Planet Inn Backpackers, Perth

I arrived in Perth around 11pm, I had called Planet Inn Backpackers in advance to ask if they had free airport transfer, which they did, but as I arrived late it might not be available. When I called again when I arrived in the airport in Perth they said that the drivers were incapable of picking me up, but if I took the shuttle, they would pay me the money back for it, which they did and that was nice of them, I didn’t expect that.

When I arrived the girl at reception didn’t really seem to know what she was doing, but I didn’t think much about that as I figured she was just tired, like me.

There was no doona cover, so I got an extra sheet to put between me and the doona, there was no pillow cases so there was another sheet on that as well. I don’t get it, it’s not like it was a surprise that I was coming I booked this hostel ages ago, AND I called them the day I was coming.

There is also no lock on the dorm door. I asked for a key once I had been shown to my dorm, figuring that the girl had forgotten about it, but then she said that the door was usually left unlocked as there were 12 people in there. I didn’t think that was a good excuse, but I thought I’d deal with it in the morning, there were lockable lockers in the room where I could put my valuables anyway. But when I got up in the morning I noticed that there weren’t locks on the door at all! In other words: it’s not POSSIBLE to lock the door!

The dorm I was in has no windows… Or, there is paint on the windows so they don’t let ANY light in! When I wake up in the morning I have no idea what time it is, if the sun is even up! It’s nice to be able to sleep since it’s dark, but I do like to have SOME natural light.

The night I arrived the smoke detector in the dorm kept beeping at regular intervals, not as in the alarm going off, just the battery being low. It was really annoying as it already takes me a while to go to sleep and with that beeping it took me even longer as it would beef and wake me up just as I was about to go to sleep. But they fixed it the next day. There is a ceiling fan in the dorm, but it’s noisy and I can see it wobble when it’s on, and it makes me worry since I’m on the top bunk. I wouldn’t want that to land on me.

One of the showers is okay as it’s in a proper stall of its own, but the two other showers is in one big stall and then just have a shower curtain in front of each shower. 1) I hate getting undressed in front of people and don’t want to have to share one big stall, when I go to gyms I usually wait until I get home with taking a shower. 2) The shower curtain goes into the shower and sticks to me, which is really annoying.  The bathrooms looks really old and horrible and I think they need to be completely re-done. At least the shower pressure is okay.

There is free Wi-Fi at the hostel, but you have to sit really close to the office and even then it’s rubbish, I was hoping to publish my Uluru posts here, but struggled as the internet was too slow to let me do anything.

The hostel is a fair way outside the city, but luckily there is a free bus to take you into the city.

There is a big bookshelf where you can swap books, and there is a big screen TV, the TV has seen better days though, everything on it is orange.

I didn’t really like this hostel, but at least it made me go out and do things every day as I didn’t want to spend more time in it than I had to. I have to admit there is a slight home-y feel to the place, because it’s quite small, but it looks so run-down I would not stay there again. Since you don’t get a key or anything all you need to do is return your bedding to check out.