The Pickled Frog

Nah....

Staying at the Pickled Frog for 4 nights was definitely an experience (good or bad? Keep reading and make your judgement.)

As recommended by LP, I booked in 4 nights in a 4-bed mixed dorm right before Chrissie. The website was very fancy but one strange thing: there were no pictures of the rooms. Anyway, I thought it couldn't be very bad as in general Aussie hostels are up to a certain standard based on my experience. When I arrived, I was a bit shocked - 'cos the exterior wasn't that promising. When I checked in, the counter staff (a young guy, not v friendly) said that my room wasn't cleaned up yet! Hey, I already told you my arrival time in my booking. Why was it not ready? Anyway, I didn't say a word. I then went to my room to leave my backpack - what the?! I have never seen such a small dorm room!!!!! The room was a very narrow rectangle with 2 bunk beds being separated by an aisle which was barely enough for 1 person to walk on! There was nearly NO space for putting luggage! Not to mention that there were no lockers anywhere in the building! I was lucky though as I was the first one occupying the room and the super precious ground space.

Unique Quality: There was a car repairing shop right next to the building outside my window and I was woken up by the noise at 6a.m. during weekdays. O man! That's my holiday.

Besides, the bunk beds were not of very firm steel and created noise whenever someone moved his bodies.

Since the room was so small, if there's someone snoring at night, the others definitely suffer AND I was one of the lucky others when a man snored with echo at one night....

The kitchen was pretty messy as there's just one girl who's on working holiday doing the cleaning for the whole building - ah... forgot to mention about the GREAT no. of dormrooms on floor 2! People who used the kitchen seemed not very well self-disciplined and didn't do the cleaning themselves (felt sorry for that girl).

There's just 3 shared showers (for girls) on Fl 2. Luckily I like taking shower at night and didn't need to queue for long.

For AUD25 per night, I definitely regretted staying there.

- not friendly counter staff when checked in (they didn't tell me about the common facilities at all)
- super not friendly counter staff when checked out (I was holding some bedsheets/pillow cases and was wondering where to put them, my hands were full and a staff member was just in front of me, he didn't offer help but asked me to open a big bag with my already full hands and placed the sheets there! What a gentleman!)
- not helpful counter staff (they were not sure about some travel info)
- super tiny room (at least for Room 20)
- very untidy/unclean kitchen
- ants in showers/toilets
- noisy outside in the morning
- cost too much for the above quality