Balarm - Hostel and Bar

This place was a scam. When we arrived, there were some people who were staying in our dorm who seemed to be living there. They had clearly been staying there for a while, and had what looked to be drug paraphernalia lying around. They were extremely rude, having loud conversations while people were sleeping, and even waking everyone in the dorm up at 6 in the morning. The staff seemed to think they were fine and this was normal, and did not offer to give us a refund for the night. Aside from that, the facilities were disgusting, there was mold in the showers and the reviews we found after said they had bed bugs. We got out of there so fast, and ended up at ostello bello which was HEAVENLY in comparison.

I have never taken the time to leave a bad review before but this is the WORST HOSTEL EVER. I have stayed in over 15 hostels and have nothing bad to say about any other ones I have stayed in compared to this one. Staying with Balarm was a nightmare. When we showed up at 10 pm to check in we were told the all female dorm (the dorm we paid to stay in) was full and we would have to stay in the mixed dorm. The worker told us there were no men in our room so we were fine with it. The next morning, multiple men arrived in our room and when asking the front desk staff they said there was nothing they could do since it is a mixed dorm even though they lied and told us there were only girls that would be staying there. We then called the owner (he hung up multiple times and told us to text him) where he repeatedly told us there is nothing they can do and they could give us a refund for our second night if we want to leave (we booked this hostel 2 months in advance and didn’t have a backup plan as nothing like this has ever happened before). After texting the owner back and forth for around 15 minutes, he said his manager can deal with it and BLOCKED us. We decided to bite the bullet and stay in a hotel the second night we were supposed to stay in Balarm because we had such a miserable experience. After talking to a worker when getting our refund for the second night, we learned that this has happened before and it isn’t uncommon. If you are booking an all female dorm, STAY AWAY FROM THIS PLACE. This is seriously unbelievable and unacceptable and nobody should have to deal with this, especially knowing they do this purposefully. I wish I could give lower than a 1 star.

I was a little bit surprised to read the poor reviews here because I found this hostel to be generally around the same standard as most hostels I have stayed in. The staff were friendly though I was a little bit surprised that some of them didn't speak English, but it wasn't a problem at all in the end. The dorm room was clean, as were the toilets and showers. I would have appreciated having a lock on the dorm room: this was the first time I've ever experienced being in a hostel where the dorm room itself couldn't be locked (though there were lockers available for valuables). This is perhaps something to think about for the future, particularly for guests who have booked the female only dorm.

O hostel é muito bem localizado e os banheiros funcionam bem. Porém os quartos são muito grandes e bem barulhos, fiquei em 2, um possuía pouquíssima ventilação e outro tinha a janela quebrada, então não fechava, não ficava escuro e ainda se ouvia o barulho da rua. A cozinha também é bem suja e o pessoal faz muito barulho depois das 23, por que é um hostel mais jovem, mas mesmo assim acho que devia ter melhor acústica, se a intenção for fazer festa.