The Wayfarer
$$ Hostels, Hotels, Venues & Event Spaces
12 E Montecito St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
I believe most people would pay a lot of money for the fantastic experience of a nice place if they could. But most people can’t and if few can spend fifty or sixty bucks a night and share a room with four other people, it makes it worth it. I am one of those few people.
I’ve stayed at pretty standard to the most upscale ’boutique hostels’ in over ten countries. I’ve stayed at the ‘best hostel in the world’ located next to the Praca Do Comercio in Lisbon, Portugal, in which everyone who gets a bed gets a personalized home-cooked breakfast. This place comes CLOSE to having all the amenities of a good kick ass hostel. The scenery is beautiful, the spaces are clean and the location is perfect.
But THREE issues keep this place from being five star:
- Communal Kitchen needs to stay COMMUNAL
UNLIKE hostels, the hotel allowed this large group of old white geezers to throw a party and take up the entire communal kitchen on Sunday night, October 2nd. NO hostel I’ve ever stayed at would ever let something like that ever go down and I suggest to management to not let people take over entire COMMUNAL areas for their private party.
- Water Issues
The self-described ‘heated pool’ wasn’t and perhaps a 75 degree October day would invite anyone to take a dip in a cold pool but with expectations of dipping your toes in something warmer – that’s just false advertising. Secondly, I can’t stand the way that these new showers are built that are level with the floor of the entire bathroom. It’s totally pretentious and the drain did not (does not) work well in Room 102. So with a bathroom floor that’s level to the drain, it floods within a minute and my pants and underwear got pretty soaked.
- I’ve Had Better Food At Hostel Hostels
Considering this place has A LOT of little kids running around here, I am surprised they don’t have more nutritious breakfast foods like the better hostels I’ve stayed at. ALL of the jams are of poor quality and have high fructose corn syrup in them. All the breads except the wheat bread were pre-packaged and stale tasting. The wheat bread was definitely pre-packaged but pretty yummy. And the bananas were more brown than yellow. They do have good coffee from Seattle’s Best. But no granola.
Useful: 4 Funny: 3 Cool: 4
10/11/2016