Candy Hostel

This place wasn’t the worst hostel I’ve been to, but they didn’t have our reservation even though we already paid for it several weeks in advance. Otherwise it was a so, so Hostel. Poor service though, but it was cheap. ehh.

Worst place ever!
Their rooms are disgusting and smelly, and yet still expensive. Our room stank, and there were some very suspicious yellow crusty spots on the carpet. We were beyond exhausted when we got there late at night, so we decided to just deal with it — sleep and leave early.
That plan did not pan out, because it the morning we realized that we were locked inside the fucking room! Sure, it was partially our fault since it seems that we had left our key outside, being sleepy and all. But there was no way to unlock the door from the inside, which is horrendously unsafe. There was no telephone in the room for calling reception. There was absolutely no information in the room with the phone number for reception, or for emergency numbers, or even with the room number, or any information whatsoever. There was also no wifi. Finally, by putting his arm out the teeny-​tiny barred window, my partner was able to catch a connection, we looked up the website and got what was supposedly the reception’s number. We called the reception, told the guy we were locked in our room, told him the floor, and he said he’d come open our door. We waited, and nothing happened. After a while, we called the same number again to see what had happened, and we were told that the guy had not found anyone locked in a room. It turns out the number we had found on the candy hostel’s website rang a «reception» at a different hotel! They were listing a central phone number for several hotels that did not actually ring in their own hotel but in a partner one. As you can see, if there had been a fire, we would have been utterly and completely screwed.
All this time mind you, we kept banging on the door hoping someone would open. After two hours, this is what finally worked. Some tourist realized two poor souls were locked in a nasty room and with a confused look on his face, opened our door and we walked out to freedom and to the bathroom. Predictably, the bathroom was gross.
Now, to customer service. Another laughable nightmare. We took our experience and complaints to the guy downstairs, and instead of being apologetic, he was extremely rude and aggressive. He put the blame on us for forgetting our key, instead of recognizing the myriad of problems with the place — no emergency or contact info in the room, no wifi, no number to anyone on site on their website, faulty or badly designed lock, etc, etc. Finally, he said that he would have the lock changed if that was what we wanted (?!). That is what he should have wanted — we were leaving that day, but I would expect that anyone who works in a hotel would want clients to be able to open their door. He acted like changing the lock for future clients was some big favor to us personally. At the end, his tone changed because a group of other clients had gathered around and were obviously disturbed by our experience and by the way the hotel was dealing with it. So to be conciliatory, the reception guy let us leave our backpacks at the reception for a few hours without charging their regular rip-​off fee. Ha.

I had to pay 100 bucks a night for this place. HECK TO THE NAW! Although it is close to the subway station, here are the many reasons why one must be weary on choosing this place:
I understand that it is a hostel but geez. I rented a private room with a friend. There literally was a BED and nothing else. a room big enough for A FULL SIZE BED. JUST A BED!!! (i tend to laugh on how pathetic it was) the bathroom is obviously shared by other mysterious folks. Throw up everywhere and it takes them FOREVER to clean it. U can hear all the noise from the hallway. The check in took forever. The «LOUNGE” area were filled by many backpackers from all over the world and most of them were making out. eesh. The elevator seems like a death trap. Then u are forced to take the stairs which is another death trap. There is some shady looking laundry room all the way downstairs. This place is DO-​ABLE. But I would rather pick up a few extra shifts at work and afford another place than stay here.

I’m not one to be too picky about places. I’ve been to hostels which have been given 2 stars and turn out to be decent… BUT this place deserves ZERO STARS.
There are many problems with this place:
1) When we arrived at the hostel, we got there at 3:30 thinking we would be able to check in. They told us that their system was down, and we would have to wait for an hour. That hour turned into another 2 hours. We didn’t want to waste our time waiting… so we went out for a bit and put our luggage in the lockers (for $ 5). After, we called to see if we could finally check in, and the lady on the phone was extremely rude! Saying we could of checked in at 3, etc.
2) People at the front desk are extremely rude to everyone. They are rude on the phone and they are rude in person. I can’t imagine how foreigners feel when they stay here and their thought on Americans is this.
3) Our first room was dirty. The bed was sunken in, the pillows had big yellow stains on them (and there weren’t any pillow cases). Our floor hadn’t been vacuum, in what seems like forever.
Our second room was alright, much cleaner looking (but eyes do deceive.).
4) The cleaning people left our room unlocked while we were out!
5) BED BUGS!!! Yes, i have bed bug bites all over my body!
To all the fellow Unilocalers, travelers,.everybody…I do not know else to stress this enough…
Do not waste your time, money (even though it is cheap), energy, and health on this place. It is not worth any stars.

