20 Craziest Party Hostels

[Hostels]

Found this via Digg:
20 Craziest Party Hostels

Congratulations for making their list

• Wombat's Berlin Hostel
• Jazz on South Beach Hostel, Miami
• The Flying Pig Hostel, Amsterdam
• St. Christopher’s Inn, London
• The Clown and Bard, Prague
• The Rising Cock, Portugal
• and many more

The list of party hostels was compiled by Nomadic Matt.

[aboriginalhostel]

Congrats Klaus,

Keep up the good work!

[santa klaus]

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

Congrats Klaus,

Keep up the good work!

Cheers! I figure our guys in Munich will not be pleased. Their parties are crazier than the ones in Berlin (take my word ) - and they party since 2004 already!

The view in Berlin is second to none though.

[gordo]

wow, in business what, 4 months and already got a rep klaus! good work!

one thing about the article scared me though.

Known for its partying, Wombats rarely sees anyone over 25. With an ultra-chic bar, everyone breaks out their best attire and pickup skills here. Cheap drinks keep travelers mingling all night long. If you can’t meet anyone here, you can’t meet anyone anywhere.

nobody over 25? ergh... im 25... ouch, way to make a young guy feel old.

raises a few thoughts questions though - how old is 'old' in party hostels? hostels in general?

[Hostels]

Originally Posted by gordo

nobody over 25? ergh... im 25...

Better get there fast

[santa klaus]

Originally Posted by gordo

wow, in business what, 4 months and already got a rep klaus! good work!

Well, let´s call that a lucky strike.

That hostel has still a lot potential to improve. Some things still don´t run as flawlessly as they should. It annoys the hell out of me that four other places in Berlin score better ratings. Not much longer, I hope. We are working on that.

Originally Posted by gordo

one thing about the article scared me though.


nobody over 25? ergh... im 25... ouch, way to make a young guy feel old.

raises a few thoughts questions though - how old is 'old' in party hostels? hostels in general?

Haha, the tyranny of the youth! Josh is right, better get there fast. It won´t be long until everybody expects you to wear a tie, drive a van, live in the burbs and spend quality time with your kids in a resort at the Red Sea. Old farts who think they are still cool are really pathetic!

That said, the review is not correct IMHO. I don´t have stats from Berlin (yet), but at our other three hostels only 57% are 25 or younger. 30% are between 26 and 32 and the rest (13%) are 33 or older.

[aboriginalhostel]

Originally Posted by santa klaus

Well, let´s call that a lucky strike.

That hostel has still a lot potential to improve. Some things still don´t run as flawlessly as they should. It annoys the hell out of me that four other places in Berlin score better ratings. Not much longer, I hope. We are working on that.

Just checking your reviews... You just suffer the review-backwhip effect. As up-to-date, 1085 reviews in 4 and 1/2 months, which could be even a small town's total reviews... You have even more than the other top 5 hostels reviews together. That's a good job. IMHO, it is more relevant than 114 reviews of 93%. I know it is a prestige-question to be the No.1, but c'mon, Circus is also a good player, been on the market for about 10 years, E7 catches a different clientele, and JetPak runs for the "jetpacker" in smaller sizes.

About the backwhip, as usually people review hostels if they have either a very good or a very bad experience, it is hard to communicate with those people who expect your services as a standard. Therefore they deny to review, because they can't add anything to it. They think it is as good as it is. You touched these people, so many of them (and I guess not only because of the 8EUR opening prices) which is a very good communication!

Originally Posted by santa klaus

That said, the review is not correct IMHO. I don´t have stats from Berlin (yet), but at our other three hostels only 57% are 25 or younger. 30% are between 26 and 32 and the rest (13%) are 33 or older.

Have you tried to recalc your stats to 18-26 groups? Believe me, that 1 year counts because of the Interrailers...

[santa klaus]

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

As up-to-date, 1085 reviews in 4 and 1/2 months, which could be even a small town's total reviews...

Talking about "small towns", that´s twice as much as Hamburg!
Indeed, from that perspective, this hostel is a huge success. It will actually make money in 2008, something we didn´t dare to dream about before we opened.

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

I know it is a prestige-question to be the No.1

Of course it is. We have the biggest dick and we want them to concede that!

We´re No. 1 on Hostelbookers, but that´s about as prestigious as winning the women´s football world cup. [Germany won the last two tournaments and nobody even knows that].

I *know* we can do better and it just makes me somewhat crazy that we don´t.
Sort the reviews by "lowest rated". Some people may exaggerate a bit but everything they say is true. The cleaning staff is sometimes more busy with determining their pecking order than with actually cleaning the rooms, there is a lot of new staff in the reception (so they´re still slow with routine work) and so on and so on. But we are working on all of that.

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

About the backwhip, as usually people review hostels if they have either a very good or a very bad experience, it is hard to communicate with those people who expect your services as a standard. Therefore they deny to review, because they can't add anything to it.

Interesting theory!

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

Have you tried to recalc your stats to 18-26 groups? Believe me, that 1 year counts because of the Interrailers...

I´ll have a look tomorrow (typing this from at home). In any case, these stats are not very relyable anyway. We usually don´t keep track of our guest´s age. I just told the receptions once to give me the ages of the next 100 people they check in - so my sample is only 300 persons, on a random day last winter.

[Hostels]

This is where some of the hostels in the list may have come from:
http://matadortravel.com/node/76704

[santa klaus]

Ah, Kabul. It is the stuff of legends.

Indeed. I went to Barcelona twice just to stay at the Kabul. There are a lot "crazy party hostels" now but ten years ago it was a very unique place.

two more good aspects about it from my point of view:

1. They printed on their flyers "if you want to sleep go elsewhere" - that gets my applause for brutal honesty.
2. Although the hostel would still make a killing anyway, they have invested a lot to improve it in the past few years.