Front of property

Reviews of Saint James Backpackers

2 out of 5
Saint James Backpackers
21 Longridge Road, London, England

Reviews

7.8

Good

Rating 10 - Excellent. 56 out of 157 reviews" "
Rating 8 - Good. 53 out of 157 reviews" "
Rating 6 - Okay. 24 out of 157 reviews" "
Rating 4 - Poor. 9 out of 157 reviews" "
Rating 2 - Terrible. 15 out of 157 reviews" "

7.2/10

Cleanliness

7.8/10

Staff & service

8.0/10

Amenities

7.2/10

Property conditions & facilities

7.2/10

Eco-friendliness

Reviews

8/10 Good

Hannah

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities
Overall, this was good value for the price and the hostel is in a great location - close to the tube and there is a grocery store and multiple restaurants down the street. My one complaint was that when I took a shower, the drain was clogged and I was immediately standing in 4 inches of dirty water. Future guests should note the following: - The all-female dorm is two floors above the all-female bathroom. All other bathrooms are any gender. - There are no privacy curtains on the bunks - Dorms do not have quiet/curtesy hours posted - The kitchen is small and closed when the staff are cooking dinner. Dinner is limited to the first 30 people who sign up each morning. So if you have plans to make your own dinner, you can’t use the kitchen during normal dinner hours - Guests are not allowed to store cooked food in the fridge, so you can’t keep leftovers - The communal area is pretty small for the number of guests that can fit into the hostel. The hostel was not at full capacity when I was there but I often couldn’t find a place to sit and eat. Although in the summer, there are many seats to sit out in the garden - Each bunk is assigned a lock box for your items that rolls under the bed. I liked this system and the boxes are fairly large. - My bunk did not have a bedside light or shelf
Stayed 5 nights in Mar 2024

10/10 Excellent

Natalia

Stayed 2 nights in Mar 2024

10/10 Excellent

Rawle

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Excellent service and facilities.
Stayed 7 nights in Feb 2024

8/10 Good

Renee

Stayed 1 night in Dec 2023

8/10 Good

David

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 1 night in Feb 2024

8/10 Good

David

Stayed 2 nights in Feb 2024

8/10 Good

Renee

Stayed 1 night in Jan 2024

8/10 Good

Renee

Stayed 1 night in Jan 2024

8/10 Good

Renee

Stayed 1 night in Jan 2024

10/10 Excellent

MICHAL

Business traveller
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 3 nights in Jan 2024

8/10 Good

Renee

Stayed 1 night in Jan 2024

10/10 Excellent

Amanpreet

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service
2guy other sound
Stayed 1 night in Dec 2023

8/10 Good

Jainil

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Great stay✌️
Response from Saint James on 29 Dec 2023
Dear Jainil, thank you for sharing your positive feedback about your stay with us. We're glad to hear that you had a great experience. We appreciate your support and look forward to hosting you again. ST JAMES

8/10 Good

Renee

Liked: Cleanliness, amenities, property conditions & facilities
I love this hostel it is one of the best in London. I love the staff and the Melo inviting environment. Great price good free food close to convenient shops.
Stayed 1 night in Dec 2023

8/10 Good

Renee

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Love it.
Stayed 1 night in Dec 2023
Response from Saint James on 29 Dec 2023
Dear Renee, thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We're delighted to hear that you loved your stay here! We look forward to welcoming you back for another enjoyable experience. ST JAMES

8/10 Good

Renee

Stayed 1 night in Dec 2023

10/10 Excellent

Renee

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 1 night in Dec 2023

8/10 Good

Marco

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Short overnight stay - fitted the purpose
Stayed overnight before catching a morning flight. The common areas seemed pleasant. The bunk beds fitted quite tight in the rooms. Lacking easy reachable power outlets or a convenience shelf in the top beds.
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2023
Response from Saddiq on 12 Oct 2023
Hi Marco, Thank you for your review. We're glad to hear you found our common areas pleasant.We apologize for the inconvenience with the bunk beds and the lack of accessible power outlets and convenience shelves. Your feedback is valuable and will help us improve.We hope your morning flight went well. If your travels bring you back to our area, we'd love to provide you with a better experience.

10/10 Excellent

Maria

Stayed 1 night in Sep 2023

10/10 Excellent

Lee

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 16 nights in Jul 2023

8/10 Good

valerie

Liked: Staff & service
cheerful and friendly
This has to be the friendliest, most cheerful hostel i have ever stayed in. Had great conversations with people even though many are much younger, but some my age. But beds could be better - pillows woeful. More cleaning needs to be done. Great having breakfast provided as well as social activities organised by management.
Stayed 4 nights in Jun 2023
Response from Saint James Backpackers on 5 Jul 2023
Hello Valerie, thank you for your great review! We are so happy to know you enjoyed your time with us :) Also, it is great to hear that you enjoyed the breakfast and our evening events! We wish you safe travels and hope you choose to stay with us again!- St. James

6/10 Okay

Linda

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service
Disliked: Property conditions & facilities
Stayed 3 nights in Jun 2023
Response from Saint James Backpackers on 15 Jul 2023
Thank you for your review Linda! We wish you safe travels - St. James