My girlfriend and I stayed here for one night on a recent trip to New York. Our trip was for 4 days but we put up with this hostel for one night. The intent of staying here was to try an alternative and to save money. We were very wrong. The hostel was old, which is fine, but it felt depressing and dilapidated. You feel like you’re in an old creepy tenement. The hotel and room were pretty clean thats why i’m giving 2 stars but we just couldn’t handle it. We are not snobs or yuppis, but we still could not stomach this place. The staff was rude and they try to make it feel comfortable but it’s just not. Overall, this hotel is creepy, depressing, and will ruin your mood. PLEASE! pay the extra money and go to a regular hotel. I don’t really know what kind of people could actually handle this place. You get what you pay for!

Bottom line is you get what you pay for here, I mean what do you expect if you are paying less than 100 bucks a night for a hotel room with a shared bathroom in Manhattan since you can get a private room here with a shared bathroom for 80 – 90 bucks a night through expedia and I booked it through expedia. The hotel needs some remodeling that’s for sure and it smelt like a freaking pet kennel in one section of the hallway to get to my room which was nasty. What really pissed me off though is that they gave someone else a key to my room when I already checked in and they opened my door when I was in my room. how stupid can you be to give someone else a key to a room that has a guest that checked into it already??, the last thing I need is a robbery during my vacation. I will upgrade to a better hotel when I go to NYC again.

DO NOT STAY HERE!!! I’d give this dump zero stars if I could. They claimed to have free wi-​fi, but every single day, they would tell us they’re getting it fixed and that it should be up and running the next day. We stayed there for 3 nights and finally checked out early cuz they’re a bunch of liars!!!
Our room was suppossed to have a queen bed, but had a really crappy double bed with only about a foot of space between the bed and the wall all the way around!
There was always someone in the bathrooms (about 5 – 6 rooms share one bathroom!) so it was very inconvenient and dirty!
The girls at the front desk are uneducated, rude and incompetent. Do yourself a favor… pay a little more money and STAY SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

I’m not sure if it’s possible to give 0 stars but if so that’s exactly what I’d rate the Candy Hostel. I have never met such rude, repulsive people in my life.
The 20 something year old high school dropout of a trainee at the front desk had no idea what she was doing so the manager was shadowing her, ie standing over her shoulder watching her every move. He was the biggest asshole I’ve encountered in awhile. I was moving to NYC and booked a room there for the first night while I found an apt, however I had a NY drivers license and showed them it first instead of my passport and she informed me in her most robot-​like voice that they have a strict policy against letting NY’ers stay here. I was like I don’t live here, I’m looking for an apt. I can give you my passport instead if that helps that says I’m from TX. Well in her standard robot voice she repeated the same thing and said «it’s too late, I already saw your NY id.» They were then very unhelpful and wouldn’t even let me use the internet (with me offering to pay for it!) so I carried my bags out and found another hotel down the street.
This was an awful experience and I hope they go out of business because they are the epitome of disgusting low class assholes. I would never attempt to stay here again and would never recommend this hostel. Please beware.
PS…apparently 0 stars aren’t allowed so I have to give them one, although this place isn’t deserving of even one.

I needed affordable housing options (read: much less than the $ 250 – 350 price tag for most hotels) in December. Much as I searched for a decent 2 star hotel, none were to be had. I decided that I should go with a hostel, and this place had the best location. I was a little worried as the only reviews were on
. They were hit or miss and frankly, I was hoping for a Unilocal review.
First, please note that they are located at 315 W 94^th St. NOT 316 W 95^th. That address belongs to some other place completely and the management people were kind enough to direct me to the proper location. I imagine they have to do that a lot as the wrong address is EVERYWHERE. So…
The staff were nice enough. Apparently,
and the hostel itself don’t quite interface well, so even though I (and apparently another customer) arranged for an ensuite reservation, the hostel did not have any available for us as
did not adequately inform them of the ensuite part of things. So, they gave me a private double with shared bathroom for a «discount» of 10 bucks. Not really a discount, but whatever, not really their fault and I was in a good forgiving mood. Still, 80 bucks for the ensuite, 70 bucks for the private double, still better than shelling out $ 250!
The rooms themselves are exactly what you would expect if you have ever been in a hostel before. A bed, a little shelf area. That’s it. They actually do provide towels for you without charge too. My only issue — perhaps they could put up a few hooks so you can hang things. Really — it would help a ton. The bathroom was right next door and it appears there is one bathroom to 4 – 5 rooms within the unit area. When I went in, I was disgusted. Apparently people who should be old enough to clean up after themselves and not make a mess don’t behave that way. Ewwww… But after the maid? cleaning person? had gone through, it was clean as a whistle. Hope it stays that way tonight.
Oh! And beware… they have computer terminals in the lobby area, but you have to pay to use the internet. However, if you have a computer with wireless connectivity, you can get free wireless in the common area. And the common area only. You cannot access their wireless from their rooms. And my only problem with the common area is that it reeks of smoke. Yuck.
Overall impression: A decent hostel. Prices you can’t beat. In a safe location (I think) and only 2 blocks-​ish away from the subway.