen gibt. Grundsätzlich würde ich das Hostel aber eher nicht empfehlen.

I try my best not to write poor reviews but this place really needed it. I’ve never felt so strong about a place closing than this one. It was a pit and the staff was so rude, plus the rates are «subject to change», NOT COOL! I should have known when they weren’t a part of any hosteling organization.
When we first booked the beds the rates as listed on the site were $ 25 per person. The day of the rate went to $ 43 per person?! We could have stayed down the road at a nice hotel for that. Our visit was during Fiesta weekend or whatever in Santa Barbara so we didn’t have much for options. They should have mentioned the rate change over the phone when booked a month in advance or at least honored the rate if it were changed since we booked more than 2 months in advance. This place totally takes advantage or travelers.
The rooms were crowded and not very secure, everyone pretty much complained. They really tried very hard to cram as many beds into one room until it was just about a fire safety issue. The windows were really hard to use and the fans in the room were small and made weird noises.
The bathrooms were absolutely disgusting and wreaked of bodily fluid and bleach. Don’t know about the men’s room but the women’s flooded and was always filthy. There is no space to hang anything and the shower curtains were molding and slimy.
The staff was rude and never even got the breakfast available in the morning. All they cared about was collecting money and checking people out for more people to come in so they can take advantage. Plus the Australian guys who ran it were creepy. One was blocking the driveway with his car and when we asked for him to move it so we could leave he gave us such lip about it.
It sucks that Santa Barbara is such a amazing place with this suck establishment there to ruin the fun. This is by far the worst hostel my boyfriend and I have stayed in. Plus it really made our trip to Santa Barbara not as enjoyable.