2/10 Terrible

Verified traveller

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Very dirty, smell of drugs. Bathrooms very dirty.
Stayed 1 night in Feb 2023
Response from Saint James Backpackers on 13 Jun 2023
We are unfortunate to hear you were not pleased with the cleanliness. Our staff is always hard working to ensure the place is clean. In the future, we hope you will stay with us to have a more positive experience - St James

10/10 Excellent

Ruby

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Great people and great place
Stayed 5 nights in May 2023
Response from Saint James on 27 May 2023
Hey Ruby, thank you so much for your review! Super happy to hear that you liked your stay with us! We are looking forward to hosting you again in the future:) St. James

10/10 Excellent

MISS C C

Stayed 1 night in May 2023
Response from Saint James on 25 May 2023
Hey Miss C, thank you so much for your positive review! We are looking forward to hosting you again in the future:) St. James

2/10 Terrible

Mohammad Madani

Business traveller
It was a night from hell to forget. Too noisy, people were slamming their rooms' doors all night long, talking and laughing loud. People show no respect to others and there were no regulations or instructions to tackle that. No lockers to store your valuable items, so you have to keep your eyes wide open all the time. So, Never Again!!!
Stayed 1 night in May 2023
Response from Saint James on 17 May 2023
Hey Mohammad Madani, thank you for writing us a review! We want to offer all of our guests the best experience possible so please don't suffer in silence and come to reception if you have complaints about your roommates. We are more than happy to help you change rooms. Thanks, St. James

10/10 Excellent

Samantha

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Stayed for 1 night. Absolutely amazing value for money, exceptional customer service and staff, so helpful friendly. Female showers in basement incredible steaming hot, beds are fine with basic mattress, duvet & pillow (April), 2 sockets & usb charging next to lower bunks (room 2, bed A Female dorm), FREE buffet & hot breakfast. FREE dinner if you book before 4pm on the day. wifi in dorms and main areas worked great. Stunningly beautiful architecture of house. Couldnt fault it and will stay every time i visit my daughters flat in London
Stayed 1 night in May 2023
Response from Saint James on 5 May 2023
Hey Samantha, thank you so much for your positive review! We are happy to hear that you had a great stay at St. James and are looking forward to hosting you again in the future! Thanks, St. James :)

10/10 Excellent

Soheir

Stayed 1 night in Apr 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you for taking the time to write us a review! We hope you will choose to stay with us again in the future! Thanks, St. James:)

2/10 Terrible

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Apr 2023
Response from Saint James on 10 Apr 2023
Hi Soheir,We are sorry to hear that you did not enjoy your stay with us. If you ever have any problems feel free to bring them up with reception and we will do our best to help you resolve them.

2/10 Terrible

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 2 nights in Apr 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you for rating your stay at St. James Backpackers. We hope to see you again in the future. Thanks, St. James

2/10 Terrible

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 5 nights in Mar 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you fortaking the time to rate your stay at St. James Backpackers. We hope to see you again in the future. Thanks, St. James

2/10 Terrible

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 2 nights in Mar 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you for rating your stay at St. James Backpackers. We hope to see you again in the future. Thanks, St. James

2/10 Terrible

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Mar 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you for rating your stay at St. James Backpackers. We hope to see you again in the future. Thanks, St. James

2/10 Terrible

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 3 nights in Mar 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you for rating your stay at St. James Backpackers. We hope to see you again in the future. Thanks, St. James

4/10 Poor

Soheir

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 3 nights in Feb 2023
Response from Saint James on 28 Apr 2023
Hey Soheir, thank you for rating your stay at St. James Backpackers. We are looking forward to hosting you again in the future. Thanks, St. James

10/10 Excellent

Parvez

Stayed 1 night in Oct 2022

2/10 Terrible

Mbarak

Business traveller
Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Guy jealous cause of gf
Some dude wouldn’t let me in m. He was not in charge but for some reason he was making decisions based on his gf!
Stayed 2 nights in Jun 2022

10/10 Excellent

Asta

Stayed 1 night in Jun 2022

10/10 Excellent

matthew

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Highly recommend this , backpackers to casual traveller , its worth the £26 , very relaxed atmosphere in this house , feels like youre home almost , plenty of folk to talk to for the lone traveller , bunk beds are cool and comfortable, great value for money this place, and just off the main rd woth loads of transport options . Staff were great 👍.
Stayed 1 night in Mar 2022

