I chose Bunk Brisbane as the accommodation for our ensemble for Nationals for two reasons: the first being that a Brisbane born friend suggested it when I asked her about accommodation in Qld and the second being that it was supposedly an award winning backpackers and had been on Getaway etc. But, wow, do I regret picking this place though! I'm bringing this subject up here on my blog because no site has the facility to review this place anywhere else.
I booked the accommodation for 8 people (thinking we would have 8 on our busiest night) 6 weeks before we left Adelaide. I had to change it a few weeks later to a 6 bed mixed dorm when our numbers declined and received a confirmation of our booking which was correct and stated that we had a 6 bed mixed dorm for 8 nights on Level 3 from Tuesday 18th to Tuesday 25th March. I asked for verbal confirmation also and received the same thing. All in all, I confirmed the booking 4 times. You'd think that'd be enough, right?
We arrived in Brisbane on Tuesday and 20 minutes after we landed in the state, I received a phone call from 'Kelly at Bunk Brisbane' stating that we hadn't shown up for our booking. I said to her 'the booking is for Tuesday night to Tuesday night, not Monday. I've confirmed this several times'. I told her we would be there in 10minutes and I'd sort it out then. I have a sneaking suspicion that during that time, she had to make adjustments to our booking in order to fix the mistake (I reckon she double booked our room) because when we arrived there, we were put in a downstairs room, right next to the communal laundry and cleaner's cupboard – the ass end of the complex. I didn't query it but I should have demanded we get our original room.
Turns out this room was pretty bad. In addition to having no reading lights as advertised (check out their website at http://www.bunkbrisbane.com.au/ for confirmation of this) - which was a problem as it was extremely dim, the room looked nothing like the pictures on the website. The beds had leather covers (anti-piss covers) so were extremely uncomfortable and if the person on the top bunk moved, you thought you were gonna be crushed by a falling bed. Not to mention that you were woken up from the squeaky beds. The room was fitted with an split system airconditioner set permanently to a rather warm 24ยบ. The room was stuffy and smelly with no windows to open, the toilet and shower reeked because of the lack of ventilation and the smell drifted into the sleeping areas, there were no curtains on the window so you were woken up at 5:30am to the morning sun. The room was noisy in the morning due to the cleaners and laundry. The so called 'squeaky clean' consisted of a two second mop with pine-o-cleen. I tested them out by leaving a small ball of hair in the shower. It was still there a week later. There was no real cleaning. The toilet was still gross and the toilet brush would just make it worse cos it was so old and grimy. The toilet door was broken and didn't lock. Bad luck if you were the first person to use the shower in the morning because the drain smelled so bad with the fan off all night. And bad luck if you were the last person too because the bathroom would be flooded due to the bad design of the shower so you'd come out wetter than you were when you were under the shower. The least they could have done is provide a rubber bathmat.
But the worst bit was being woken up three nights in the week in the wee hours of the morning (the first being 3:15am the night before my solo by a bunch of dickhead German backpackers having a foosball tournament in the reception area. I was so angry, I got up in my pjs to go to the reception to ask the front desk to tell them to shut up. The girl just looked at me blankly and said 'What, the TV'. I just said to her 'You are kidding me, right? You can't hear it?'. How bloody rude! And yet, they wouldn't let us put a movie on in the reception at 9pm to watch because of the noise, even though we would have been the only ones that would have been disturbed by it. Grrrr.... The reception staff were completely rude and useless. This happened three times. All it would have taken was a quick word to noisy people but they were just too damn lazy. I had particularly made an effort to tell them when I booked the accommodation that we were competing in a championships but they still put us in the noisiest room anyway. And probably all because someone was incompetent enough to stuff up our booking. The least they could have done is discount the room because of noise, like they had advertised that they did.
They closed the kitchen up at 10:30pm which is ridiculous considering that you could not have food in your rooms. The cleaning staff always seemed to do their cleaning of the kitchen at the busiest time so they just got in your way while you were trying to cook. We had a note left on our food saying 'label your food' to which I wrote back saying 'We already did. Open your eyes!'. It was quite clearly labeled. The kettle went missing on the Saturday morning but noone bothered to replace it the whole time we were there. A Tiffany kettle costs $17.00, the cheaparses. The tea towels were always soaking and the kitchen was so hot sometimes, it was almost unbearable. The microwave leaked (you could feel it cooking your insides if you stood next to it), the toaster burned your food even on the lowest setting and there were never enough cups or plates.
We asked for extra pillows as the ones on the bed were shocking and useless. They told us that they only had two extras but in their window around the corner, they had twenty new pillows on display. One of our party ended up using his quilt as a pillow. We asked for someone to fix our non-working airconditioner only to have the guy say 'I'll be there when I'm not so busy' and then stand around and flirt with some female backpackers for an hour.
We went to wash our clothes on Sunday, only to have the machine refuse to take our coins. One of our party went to get some more washing powder as ours was wasted in the non-working machine. It took him 20 minutes to explain to the clueless girl at reception what the problem was because she was too thick to get the point. And she was Australian. It wasn't like she was a temporary Swedish backpacker. Where do they find these people???
Finally, when we checked out, the girl took back our sheets and keys without even a smile or a thank you for the $1000 we had spent there that week, not to mention all the food and drink we had bought in the bar. The staff were unhelpful, rude and hopeless at their job. The place was overpriced for what it was. It was over-noisy, even for a backpackers and only because the front counter staff didn't do their jobs properly.
And yes, you'll probably say, well, it WAS a backpackers... you can't expect the Hilton. But no, I've stayed in backpackers for half the price that have been absolutely outstanding places to stay. The backpackers that we stayed in Melbourne was two dollars more a night but it was the Ritz in comparison and that was just the service alone. I stayed in a twin room in a backpackers in Launceston for $20 a night and it was better than a motel. We would have got a better sleep in a tent, I reckon, on the banks of the Brisbane river.
One of our party was quite keen to trash the room (you know, prawns in the curtains, if they had had any curtains; sour milk all over the carpet....that kind of thing) on our departure but we didn't for two reasons: One was that they had my credit card details and you know, I reckon they would be low enough to actually debit it without my permission. And the second would be that some poor bastard would have to stay in that room later because they would book it out anyway. The smell would NEVER go away and God forbid the Bunk staff would ever clean it properly. I wouldn't begrudge that on my worst enemy.
May I make a suggestion. Don't stay at Bunk Brisbane, even if you're broke and can't afford anywhere else. Stay in a caravan park if you're looking for accommodation because you'll get better quality there.
Anybody who reviews Bunk Brisbane as fantastic was obviously drunk the whole time they stayed there. And to the people at this hostel, let this be a lesson to you. A happy customer will tell one person. An unhappy one will tell 100.
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