Name: Glenelg Beach Hostel
Address: 1-7 Moseley Street, Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide, 5045, Australia
Rating: 8

Smoke-free property

Garden

General

Non-smoking rooms

Rooms

Laundry

Safe-deposit box

Luggage storage

Services and amenities

Common kitchen

Meals

Internet access

Internet

Tour assistance

Tourist services

Bike rental

Barbecue grill(s)

Recreation

Free parking nearby

Parking

Fax and copy machine

Business

Pets Not Allowed

Pets

Location

At the hostel

Moseley Square

The Beachhouse

Glenelg North Beach

Glenelg Beach

Adelaide Airport

Glenelg Beach Hostel

Adelaide

Had a very restful two weeks here. Loved the convenience of the tram, shops and supermarkets. And of course Glenelg beach !

Fortunately the noise level from the road, shops across the street or bar downstairs was tolerable and didn’t go on all night. 

My main concern was security in the kitchen. Guests not staying at the hostel are able to access the kitchen from the bar downstairs. Some guests also left the backdoor to their accommodation ajar. 

Clean lodgings; great location 

Windows won’t shut, leaking toilets, dirty toilets, impossible getting sleep if it’s not a quite Monday, people outside smoking weed every morning and every night so it smells in the whole building. I might come back to Glenelg, but never back here.

No, no, no!

So I'll start with the positives: great location, complimentary breakfast (simple but better than nothing), spacious dorm rooms 

Negatives (unfortunately, there’s quite a few): 
General uncleanliness...in the communal areas - the kitchen in particular was always filthy. The maid seemed to half-heartedly clean in the morning but when so many people are sharing a kitchen/bathroom, they should be cleaning multiple times a day. I understand that the guests are expected to clean their own dishes but the state of the counters/floors was unacceptable. 

The kitchen layout was unpractical. The sinks and stoves were in two separate rooms! So for example, I had to carry a saucepan full of boiling water down some steep stairs and into the other kitchen room...very unsafe! 

The hostel in general, is very much geared up for young drinkers where as, I was more looking for somewhere peaceful and relaxing to stay. The communal areas were dark and dingy like a nightclub. And unclean! 
The staff weren't rude but they also weren't particually friendly or welcoming. Very much a 'don't care' attitude. 

Also, the 'free WIFI' was virtually non existent. So annoying! 

Not at all the worst hostel I've stayed in but also not the best.

Average

Glenelg Beach Hostel is in the perfect location - one street back from the beach at Glenelg, just off Jetty Road. Shops, restaurants, bars, and other entertainment is nearby.

Tram stop is a minute's walk away, with easy access to the City Centre.

The big old house is spacious and funky, with plenty of homely charm. It's nothing like other impersonal, concrete, cookie-cutter hostels I've stayed in overseas and interstate. This place feels completely real.

Staff members are relaxed and accommodating, always willing to have a chat and keep things friendly.

Free breakfast is basic but appreciated - toast with butter and jam, instant coffee, and a nice big kitchen for cooking your own meals.

The bar is also a really cool space, great vibe for socialising, and reasonably priced alcohol.The beer garden with outdoor seating is also a cool place to hang out in warmer weather.

Thanks for a great stay!

Perfect location and spacious building

I stayed at Glenelg Beach Hostel for one week and had a fabulous time. It is the perfect location, basically on the beach, tons of awesome restaurants and shops right there on Jetty road, and super easy to get into the CBD by tram. I personally also loved that it was walking distance to the bikram yoga studio. The hostel itself is in an awesome heritage building, the rooms, bathrooms, kitchen, and common areas were kept very clean, and the staff especially Tony the guy who runs the hostel were all very friendly, accommodating and always available for questions and anything you need. Wifi was great and I liked that the beds were not bunkbeds. I enjoyed the atmosphere too, not being a big partier it was nice and chill, yet there was opportunities for night life and I even stepped out with some of the other backpackers while I was there on a public holiday long weekend. Also, when people were partying downstairs I had no problem sleeping, my room was surprisingly quiet! I look forward to staying here again if I'm ever in Adelaide again. Thanks Glenelg Beach Hostel!!

Everything you'd want

I’ve stayed in hostels on and off through my twenties and into my thirties. This is one of the better hostels I’ve been in. The location is perfect and so easy to find that taxi drivers know it by name!

The building is an old one, with the quirks that come along with communally living in old buildings. There are regulars as well as one-nighters that stay in this location and they are generally all friendly. International visitors like myself get to make other international friends as well as meet lots of friendly aussies. 

The kitchen is big with a lot of mixed and match dishes and pots and pans, but it’s definitely possible to cook your own food and make friends while doing so.

