I'm trying to reserve a bed in LA. I'll be there for one night before I fly to New Zealand. So I go to the hostel reservation section here at bootsnall.com and get a list available hostels in LA. My first problem is at 35, I'm too old for some of them, like Los Angeles Backpackers Paradise Hostel, but that's ok. So I find what seems to be a suitable hostel, (AAE Los Angeles Hostel & Ecomony Hotel) and try to make a reservation. But it seems that unless I'm making a reservation for 4 persons, I am automatically pushed towards a single room. How do I get a shared room and save money?
When you select "3 bed" "4 bed" or whatever, you're not booking the whole room, that's just the kind of room you are taking. You shouldnt have any problem booking whichever room you want
I chose 4 bed, but it is forcing me to book either the entire room for 4 persons for $59.20 or a single room for $55.90 with this message "Due to low availability in this property, the system has selected the next best available room type to accommodate you." I don't get the option of $14.80 for a bed.
Unfortunately, what happens sometimes is that hostel owners, when they're setting things up, set all sizes of room as "private rooms," which means that the entire room has to be booked by one person. Usually this is a mistake, but it makes it impossible to book dorm beds the usual way.
Not much you can do, except try to find their phone number and call them, or maybe try some different booking sites.
Oh well... I'm going to stay with my uncle in Glendale instead. But I also ran into the same problem trying to get a bed in Flagstaff.
Moving on... How many nights do you guys think I should reserve in New Zealand to start out? I'm flying into Auckland and flying out of Christchurch 6 weeks later. I have no plans or expectations for when I get there. 3 nights then play it by air?
Just a quick note about this happening on hostel booking sites...In my experience it normally means their allocation for dorms is full and the only option they have remaining is a sngle room. It just means they havent taken that option down but the beds are full. Sometimes a call to them will help as they dont allocate ALL their beds via the hostel booking sites.
6 weeks in NZ is a decent amount of time (its what I had allocated but I ended up spending 8 weeks in the end).
I'd say 3 days in Auckland is just about spot on. I covered everything I wanted to see in that time. I had actually booked 4 nights and had to cancel my last one. I wound up hiring a car with a lass I met on teh plane over from Santiago and we both decided we'd seen wenough of Auckjland and wanted to move on - If you're looking at ways of getting around the country I can tell you its by FAR the best way to get around!
In 3 days we...
Went up the Sky Tower Visited a couple of art museums Went out in Parnell Visited Mt Eden Went to Devenport for the day Had a good walk around the City.
I'm sure I missed a few things off that list - But basically I dont know what I would have done with an extra day. I think it would have been pretty wasted.
As for time in North and South - You've probably already heard (and if you havent, I'm sure you will) "Spend as much time in the South as you can". Whilst the SOuth is beautiful and plenty to see, the North IS worth some time. There's some hgreat places to visit (Rotorua, Bay of Islands, Tauranga, Taupo and my favourite of the Cities, Wellington).
As for teh South, I wouldnt miss Franz Joseph, Wanaka ( so many people skip this place and head straight for Queenstown but its so worth a few days!!) and Queenstown. To be honest we liked everywhere we went pretty much, and driving around the North we got to see so much more than any bus can give you!
Hope some of that helps.
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Originally posted by fantomulo: Oh well... I'm going to stay with my uncle in Glendale instead. But I also ran into the same problem trying to get a bed in Flagstaff.
Moving on... How many nights do you guys think I should reserve in New Zealand to start out? I'm flying into Auckland and flying out of Christchurch 6 weeks later. I have no plans or expectations for when I get there. 3 nights then play it by air?
For whatever reason, this hostel/hotel does not show any dorm rooms available for the random selection of dates that I checked - only private rooms (which cost more) and in a private room situation you have to pay for all the beds in a room even if you are the only one as the hotel will not sell those beds to anyone else, just like a regular hotel. I'm assuming this is what you saw as well. The place seems more like a hotel than a hostel, although they do mention dorm rooms in their description.
I'll try to find out if this property does indeed have dorm rooms. If they don't, then they should update the description.
I could only find the one hostel that had age restrictions. If you use the search box in the top right of the LA hostels page, this will show all with availability for the date you want, hopefully making it easier to make a choice.
Just to follow up about that LA hostel, this property is listed as a Hostel & Hotel, but they don't actually have standard dorm rooms as such. I guess they have rooms which they consider dorms themselves, but which may differ from a conventional definition of a dorm room. We are contacting the property to bring this up with them and get the description changed.
