YHA

[pete75]

Cycle camping in the dales last week, torrential rain and general depression(ours and the weather) on the Wednesday made us want bricks and morter shelter for the night. We were near Hawes so I rang the Hostel. Accomodation available so we pedalled over.

Facilities for cyclists were excellent , good warm drying room and a large locking cycle shed. What's more a poster on the shed wall said that they and many other hostels stock a full Park toolkit for bikes, down to bb tools and 2 sizes of crank extractor all available for free loan. I needed to adjust my front hub cones so asked for a loan of the cone spanners and then discovered that the warden and one of the staff were both keen cyclists.

I get the impression that YHA has had a bad press from time to time on this forum - well all I can say is that none of that is true for the Hawes hostel.

Pete

Ps. Good food and very ample portions....

[Crazydave]

Thanks for that. The YHA have had a lot of bad press. Like any other organization they do some things well and other things they do poorly. That's useful to know that a number of YHA's stock bike kits. I have had mainly good experience with the YHA and can recommend any of the following:
Streatley-on-Thames, The Ridgeway (pre closure) Portland, Penzance, Bellever, Brecon, Bridges, Arnside, Broadmeadows, Cheddar and Exford. The list of hostels I've stayed at which I wouldn't recommend numbers all of 3.

[horizon]

pete75: your post is the reason I rant about the YHA - there simply is nothing to compare. You may have paid higher prices and had to buy breakfast but that notwithstanding, it is the closures that are the problem. Apart from the "booking out" by schools, there is little the YHA does nowadays that is bad for cyclists, it is simply the fact that the network, on which cyclists rely, is being sacrificed to enable it to survive. There must be another way.

[Asdace]

Ps. Good food and very ample portions....

Also excellent Chippy and pubs.

[eileithyia]

i would endorse what has been said, the problem is not so much the hostels themselves but their scarcity and difficulty in getting to stay at them, it is unlikely you would get into a hostel at short notice during term time as they are likely to be full of a school party, in earlier times you could share with a party but these days the schools want exclusive use of the hostel in case all other travellers are raving paedophiles.

The whole concept of hostelling and their facilities are brilliant if you can get to stay...

[leeinlancs]

The YHA does do some things very badly
For instance i am thinking of planning a trip - but maybe in 6 weeks or 8 weeks time going from Lancashire and around Yorkshire.
So - i open my 2007/ 2008 book - i see the prices or not advertised and they are coded - then it says for prices see the Bookmark - why not just show the prices in the book like i used to. I think i lost the bookmark - damn it.

What concerns me more however is that - i mean maybe it is me - i am not looking properly - but i can't find the times and months that the hostels are open - to travel in Winter used to be a logistical nightmare trying to find which hostels are open and which are not - the same with travelling the first week in March for instance.
The opening periods of each hostel was however - shown on each hostel in the book - and it is not there now.
It would be helpful to also have the tel no.s of each hostel but for each Hostel it just has a National no to ring - this is not good - ok the National no may be able to tell you when the Hostel is open - but it will not able to tell you for instance the facilties the hostel has for bikes and crucial local info - i mean it is nice to know that some hostels have tools for people with bikes. it was far better when you had the no.s to ring the hostels direct
To me it looks like administration is going more centralised and this is not always very good

[meic]

I have found the booking system and 0870 numbers very off-putting.
However I am going to give it another try inorder to exploit the Tesco's clubcard vouchers. These are only valid (they say ) if you book over 14 days in advance. Staying at the hostels for a quarter of the money is quite tempting. However if it wasnt for that I think I would just forget the bookings etc and take the risk of arriving on the night!
Has anyone had any experience of using the Tesco clubcard vouchers at the YHA?

[Jay-X]

Yes, I have used Tesco clubcard vouchers before with no problems. It takes a bit of messing about -

You have to first order your deal tokens from tesco (2-3 days to arrive in post), then book with hostel (the instructions say to book at least 14 days in advance-they may be more flexible but have never tried it).

Some hostels want you to post the tokens to them immediately to confirm the booking, others are happy for you to hand them over on arrival. They all seem to operate slightly differently.

The big attraction of course is that it costs you only a quarter of the price for your stay - usually around £5.00 for B&B.

I also purchased my annual YHA membership with the vouchers, again it only cost a quarter of the price!

[eileithyia]

I've used the Tesco vouchers twice now. Last year for a weekend away and this year at Keswick and Alston for the C2C, Keswick accepted full amount and Alston only partial face value. What I learned this year is that the hostel only receives half the value of the voucher. They did not know if the YHA gets the full amount and retains a portion for themselves or if it is Tesco that only pays half the value to YHA, either way the hostel loses out. As they said at Keswick a family taking up a family room on vouchers is an expensive option for them when they are fully booked and might have full paying customers looking for beds. It certainly opened my eyes with regard to using them, will probably just save them for DVD rental in future.

[meic]

Eileithya,
If they only get half the value, which would fit in with Tescos ethos, then you could give them twice the value in tokens and you get it half price (instead of quarter price) and they still get the proper amount.

[eileithyia]

That's true but how many people actually are aware of that, esp the car driving family who are taking up a very expensive family room.

[andy_scot_uk]

In Scotland you can still phone the Youth Hostels direct or book online or use a central number. Also there appears to be no need to book 14 days in advance to use Tesco Clubcard vouchers according to the Tesco web page.
Unfortunately I only discovered about the clubcard vouchers on my return from hostelling this year. I like using hostels but family rooms at £66/night are not very competitive these days.

[eileithyia]

Which is why I believe hostelling is totally out of step, they no longer offer cheap affordable accommodation. Depending on your circumstances and where you are staying travelodge type accommodation can be much cheaper. OK soyou do not get the common room/camaraderie but not all families bother with this, just stay in their room.
A few years back we were unable to get into Oban YH, they had just gone on to their high season rate, we stopped at the alt. hostel which was incredibly cheap, but on walking around the town later that evening we found B&Bs offering cheaper accommodation than the YH.

[pete75]

Good point about the travellodges - apparently if you book more than 4 weeks in advance you can get a room for 10 quid at a lot of them. Big rooms too - plenty of space for your bikes

[horizon]

We recently stayed at a Travelodge, five family members in one room. The room cost £26 for the night, £5.20 each. Yet the non-profit making YHA say they cannot do this. The funny thing is they tell us constantly that people don't want shared rooms anymore yet everyone abounds in tales about how they managed to get a good deal at Travelodge by filling a room up. I thoroughly dislike Travelodge but YHAs push our budget to the limit. Ironic isn't it?