Safestay Elephant & Castle, Meeting Room

My experience here started off horrible. I wish I read reviews before booking. Positives: Clean rooms, restrooms, and shower room. Gate locks at night and you must badge in for it to open. Only a 10-minute walk to Elephant and castle station. There is a bus stop right outside of the entrance. Multiple convenience stores and restaurants nearby. I used the laundry facilities the first day and it cleaned my clothes very well. SOME staff were nice and knowledgeable. Negatives: Wifi is ONLY in the lobby and NOT in the rooms. No elevator, only stairs. The door for the floor I was on was broken so it stayed open instead of being secured. The mattresses are not comfortable and a very loud when adjusting in bed. My first night the person below me made a huge fuss about someone in the room and I having a conversation around 8pm and then about me getting on the top bunk and moving around trying to get comfortable. She went and complaint to the front desk. The first gentleman assured us that we were able to have conversations in the room with each other and keep the light on till a reasonable time (10pm-6am quiet hours), so we did. She then went back to the front desk to complain again about us talking to each other. Now, this is where it got disrespectful, a second man comes to the room and explicitly tells the 2 other ladies and I that we are NOT allowed to have any conversations in the room, that if we want to talk to each other we HAVE to go down to the common area to have a conversation. He then claimed that this rule was in the terms and conditions that we agreed to when we booked online. I read the entire terms and conditions, and it said nothing about not being able to talk in the room you book. Irritated and frustrated I go down to the lobby to confront this so called “security”. This is where the first gentleman calls me up and I let him know what this other guy told us, and he was very angry because it was not true, we should have never been told we aren’t able to talk in a shared room. This was an almost 2-hour ordeal, and it shouldn’t have been, this should have been nipped in the butt. I understand some people live locally and everyone deserves somewhere to sleep but they should set up the rooms for people who are willing to meet and speak to new people and rooms for people who want to keep to themselves and want a quiet room. I hope management can better train all staff to have the same knowledge and make some changes for future patrons.

You get what you pay for so with that in mind it’s a good very basic place to stay. The walls are very thin and they could do with someone being around or signage for when people arrive and want to check in. I booked with an online comparison site and although the accommodation sent through details about self check in, the link didn’t work and I email twice asking for it to be sent again, got no response. Other than that it’s clean and safe.. can’t ask for more at that price.