College Hostel Toronto

I booked a last minute (the night before) two night stay at the College Hostel frankly as a desperation move, as all other surrounding hostels were booked to capacity; largely due to the 2015 PanAm games that occupied and invigorated an already bustling and very hip city.
Aside from the GREAT LOCATION of this hostel, everything else was simply vanilla.
Contrary to its name this hostel is not limited to college students, but a marketing ploy to attract the shoe-​string budget traveller and also indicate the layout to expect. With this philosophy, you definitely get what you pay for, which is not much.
Check-​in was simple and the receptionist was pleasant. There I was informed of the function, layout and offers provided to all guests. It consists of one fairly large kitchen with two fridges, one media room with one flat screen tv with two couches and two tables. Very basic and not very warm and welcoming.
The four-​bed mixed dorm I was booked in was pretty small. One locker for each bed and nowhere to sit other than your bed. One nice thing about the room however was that it had a small porch with a nice view of the city skyline. The washrooms are identical to that of a college dorm — one separate room for toliet and sink, and another room with two showers and two sinks. I’m almost certain that layout applies to all floors within the hostel.
Though some may consider this hostel a bit shady, my dorm mates and other guests I encountered and interacted with were all amazing people in their own right, so the opportunity to enrich your stay with people and stories money can’t buy are there for the taking.
Bean.

I literally booked this place the night before, and having checked reviews out online, I lowered my expectations a lot. But this was the only place left in Toronto… YOLO?
The staff was cheerful and a pleasure to work with. I got in late (8:45ish) and had warned them ahead of time and it was just fine. The room was a bit small but had HUGE in-​room lockers. I’ve stayed in a bunch of hostels before and this was the first one with lockers so big I could fit my daypack, my check-​in size travel backpack and some souvenirs. Unfortunately the beds creaked a lot so my sleep was less than ideal. The bunk beds also didn’t seem particularly stable as I was climbing up either. The showers didn’t have a changing area so it was just awkward to change in a wet shower environment. BUT I found everything to be rather clean. No insects or anything, unlike the reviews I had seen at hostelworld.
Pretty basic breakfast. Toast with jam, peanut butter and Nutella and cereal. Coffee and milk available. Full kitchen. Plenty of seats and a flat-​screen TV. One of the better hostels I’ve stayed at in terms of wifi.
Otherwise, everything was pretty tidy. I stayed three days and felt just fine, but apparently the neighborhood can be a little shady. The morning I left, the TV in the lobby had a ticker saying a man was stabbed at a bar near College/Augusta…and I was like, «wait a second, this hostel is at College/Augusta…at least I’m leaving today?!» But if you’re careful, it can be fun to hang in the Kensington area! It feels like a hippy/​counterculture sort of area.

I stayed here for six weeks during the summer of 2008, and it was generally a comfortable experience that I’d recommend — as long as your expectations aren’t too high. Kensington Market is a great neighborhood with a lot to offer, and is in a great location, so if you’re looking for a good time and to be able to explore a lot of the city, it’s perfect.
However, the building itself isn’t very well maintained. The community kitchen was usually a mess — mostly because of other guests leaving their food around haphazardly, but also because the A/​C unit and fridge regularly leaked everywhere. The washrooms and showers are separated, so there’s some privacy but as there’s only a couple per floor sharing can be a challenge. They separate the women’s dorms, and for the most part safety isn’t an issue when it comes to other guests. A lot of the rooms facing the outside of the building have small balconies, but leave the sliding glass doors open at your own risk. It’s so hot in the summer that you’ll be tempted to shut only the screen door, but there are holes in many of the screens and one night I woke up to find I was sharing my bed with a raccoon. It makes for a good story now, but is actually quite risky.

The staff were fantastic, and the location was stellar, but overall, this was a pretty sketch place. Don’t get me wrong, the room was fine (and seriously, there was a TV, i was not expecting that!), but the bathrooms were a bit… distressing. Mainly the broken toilet that was on the fourth floor and on a freezing day meant that you would then have to wait until the front desk opened before you fully dressed to walk down four flights of stairs, walk outside, and go into an office to tell them that the bathroom was broken. Also, the showers were pretty sketch too.
Now, let’s be honest. We stay at hostels not for the frilly linens. It’s suitably cheap, but it was a bit… well unnerving. The staff were four stars and awesome, but I gotta drop it down to two because of the total sketchocity of the place.