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Hostel pre or post Cruise?


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We are taking an Alaska cruise this fall and have decided to stay in a hostel for a couple of days pre-departure. We have never stayed in a hostel before, and are definitely 'senior' travelers, though young at heart and open to new adventures.

 

Our room is not a typical hostel setup. We have a private room with a private bath. We hope this will allow the 'hostel experience' while maintaining our privacy and not inflicting our senior status on our fellow travelers.

 

Does anyone have stories/adventures with hostel stays? We are committed at this point, so cannot really cancel. We would be particularly interested in specific information on the Vancouver Hostel World on Granville.

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We are taking an Alaska cruise this fall and have decided to stay in a hostel for a couple of days pre-departure. We have never stayed in a hostel before, and are definitely 'senior' travelers, though young at heart and open to new adventures.

 

Our room is not a typical hostel setup. We have a private room with a private bath. We hope this will allow the 'hostel experience' while maintaining our privacy and not inflicting our senior status on our fellow travelers.

 

Does anyone have stories/adventures with hostel stays? We are committed at this point, so cannot really cancel. We would be particularly interested in specific information on the Vancouver Hostel World on Granville.

While I did mention earplugs for you on your other thread, I've since realised that the hostel you list does not actually exist!

 

Hostelworld is a booking site: there are two hostels on Granville Street, SameSun and Hostelling International - Vancouver Central. Both are on the same block, so all my prior caveats of party animals making life loud for you apply. They both seems to be quite well-reviewed compared to other hostels, but at the end of the day they're still in old buildings, no AC, thin walls, street noise, and you're sharing with (mostly) younger folks in town to have a good time (organised pub crawls and similar boozing activities are common in most local hostels I know of).

 

These are basically all the reasons we stopped using hostels as soon as we could actually afford to pay for hotels - for us, the single biggest factor in any accommodation is a comfortable night's sleep and other people's noise annoys us much more than more consistent sounds like traffic.

 

The pros - meeting interesting folks from all over the world in the communal kitchens/TV rooms/game rooms/laundries - can be had locally by staying at the YWCA hotel, without any of the other baggage (it's a modern, multi-story concrete building and the shared kitchens are excellent - large and fully-equipped, so you may actually save more here than in a hostel as it's very practical to cook a meal, not just do some quick sandwich prep). While undoubtedly pricier than your room in either HI or SameSun, would still run <US$120 including all taxes for a double room with private bath - even less with a senior discount.

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Thanks, Martincath, we appreciate the information.

 

Yes, we expect it to be noisy and somewhat boisterous, but that should be part of the fun. We can take it for a couple of nights as an adventure (maybe to never be repeated!).

 

Checked the YWCA: No availability.

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  • 3 months later...

I've learned to always check out the listings under "hostels" when looking for lodging -- especially when outside of the US. I do my research and look for the places that have private rooms (I'm OK with going down the hall for the bathroom sometimes). But so far we have never had a bad experience -- and have been mostly very pleased. We've found affordable lodging (that is safe and clean) in the middle of the interesting part of the city. I say -- if you can handle a little adventure -- go for it :)

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