Whenever I visit a place, the quality of my stay location remains a lasting association along with the destination itself. I have some wonderful things to say about my backpacking trip to Lisbon. Of the many good things about Lisbon, one of them would be Residencial Roxi, the hostel I stayed at. I have always wanted to write a review for them, and perhaps this is a great way to do it.
If you travel with family, money is not a concern, and if you fancy living in classy places, this review will not be useful to you. However if you travel single, live on a shoestring budget, like a functional but non-fancy place, and live in hostels, you will take back some wisdom from my experience. Since I have some fascination for the magic number five, here are five reasons why:
View from the window
Quality of Place
The best feature about this hostel is its cleanliness and functionality. Unclean restrooms, wet floors, and musty mattresses always bother me. This place was as clean as it could get. The bathrooms (although not attached to my room) were spic and span. Although the quality of maintenance in common bathrooms is always a cause for concern, never once did I have complaints. The traffic around this place was less, and not once did I have to wait to be able to use the bathroom. The rooms are clean and functional, with a large window spanning the entire height of the room and overlooking the main road. There were the basic amenities one would need, including a television set, a wash basin, and free wi-fi. As much as I liked sightseeing Lisbon, I also loved coming back to my hostel room for some much needed sleep and relaxation. Forget boisterous crowds, my floor was mostly empty. There was free wi-fi, with great connectivity. For the price I paid, I could not have asked for more.
Value for Money
Remember, I was backpacking, and did not have a grand budget. My greatest hesitation was sharing a room with a bunch of other travelers. Fortunately, I had my own room to myself- small, functional, and very cozy. I had a great view from my window, had free wi-fi, and access to clean bathrooms. All these facilities came for a little less than 20 euro a day. In comparison, I paid much more for my hostel in Paris, where I shared the room with three other girls, and had the misfortune of using an extremely small and ill-maintained bathroom with wet floors and door locks that did not work. Compared to most places I have lived in, my hostel in Lisbon was heaven.
Another view from the window
Great Location
You cannot beat the location of this place. There is excellent bus and metro connectivity, and getting to the airport takes about 30 minutes. This place is right next to the Intendente metro station. This hostel is not obscurely tucked away in one corner of the city; in fact, it is very close to various food places and tourist locales, and connecting to other lines on the metro was not a problem at all. I often walked to the major locations to do grocery or eat.
Great Staff
The place has a 24-hour front desk and all you need to let them know is what you need. Although the gentleman spoke and understood functional English, I used sign language effectively to communicate with him. He let me check in way early than the scheduled time because my flight had landed early morning. There is a nicely done common room where I waited for a while until they got my room ready. The gentleman woke me up at 4 in the morning the day I visited Porto, and even hailed a cab for me. He gave me an approximation of how much it would cost me. As a single woman, I had no hesitation communicating with the staff, and they did everything to help me figure out my way not only around Lisbon, but also around the other cities I visited.
View from the window at night
Old House Feel
The building has an extremely charming old house feel, with huge wooden staircases that will spare you the effort of using treadmills and steppers throughout your life. Remember, fourth floor in an old building is really high, and I thankfully survived multiple rounds of going up and down the stairways, baggage and all. I would like to live in a house like that someday- old, quaint, and charming.
View of my interesting room
Overall, I had an excellent experience there. I had my hesitations initially, being a single traveler and not having a huge budget for stay. But this place was quite impressive. If you are a solo backpacker who travels on low budgets, I would highly recommend this place because of its low price, cleanliness, connectivity, and friendly staff.
Beautifully written! Good review & hotel…
BTW Did the hotel room have an open toilet? o.O
No, actually. Although I know it looks like that from the picture. Even I was surprised by that, but no, it is not an open toilet.
Elegantly written in your inimitable style and very informative. I think that the Portuguese, especially in these days of economic recession, should confer on you an honorary consulship or something of that sort in recognition of your efforts to promote tourism to their country.
Great to know that there are places in Europe like Residencial Roxi which are clean and offer great value for money. No point in squandering money on expensive hotels when one spends most of the time sightseeing and needs just a clean bed to sleep in, a safe place to stash one’s luggage and of course, wi-fi connectivity.
Well, thank you :) I do not know about the honorary consulship part, but Portugal has certainly impressed me beyond my expectations. Sometimes you visit a place, a country, a group of people, and feel you have brought back so much with you. Such has been my experience with Portugal.
Welcome to hotel reviewer club. Finally I see some light at the end of tunnel that probably more people would write hotel reviews. Though a log on a place is very valuable, what is very much lacking on internet is to find rich, honest hotel reviews.
I think that open design (or with a glass wall in between) might be to make it look more spacious. My hotel at Beijing had the same/similar setup.
So cheers to you and Roxi.
Yeah, cheers to Roxi. For the price they charge, they give so much more. I will be very glad if this post encourages people to stay there :) But again, it’s not a place if you travel with family or prioritize luxury. However for a single student backpacker, it is Heaven !!!
very good post,with good review of the hostel.one should try to give an honest review of the place of stay including cost etc. it is a good idea that may benefit scores of aspirant ghumakkars.