Ganesh Hostel & Shivas Bungalows

COLONISM at its worst!

4.0

− The first lady who i met was absolutely lovely. The others gave an aire of imperialism about themselves. For a hostel led accomadtion the clique that was created by the staff was very uncomfortable for a solo traveller. My understanding is they are Spanish. Which is ashame that no locals were getting paid to do FOH jobs. Which btw they are so much more accomadting then the people I encountered working there. At least women or man makes and effort to talk to you. Unfortunately these people really showed their colonialism.

Pleasant

6.0

Superb

9.0

Superb

9.0

The fireflies. Being able to use the kitchen. I wish they'd listed that on the facilities so we could have brought food to cook since the local restaurants in Samana are so expensive despite being shabby. There are no decent supermarkets anywhere nearby. Great views and beach and woodland walks.

− It was a bit weird that the rooms are OPEN (two walls only and no windows) with privacy curtains that dont close properly. It was a bit weird wandering round the room naked knowing that if others pass by they can easily see in. I would have felt very vulnerable were I alone knowing that anyone can just walk straight into my room and I'd never know.

Dirty, neglected, poorly organized and no service at all: never again.

1.0

The location and El Valle as a town is the only positive thing I can mention about this place.

− Usually I am no one to write long reviews, but our stay at this hostel was so bad that I have to blow off some steam. This might have been the worst experience I have ever had in a hostel. When we first got there, nobody was there to receive us. We had to come back one hour later just to be told to go to another lodge to do our check-in. The lodge we then went to didn’t really know about that either. Our final check-in consisted of a woman showing us our rooms. There were no keys to our rooms and no helpful information about who we could contact in case of a problem. When we got to our rooms, we were shocked. They didn’t look anything like the pictures shown before. The rooms were dirty, especially the bathrooms; the mosquito nets had holes, and there were spider webs on the shower. The same can be said about the rest of the hostel. The kitchen was dirty and dirty dishes were lying around everywhere. The pool that looked very nice in the pictures was dirty as well and could not be used. We could not get a decent sleep at night either. While the sounds of nature we could listen to were very calming, our sleep was disturbed regularly by different kinds of noises. The hostel is next to a party location where an open-air disco took place, so there was extremely loud music playing until four o’clock (we had to get up at 7 to visit a tour we booked in Samaná). Due to the holes in the mosquito nets, we also had to deal with a bunch of unwanted visitors at night and our toilet was constantly pumping water with a very loud noise. So all in all we got to sleep about two hours in the first night. From the next day on, there was no water available, and it didn’t work for more than 30 hours until we left the next. Electricity regularly stopped working as well, sometimes for hours. What made this experience even worse was that there was no one we could talk to about all this whatsoever. There was no staff or manager present who we could complain to.

Abandoned and not maintained

5.0

The location between the trees

− The accommodation looked very abandoned and not maintained. The pool was dark green with a hose in it. There was no one present at check-in and the cleaners had little or no desire to help. For dinner, the owner asked $25 per person for dinner, which in my opinion is way too much. I didn't think it was a nice place to stay and certainly wouldn't recommend it.