Great central loacation for exploring Sydney (Legend Has It Westend (Sydney, Australia))

Member Name: damsmi2002

Product:	Legend Has It Westend (Sydney, Australia)
Date:	30/01/09 (110 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great location, friendly staff, clean, lots of people to mix with

Disadvantages: Can get quite loud if you just fancy a quiet night

Legend has it Westend is a youth hostel located on Pitt street in Sydney. It is a very tall building with many floors, about 20 if I remember correctly, and because of this height, it can hold a vast amount of people. It is a Nomads hostel which means that the standards are usually quite high and if you hold a Nomads membership card, you will get in for $1 per night less than normal.

Firstly the location; You are never too far away from anything in Sydney and this is true with Legend has it Westend. You are within about a 10 minute walk to Darling harbour and Chinatown, and there are many take-aways and restuarants almost on your doorstep. Across the road is a Coles(like tesco) so you can stock up on food if you want to cook. Circular quay, and the main shopping area is about a 20minute walk away, or a couple of minutes on the bus, of which there is a bus stop very close too.

Then you have the hostel itself, which on the outside looks extremely tired and could do with a revamp. You wouldnt know that it existed if you didnt know that it was there. Once you step inside though it is clean, looks new and there are lots of friendly staff to help and talk too. There are many different room sizes available, I stayed in a four bed and a six bed mixed dorm. Both of which were always very tidy and clean, and had en-suite bathroom facilities which you really appreciate when travelling as you dont get it that often. There is a room called 'the church' too whch is a 28 bed dorm, I never stayed here but it must be manic.
You also have a complete floor dedicated to laundry, and another for cooking and a common room. There are many cookers, typically about 10 people could cook at any one time which isnt too bad, There is lots of seating and the common room has a big screen TV which is usually showing movies for people to relax and watch.

The staff put on quite a lot of activities for people who stay there, including driving you into the city centre to go for a night out, and taking you down to the beahc and cooking a barbeque for free!

When you first sign in you get given a booklet offers, and included in this is a page of free drinks, 20 infact, for you to enjoy whenever you want. We ended up doing a pub crawl for free which wasnt bad at all for the money we paid to stay there.

The cost of the rooms vary depending on how many you are willing to share with. When I stayed in the four bed dorm, I paid $29, and the 6 bed dorm was $27, I think the 'church' is $24. You also get $1 if you are a Nomads member. When I stayed there they ran an offer of buy three nights, get the fourth free, which was a great deal. I think that this is only a 'winter' offer though, so if you go now you will probably end up paying full price.

Overall this hostel was a good place to stay if you want to explore Sydney. It is a very busy place with lots of activities going on. If you are more of an outgoing person looking for friends then I think this would be the place for you.

Summary: A good hostel if you are looking for people to mix with and just generally a nice place to stay