Riad Fez Hostel

Location.

Cleaning,

The terrace was nice, and also the position of the hostel is very strategic to explore the medina.

Very dirty, I think they didn’t change the sheets since we found hair and stains in the bed. The room smelled like mold and cat urine, the carpets in the bedroom were very disgusting. On the wall, we found a chewed chewing gum, which was definitely not ours 😅 The bathrooms were dirty and very small, and just a very tiny amount of water was coming out of the sink, so we didn’t even try taking a shower. We left the hostel after the first night, it was too uncomfortable for us.

The location was good, the breakfast was delicious, the staff were super nice and helped me with everything I needed, and the room and bed were great

The breakfast could have been bigger. I think we only had one shower for the hostel so I wasn't able to use it

I found this hostel on booking with a high score and good reviews. I booked it, but I couldn't find it on google maps- neither by name nor by address. I contacted the hostel for a precise location on google maps. I got a location which says " fes hostel home". I didn't think too much, from a trust of booking.com I guess. I arrived in Fes medina in the evening. As you could imagine, google maps led me in a wrong way. I asked someone for the correct direction, but a kid/teenager overheard our conversation and started to follow me and offered to lead me to the hostel, I walked my way, not saying yes nor no to him. After 1min walking in dark narrow alley, I was in front of the correct door, the kid/teenager asked me for money. Being quite tired and frankly speaking also a bit of nervous, I gave him 5 MAD and he was quite disappointed and said something I didn't understand. The owner of the hostel opened the door and the kid/teenager left. I was welcomed in the hostel. With the help of translator( since I don't speak French/Arabic, and the hosts don't speak English/Spanish) , I finished the checked-in. To be fair, I got a roll of toilet paper for free, which I never got from other hostels. I witnessed the hosts helped another guest book a taxi for the next early morning. I showed them my appreciation and they said (jokingly) : make yourself at home and give us a 10 points afterwards. I said sure. ( Remember this. ) Feeling so lucky, I went upstairs to my room. Then came the problems. In the common area of the first floor, wifi doesn't work. In the room, even my mobile data stops working ( I had an e-sim, so maybe a local sim would work better, I am not sure). There is a bathroom/toilet on the first floor, full of water on the floor and on the toilet seat, and on the floor there is something like someone spit…The water taps from the shower and the handwash are leaking all the time.

So I went up the second floor to use the bathroom/toilet there, quite small but at least cleaner and drier, although the water is pretty small from the handwash tap. Finally bedtime. Emm, the bedsheet had stains…I felt a bit sick and thought of leaving the next day. With 2 hours’ time difference with CET, I got up super early. I was a bit worried about what to do till the said breakfast time (9:30), so I went to the terrace to get some fresh air. Again wifi was not working and mobile data was running slowly and on-and-off. The hosts (Aziza and Mustafa) saw that I was already up and brought breakfast for me. Thank you very much! And some sweets after breakfast:p They were so lovely and I felt like family. So I gave up the idea of finding another accommodation and decided to stay another night as planned. Long story short, in the morning I left, Aziza took me to a taxi and helped me communicate with the driver, so everything went smoothly. On my way I was struggling what score I should leave in the review, because obviously the basic hygiene and facilities are missing but the hosts were so nice. However this is not the end of the story. I read other reviews for this hostel and the good reviews seem like to talk about something that I totally don’t know. For example, it was another host who managed the place during their stay… I started to doubt what really happened. Then, booking.com sent me a notification: thank you for your review. Wait, I have not written anything yet! THE REVIEW UNDER MY NAME WAS NOT WRITTEN BY ME!!! It was written in very casual Czech and rated THE hostel a score of 10. I guess it’s from some system automatically because my location is “the Czech republic”. Now I am not happy, either my account got hacked, or the hostel is using something illegal, right? I want to edit this fake review so I got a screenshot to show it below. I have made a complaint to booking.com and am now waiting for the reply.

Book four nights, stayed one and booked somewhere else. It was cold, damp and dirty. No stars!!!

Location, nice common areas.

Bathroom is small. There was no socket at my bed, so I had to use the socket at another bed to charge my phone.

I mean it was 7€ for 2 nights so you really can't complain. You get a shower and a bed and it's clean. I had a good night's sleep. There's even a rooftop for people to chill at.

The shower is either a few drops of cold water or a 10bar stream of boiling water with no in between. I don't think it's a Riad, there's no garden.