Keystone House Kings Cross

This is a review of a private room for two with bunk beds.
A very central hostel with a close walk from the National, International railstation, tube stations. Lots of restaurants, cafés, nearby. Comfortable mattreses! 24-​hour open front desk. Kitchen with free coffee and tea. The hostell has a deal with a nearby diner for discounted breakfast. All in all a great place to stay if you plan on being on the go.
The only thing keeping them from a 5-​star rating is the windows in the room we stayed in. A bit drafty and turned towards a busy street, so we could hear traffic driving by. No worries, the room has AC so it’s not cold. The beds are a bit squeeky as well.

Inexpensive, super convenient and friendly, helpful, easy going staff are not the reason I kept going back to this charming maze of a hostel. And lugging my backpack up to the 2^nd or 3^rd floor through narrow labyrinth like passage ways.
No, it was the beds.
Comfortable!
Like stupid comfortable.
You fall into the mattress and the night devours you into a world of soft and fantastical bliss. The beds, albeit a bit squeaky, are worth giving this place a try. After all of the trains, rains and travels. It’s a nice treat to have a heavenly ‘ahhh’ to knock you out cold, and prepare you for the next day.
To do it all again!
The fact that there aren’t any amenities makes this place not very fun to hang out in. Hence three stars.

Don’t get me wrong, the staff was great. Very friendly and accommodating… the next morning.
I stayed at several hostels in my jaunt across Europe and I have to say this might have been my least favorite. There are things that factor in that should be said on Keystone’s behalf:
1) It’s in a crazy popular area, so the security is good.
2) It’s in a crazy expensive city, so for the price vs. the value, it actually is a decent hostel.
3) It probably gets crazy ridiculous guests, so that might contribute to the rating. I’d like to think I’m not one of them.
So now why is my rating so low?
I stayed in another hostel in London for around the same price. Actually, maybe it was even for a little lower, and I’d like to think the location was even more prime, being just a few minutes walk from such famous attractions as Eye of London, Big Ben, Parliament, etc. Also, that hostel was directly across the street from Lambeth North Underground, an unassuming, not too busy metro stop. Keystone House was a few blocks walk from Kings Cross, which is a crazy busy and congested metro and train station.
The other hostel I stayed at previously also had an attached restaurant and bar, so while meals weren’t included, they were discounted. There was no attached bar at the Keystone House Kings Cross, but there were several bars in the nearby vicinity (back to ‘it’s in a crazy popular area’). So you couldn’t unwind and eat at the hostel itself, but you could unwind and eat nearby.
The showers were on the first floor only. My dorm was on the third. Said showers had individual deep stalls, 3 shower curtains deep for separating the stall into compartments. Each stall had a first shower curtain that revealed a sink and rack for hanging towels and such. Behind the second shower curtain was the shower, which was initiated by pushing a button and a shower stream would go for about 10 or 15 seconds. Behind the third curtain in this stall was the toilet. So it was nice to have each piece of a bathroom compartmentalized in each stall; I’ve had gym memberships at places with similar locker room layouts, but it wasn’t really for me.
There were 8 bunks. That’s 16 beds. And each one was super-​duper steely-​squeaky with every toss and turn. The room was massive and there was a drywall room divider down the middle to give some semblance of privacy. There were also little window blocks cut out (professionally and finished) along the very top ceiling portion of the room divider to perhaps help with air flow but keep with privacy, so that was nice. There were also short dividers between each bed, maybe not even a quarter the length of the bed, but it was enough that you didn’t wake up and see your neighbors face first thing :)
For the three people in my party, we were only handed 1 key to get into the dorm. And our bunks were at the very farthest from the door you could be. This made leaving for showing awkward, and locking up any valuables downright impossible.
I think the Keystone means well, and it worked well enough for several of the people who were there, bright eyed and excited about their England adventure! I, on the other hand, was on the last leg of my backpacking Europe journey, suffering from a nasty congestion cold, and my ears never popped from my last plane landing regardless how much I held my snotty nose and blew, so… I wasn’t very happy about the walk to the hostel, the squeaking beds, the showers 2 floors away from my dorm, the shower that took work, and the waiting for someone to let me in because I didn’t have a key. I had stayed at much nicer hostels with way better accommodations for a significantly lesser price. But you take the good and you take the bad, and in the end call it an adventure, yes?