There are quite a few shower stalls and toilets, and if you don’t want to wait for the private shower rooms, then there is a bigger shower room with stalls that always seems to be free.

The hostel gives perks to visitors like a super cheap laundry area and a happy hour deal that can’t really be beat. 

The neighborhood the beach hostel itself is located in is generally safe and friendly. 

If you like communal living, affordable accommodations, and a spot with charm, this gem in Adelaide is the right place for you!

Friendly staff and locals

We had the great displeasure of staying in this squalid abomination.
We were abused by staff and witnessed crimes that were ignored by staff.

Before we paid or checked in we specifically asked the manager if it would be quiet and he assured us it would be. He completely lied to us! We were kept up till 3am with the noises of people parting outside and inside the hostel. You can hear everything that is happening down on the street as it all echoes and reverberates up through the very thin windows which are not at all sealed or sound proof in any way. We had a guy blowing leaves for 45 minutes just outside our window from 5am on a Sunday morning!

The bathrooms are filthy and not close to the rooms at all so if you need to go out at night it's not convenient.

When we came down in the morning there was a large comatose man lying in the common room couch with his pants and underwear down his legs so he was essentially naked and committing the offense of indecent exposure. When we asked the staff she said he was not a patron and she didn't know who he was and she wasn't able to wake him. This means the hostel not only allows trespassing to strangers but public displays of being drunken & disorderly as well as nudity which are both illegal and offensive. Might I add that we also would have been subject to this if we had used the bathrooms during the night which is not something I deem acceptable for me or my wife.

I left a message that morning for the manager to call me to discuss that, as well as the noise, but he never returned my call.

That afternoon when we came back we finally managed to see the manager and he was dismissive of all of our concerns and changed the story to state that the drunken man was a tenant. He assured us that our next night would be quiet as the bars would all be closing early on a Sunday. This was not true. We again had a cacophony of noise the entire night until 2am when the entire power in the building went out. At this point
A bunch of drunken guests decided to sit directly outside our room door drinking and talking
Till 4am. I went out and repeatedly asked them to stop talking and/or move and they refused.
When we spoke to the staff in the morning to complain we also insisted that we refused to stay another night and needed our fee refunded. She refused and then completely changed the situation to be about her and how she was uncomfortable in her workplace with two upset guests demanding a refund and that she felt threatened. She even insulted us and suggested we were horrible people and that if this is how we choose to live our life she wished us good riddance.
The lunacy of this is insane. We did not choose to be angry or deprived of sleep. In fact in my life I have never demanded to leave a
Hotel or get my money back. However I've often been offered refunds by apologetic staff just for having a minor inconvenience during my stay. Not here!

We simply could not have another 3rd sleepless night when we had a 800km drive ahead of us. It was us that were the ones who had been made to feel unsafe, uncomfortable and denied sleep. The hostel had allowed illegal acts on its premise and failed to respond to our reasonable requests and had misled us. All we wanted was our money back for our remaining unused night so we could put this behind us and move on. The staff person didn't seem to grasp that the problem was actually completely with her manager who had put her in this situation. Her employer had failed in their duty of care to have her working in an safe hostel and hadn't trained her or given her adequate policies and procedures to ensure that upset guests were treated with respect, apologised to, and dealt with promptly and fairly
so that situations like this didn't escalate and she never needed to feel threatened and instead left guests feeling happy and herself not have to resort to abusing them.

Shame on her and shame on this hostel for subjecting us to such a horrid and insulting experience!

Worst hostel ever. Don't stay here!

The most beautiful thing is the structure: outside and inside, very characteristic, high ceilings, common areas, bars... In summer it is definitely great - maybe a few bathrooms for the N of the guests - to meet new people and very easy, but for the Australian winter I strongly discourage it being devoid of any form of heating (only for this reason the under-average rating: at least some stews...) The humidity of the sea does the rest, making the environment really humid! The shower, at least, is warm.

Not in the winter.

I slept in the villa for 3 days. This hostel is by far the best by being me, so full score. The hostel is completely clean. Doof I found that I had to get my bed myself. Welan works great in the living room and at the reception. Unfortunately in my room upstairs is weak. The reception is also a bar where you can order alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately there is no exit, so it means to tow, even if you live upstairs from the house. The space is closed. You can walk a few minutes to restaurants, bars and the beach. The staff must be very nice and complimentary, so congratulations.

More than recommended

We were at the hostel for 4 nights If there was ever a good time for this, then it's been decades. The bathrooms weren't cleaned or anything like that -> see pictures The room was okay... plugs?

Glenelg Beach Hostel

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