The Salisbury - YMCA, Hong Kong > Reviews (2)

I stayed in the Salisbury YMCA Hotel for 8 nights in October 2009 during a stop over on the way to Australia. I was a student traveling alone so I booked the dormitory room which was the cheapest option. The price was 240HKD per night which I found very reasonable.

THE ROOM:
The room itself exceeded my expectations. The hotel is quite up market so I expected the limited number of dorm rooms to be of a much lesser standard than the others however this was not the case. The room itself had 2 sets of bunk beds for 4 people in total, 4 separate wardrobes with a private safe each, individual reading lights and air con, lots of storage, tea/coffee making facilities and a very modern en-suite. The room was extremely clean and spacious. Two things stood out as excellent for me. The first was the amazing view from my room. I could see right across Victoria Harbour and actually watched the daily night time firework show from my room a few nights! The second thing which I loved was that I was actually the only person in my room for the whole 8 night stay. This was probably just my luck but I loved spending a very low price for basically having the whole place to myself.

THE HOTEL:
When I was there the Salisbury YMCA was under going major renovations so the whole lobby area was very busy and a little hard to get around. I had to enter through a side entrance and use the elevators at the back of the hotel. This wasn't too much of a problem though and I got to grips with in within a few hours of going in and out. The staff were extremely friendly and patient when I was asking any questions. One negative point was that no one directed me to my room on arrival, so I spent about 20minutes trying to find where I was staying. I didn't eat the food in the hotel while staying there so I can't comment on this but I'm sure it'd be just as satisfying as the rest of the hotel. I rarely saw other guests walking about which some people may find off putting but this wasn't a problem for me and it meant that there was never any problem with the noise.

The location of the Salisbury YMCA is something which I feel made my stay in Hong Kong so enojoyable. It is right beside the Peninsula, opposite the Cultural Centre and the Space Museum so it's the perfect area for tourists. The Star Ferry which takes you across the harbour is literally a minute walk away. You can be on Hong Kong island within a few minutes! It is very well known too because of it's great position so any taxi man will be able to take you there, although this wouldn't be necessary with the public transport links.

All in all I really enjoyed my time at this hotel. Anyone who's on a budget traveling, don't let the dormitory room thing put you off, it's no different from a normal room which you'd pay much higher prices for. I was a (very small) 18 year old girl traveling alone when I went there and I never once felt unsafe.Getting into the hotel after long days walking about was an absolute pleasure.