La Unica

excellent

Good

Comfortable beds and good appliances, including large (half-size) fridge, pretty good desk, and a good AC, if somewhat loud. Secondly, even though the neighborhood looks rough, which puts people off, it strikes me as a looks-can-be-deceiving situation; it is visibly run-down, but doesn't seem to actually be dangerous as far as violent crime goes. (Having said that, I took public transportation rather than needing to park a car overnight—I could totally understand being a little wary about break-ins.) This is not my first stay; I was really charmed my first time here back in May but noticed a few things that could have been better, so I held off on giving my review then in order to give an opportunity to have an even better experience another time. Unfortunately, the second time around in June was worse than the first, so I held off again until I could go for a third (this time) which I hoped would at a minimum even things out and at least bring things to parity with my original experience during my first stay, but this time was even worse still. I really wanted to root for this business based on that first stay, and there's a lot of potential, but unfortunately it seems like I misjudged—it doesn't look like they care enough to do a few small, simple things that would improve their standing/guest satisfaction greatly. (A bummer.)

"Tranquil" (from their marketing) doesn't align with the 7:30–10:30 noise session they hosted on the second night of this stay. This time WiFi was also out when I woke up, and I wasn't able to use it again until something like 10:00 or 11:00 PM, so I had to make an unplanned trip downtown on short notice to try to make up for it, but I basically lost an entire day (the only full day I was there) and pretty much paid for... nothing. (When I made this booking, I actually only needed one night but had the option to go for two, and my decision to stay the extra night was to have a full 24-hour day without any travel/checkin/checkout and which I was expecting to be able to use productively. I wasn't.) Despite the disruption, the staff didn't do anything like offer to comp half the stay or offer a discount for a future stay or even just say sorry at any point during the 4 or 5 interactions we had about the issue. The community showers are not a problem in theory, but are known to be a source of dissatisfaction to many guests, and it's because La Unica is totally dropping the ball. For one, it would be super easy to make sure they get cleaned at least once or twice a day, but from my experience during my previous stay and this one, it doesn't seem like this is happening. And even though there are three showers, at some point after my first stay, they decided to remove the shower curtains from two of the three showers—so the shower room is only usable one at a time (and for some reason they picked the one that was the worst of the three...). There are hostels in Austin + elsewhere that successfully pull off the community shower thing (read: you still have privacy; NOT group showers) and do it in a way that doesn't require only one person use the showers at a time. So it's not impossible, it's just that they don't seem to care here.

Niks

Bad smell, lots of noise, moist. Nothing is good here. The bad nursing home smell is strong. Toilets and bedrooms don't get ventilation often so stink and have moist. The fire extinguisher batteries are near dead everywhere so every minute during the night "beeb", I said it and she said that it is normal. The churche was next to my room ending with LOTS OF noise after 11PM and starting 8AM. Also the AC, fridge and other rooms are really noisy. And in the night you cannot make your room dark.

The lady at the front desk is super nice and very helpful in getting me settled.

All good

Price, clean, nice to get a code for door rather than long checking in process very basic, area a little rough but fine. Owner was great when I stuffed up door code. Talked me through it on the phone. New fridge and microwave which was a plus.

Booking .com ad was not clear that shower was separate. It was a relief that toilet was in our quarters. Building a quite tired but functional and did not blow the budget.

I genuinely felt unsafe there couldn’t step foot outside with being harassed by people in the neighborhood, the doors barely worked the windows didn’t shut fully. Would not recommend