This hostel is convenient. It’s convenient in terms of their location! It is located right about 2 blocks away from the central King’s Cross Station, which I highly preferred because it was out of convenience to be able to get to everywhere in London and Stonehenge by rail all in 3 days!
The inconvenience about this place is that the rooms are super small — even for the Duchess Suite Rooms! The Luggage (bottom floor) Rooms felt like suffocation rooms because there were no windows at all, the air conditioner was comparably big for a small sized room and it was simply a hassle to constantly change rooms each night if you didn’t book the rooms in advance! My friend and I had to constantly move up and down the stairs and across hallways to change rooms! It was a bother!
The hostel from the outside view looked small, but the inside is relatively like a maze to many small rooms, to my surprise!
There is a common area to lounge at. The front desk staff members, were great here!
They provided a common shower area — divided by boys and girls. However, if you roam in different room sections, like me for a few days while staying at this hostel, there is a private bathroom (both shower and toilet) that is open to anyone as long as it is unoccupied!
Internet works well in the common area and no where connected to Wifi in your room!
If I revisit London, I’ll probably stay at other places besides this one!

The location is really convienient because like a block or less away from King’s Cross and St. Pancreas International. You can go to the airport or out of the country from these stations, so that’s pretty great.
Likes: The beds were SUPER comfy and I couldn’t find and hint of bed bugs. I stayed in a 4 bed mixed dorm and there were safes in the room for your valuables which was nice. The bar/​common room downstairs gets pretty crowded at night and you can meet a lot of cool people down there.
Dislikes: The showers had buttons that you had to push like every 5 seconds to keep the water running. There weren’t any elevators. The bathrooms get pretty gross by the end of the day.
All in all, I only had to stay here one night as a place to recover from jet lag so it wasn’t too bad and actually really convenient. I wouldn’t want to stay here for more than one day though.

I guess that Keystone Hostel can be a decent hostel, upstairs bathrooms are ok (if not great), atmosphere is good and breakfast is ok.
We were there during the Olympics and for us it was at the most expensive and the worst hostel room we ever had. For two persons in a private room we paid GBP 100 per night. What we got was a windowless dungeon in the cellar. All the showers and two out of three toilets in the underground were under maintenance so we annoyingly had to go 2^nd floor.

Stayed in the mixed dorm room (18beds in the single room)
Positives: the location is right near Kings Cross and can get anywhere on the Metro, the staff is also quite friendly. The other people staying in the room were also pretty respectful and all of us were able to sleep through the night
Negatives: the room is tiny & beds are literally packed like sardines, in fact if you have suitcases that do not fit under the bed you have to store them outside of the room or downstairs.

Note: review for 3-​bed private room; not the dorms
Subjective: Room was very small; beds took up ~66% of the room and there was barely enough space to move comfortably. Door lock didn’t feel secure (bring a padlock). Showers, WC were hit or miss (and temperature control in shower was all over the place). Crowd seemed more like wayward travelers staying just for 1 night. Staff was helpful, but didn’t really know the area well (couldn’t recommend a nearby place to eat)
Objective: Paid 40 euros/​night. About 2 blocks from King’s cross so easily accessible by metro. We were told that the room was newly constructed and that’s why the WiFi didn’t work there (in addition, have to pay ~7 euros/​day where as most hostels now offer free wifi in the lobby at minimum). Mad rush at breakfast so we decided to eat elsewhere. Bar closes at 11 pm and was sparse.
Assessment/​Plan: If returning to London, would look at other options. Price didn’t really justify the room and hostel didn’t offer much in terms of amenities. Adding in the cost of wifi, probably would’ve been better off at a hotel.