2/10 Terrible

Rodolfo, Calgary

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
It is filthy, such a horrible place, with disrespectful guests, loud music during the entire night against the by-Law, bad professional taking care of the business. The Receptionist was using alcohol during working hours, didn`t seem to be working, but enjoying a night in a club with drunk and drug users; Allowed marijuana abuse in enclosed areas. Said people could listen to loud music as long as they wanted. My wife thought it was okay spending one night in a hostel, but bad decision, no common sense on putting a woman alone in a dorm with lots of men part of the same group, no female whatsoever in the dorm but 3 men. Firstly, they should have dorms for female, and if they share the dorm, they should put more people of the same gender together. The male guests slept in their underwear, almost nude, disrespectful, drunk, lots of bottle of liquor all over the room. That is insane. Expedia tried to reach them, but the hostel refused to answer the calls. My wife had to spend practically the entire night in the reception waiting Expedia to make them change the dorm, she couldn’t go to any other hotel because they were all sold out. The only availability was for hotel charging over $300. Not only she was frustrated, tired, she was in danger by herself with closed doors with 3 other guys who apparently spent the day drinking. I am sharing here hoping someone can reconsider staying somewhere else.
Stayed 1 night in Nov 2021
Response from SJTeam on 22 Nov 2021
Dear Rodolfo, We are sorry to hear about your experience. However, it is important to make some clarifications about your complaint in order not to mislead any other guest who might be staying with us in the future. The guest you are talking about was sleeping into a mixed 8-beds dorm because the reservation was made for a bed in a mixed 8 beds dorm. Please note you could have booked onlinea a bed into a female-only dorm as we had the availability when you made the booking. Secondly, we obviously cannot control the gender of the guests who sleep into a mixed dorm, and we are sorry to hear that our guest did not feel comfortable in the room (and we understand it), however if only 3 men decided to book this room for the night, then the room will only be occupied by them. Yet, the guest still talked to us about the situation and we would have been more than happy to change her to a female-only room if those were not fully occupied during this night. We indeed offered our guest the opportunity to go sleep into a 6-bed dorm, with one man and one woman, or into a 4-bed dorm with only 2 women (so technically a female-only room), but she decided to stay at the reception and to wait there. After a few hours, the guest made the decision to go and sleep into the female-only room (4-bed dorm with two women), and the receptionist provided her with the new room free of supplementary charges, where she has been able to sleep until the morning. Please note that sleeping into a 4 beds dorm normally costs around 15£ more than sleeping into a mixed 8 beds dorm during the weekend. Thirdly, Expedia did not try to reach us by phone; they sent us an e-mail which included your demand, which was to change the dorm of the guest. The receptionist saw the message but he already had made the offer to change the dorm, which had been declined by the guest. The receptionist asked her regularly if she was fine staying in the reception, but she kept refusing to change room (until later on in the night). Lastly, we apologize for the fact that you perceived our reception as unwelcoming. Nevertheless, saying the receptionist was "using alcohol" and "didn't seem to be working" are serious accusations with big implications. The receptionist was not drinking alcohol but unalcoholic beverages that were provided everywhere at the party. The fact that the night was busy and that other guests who might have been consuming alcohol were around the reception might have given you the impression that the receptionist was also drinking, but this is not the case. The reception also never said that "people could listen to loud music as long as they wanted", the night (Saturday) was indeed a special event as a birthday was hosted in the hostel, but in no case have guests been allowed to listen to music as long and as loud as they wanted. Concerning your point on marijuana, the garden was closed after 10:30 PM and the only other outside area in the hostel is in the street by the ma

10/10 Excellent

Merlinda

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Sep 2021

10/10 Excellent

Jaime

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Happy customer
Stayed 1 night in Aug 2021
Response from saint james backpackers hostel on 18 Aug 2021
thank you !

6/10 Okay

Denean

Liked: Cleanliness
Disliked: Room comfort
Just ok.
The room was obviously being used as a storage room with clothes all over the room. It actually looked like inside of a bad thrift store. A female kept coming in and out of the room slamming the door all day, and night disrupting my sleep. The staff ok. The bathrooms were relatively clean.
Stayed 3 nights in Apr 2020

8/10 Good

Lucy

Business traveller
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Delicious pancakes for breakfast!!!
Stayed 4 nights in Mar 2020

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Stayed 2 nights in Mar 2020

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Stayed 1 night in Nov 2019
Response from Emanuela on 2 Dec 2019
Hi, thank you so much for your review. We hope to see you soon. Best regards

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Business traveller
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Living in a hostel, sleeping on bunk beds, share your daily life with always incoming and outgoing people can be really hard, but SJB makes it as pleasurable as they can, they are there for you, you can count on them, and they will do their best to support you, nice lounge, warm welcoming, warm big dinner, and on a hard day, you can always chose watching Friends or How I met your mother on a big TV screen, instead of going out for a busy city tour, all staff members are a part of a good team, and I would recommend Will as a marketing face of the hostel, as he is a fantastic person. Million greetings
Stayed 23 nights in Sep 2019
Response from Emanuela on 30 Oct 2019
Hello, thank you very much for your feedback. We are glad you enjoyed staying in our hostel. We are grateful that you enjoyed the atmosphere, the welcome, the food and our staff members. We hope to see you again. Yours sincerely

10/10 Excellent

Genevieve

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2019
Response from Emanuela on 23 Oct 2019
Hi, thank you so much for your feedback. Best regards

8/10 Good

Angelo

Business traveller
Liked: Staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2019
Response from Emanuela and Lea on 18 Oct 2019
Hi, thank you so much for your feedback.We hope to see you again. Good luck!

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Stayed 2 nights in Oct 2019
Response from Emanuela and Lea on 17 Oct 2019
Hi, thank you for your feedback. Best regards