The Old Manor in New Castle (Hotels in Australia in general)

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Hotels in Australia in general
Date:	22/11/05 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Central, cheap, perfect for budget travelers

Disadvantages: No cafe and not many facilities

Newcastle Beach YHA
30 Pacific Street, Cnr King Street
Newcastle
NSW 2300
Australia
Phone: (02) 4925 3544
Fax: (02) 4925 3944


A couple of us went to Newcastle for the weekend to visit some friends we’d made back in September when we arrived in Australia. A town in New South Wales that isn’t as popular a tourist destination as, say, Port Stephens, Newcastle is just up the coast, but is a busy port with some long stretches of sandy beach that attract business travellers and tourists, and so has a range of accommodation accordingly.

We chose to stay in the YHA Newcastle Beach, choosing it for its convenience, location and price. In general Youth Hostel Association hostels seem to be a bit nicer and better maintained than independent places, and cost slightly more because of this. You also need to be a member, but you can pay a surcharge ($3.50 pppn) in lieu of membership. I expected this to be in addition to the room rate, but since we were never asked for it, they either made a mistake or it was already included in the cost. I booked online about a fortnight before we planned to go, and had no problem getting a room although the smaller 3-bedded ones were all gone.

The YHA Newcastle Beach is a 4* hostel. Classification guidance is given on the website www.yha.com.au/australia/standards.cfm but in general hostels of this level have a decent range of facilities and services. Most people know how hostels work (shared rooms, communal bathroom facilities, low costs) but there’s also an explanation of the set up on the same website.


:) The Good :)

The hostel is incredibly cheap. Two of us stayed two nights and the total cost was 46 GBP, so about 11.50 pppn. Cheap at twice the price. We stayed in a 5 bed female dorm though 3-bed, 8-bed and twins/doubles/singles are also available. The price for dorms is the same ($25 pppn) regardless of the size, so though you might want a big room if there were a lot of you, you could get a smaller room if travelling alone or in a small group for no extra money. Given that you’re sharing a room with people you don’t know, who come and go to their own schedules, smaller rooms are better if you want to get some sleep as the potential to be woken up is greatly reduced.

The rooms were spacious, clean and well maintained. We had 2 sets of bunks and a single bed, but bizarrely only 2 chairs, and 4 lockers. However there were some extras – a big mirror and a rubbish bin – that I have had to do without in some budget hotels before, so to have them in a hostel was lovely. The beds had foam mattresses (much better than sprung ones as in hostels these are often worn to the stage where springs poke through and attack you in your sleep) and linen was provided free at reception – bottom and top sheets and pillowcases to accompany the quilts. YHA hostels do not like sleeping bags to be used, but it hardly matters when sheets are free. The rooms also had a lot of natural light – we had windows on two sides – though views are hardly breathtaking: we overlooked someone’s car park.

The bathrooms were clean and handily unisex – we had two showers next door to our room, and having them for general use meant we could shower at the same time rather than having to wait for the female one to be free. Toilets were located further away, round the corner towards reception on the floor we stayed on, and were specified as male and female though people seemed to use both. The hostel has 3 floors of rooms, and bathroom facilities are available on each.

As hostels go, it’s in a league of its own. The website told us that it was housed in a ‘charmingly restored heritage building’ that featured ‘a magnificent ballroom with chandeliers, leather armchairs and open fires’ but we still weren’t prepared for it. This is not a cockroach infested high-rise or peeling dump of a place. This could be someone’s house, and it wouldn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to make it a stately home. The lounge was cosy and well equipped with board games, videos and a piano, and it was really big with four distinct areas.

The facilities are not bad – they have internet terminals (pricier than at local internet cafés, but more convenient), a pool table, a book exchange area, a laundry, local tourist information and free use of surfboards and boogie boards. Several nights of the week (though not Friday or Saturday) they offer free Irish Pub meals 3 nights a week, and there’s also an all-you-can-eat pizza night.

The location of the hostel is perfect. It’s an easy walk from the train station and wharf, an easy walk from the beach, an easy walk from the shopping and dining areas. In fact, it’s an easy walk from jus about anywhere you might like to go.

The hostel was one of the quieter ones I’ve stayed in. Inside the dorm you could hear very little of either the outside world or the rest of the hostel.


:( The Less Good :(

There is no food available at the hostel apart from a small selection of drinks and chocolate bars at reception. Although the kitchen was large, clean and well equipped, a café would have been nice. It wasn’t too much of a problem though since the neighbouring streets housed numerous cheap eateries.

Though reception is theoretically manned during the day, on several occasions no one was there. A handy sign told us to call downstairs on the hall phone and someone would come up, but it would have been nice to have been able to avoid this hassle.

A $10 deposit for keys is required on check in, payable in cash. This is standard for hostels but a pain to fiddle around with, laden down with bags just as you arrive.

They were a little over enthusiastic when it came to sheet removal – you were asked to take them back to reception on check out but come people evidently didn’t as we came back on the 2nd day to find the ones from Kate’s bed had been taken in error, so we had to go and beg some more from reception.



In Summary

This hostel far exceeded our expectations. In this instance we got so much more than what we paid for, and it really made the weekend for us, knowing that we had someone nice to sleep that was so cheap and yet so good.


Email: newcastle@yhansw.org.au

Check it out online at:
www.yha.com.au/hostels/details.cfmhostelid=134& ;CFID=1229707&CFTOKEN=86790518

Summary: Perfectly placed accomodation by the beach in Newcastle