Viajero Montevideo Hostel

Awesome people and loved the lay out of the building too it was amazing

We had a private room. Small. Very basic. Stinky towels. The worst fitting bed sheets I've ever come across in years of travel. The optional breakfast is not worth it. Coffee available all day though. This place is tremendously popular. Kitchen is good and clean! The rest of the building is grungy. Could do with a few deep cleans. It is a real hostel so a bit of dirt does not seem to be a problem. Good staff and good location. El Viajero Hostel in Colonia is much nicer.

Location is good if you want to stay in the old town as opposed to staying in the better areas of town towards the east). Bed was comfortable. Most facilities such as hot shower, toilet, lift and Wifi worked well. The place was kept clean. For me the biggest problem was the noise. There is a large communal space on the first floor, but with very loud music from early morning to late at night. When checking in at 11:00 AM I could hardly hear what the receptionist said. She seemed unaware of the noise around here (complete absence of empathy). As the small kitchen is adjacent to the bar area, you can not evade the noise when using it. It feels like cooking in a disco. On the second floor is a "quiet area", but most space is taken by a TV room, while the leftover space is used by other guests to make loud phone calls. Escaping to a balcony is problematic as well, as people usually smoke there and/or make phone calls there. Because of the ongoing party atmosphere, people drink or get drunk resulting in anti-social behaviour in the rooms at night and of course heavy snoring or vomiting. Most annoying I found most staff, who act as a kind of DJs and think their choice of music and volume levels is the best. Some even shout at each other from one end of the bar to the other.

I chose the hostel following an incredible stay at the same chain hostel in Colonia del Sacramento and while it was in many ways a good choice, it has not quite lived up to the previous expectation. The location is amazing in the middle of Montevideo’s old town and the rooftop sunsets are absolutely stunning. But the hostel is huge, spread out on four floors and the lovely young staff sometimes just seems to be a bit overwhelmed. They also offer rooms for single use and even these are very reasonably priced so definitely a good place for budgetary reasons. The one area where some improvement is definitely needed is a the cleanliness, not so much in the rooms but the general areas but hopefully that happens when they gear up for the summer season.