Reviews of Rambutan Guesthouse

02 August 2011 Giedre would recommend this property

Liked: It made my stay in GRANADA wonderful, the staff and the people were so friendly, you can feel there like at home, relaxed and enjoying!!!! it is the best hostel I ever stayed!!!

Disliked: nothing

01 August 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: amazing view to Alhambra

Disliked: a little bit disorganized

31 July 2011 Sophie would recommend this property

Liked: incredible view of la alhambra, friendly staff, lovely vibe, a guitar to play, internet, great recommendations for things to do.

Disliked: ...

23 July 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: My experience at the Rambutan was very personal, everyone is so friendly and open, you really get to know people here. The view from the hostel is amazing!

Disliked: Nothing, rambutan is AWESOME

11 July 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: This view is INCREDIBLE. On the mountains opposite the Alhambra, you can see everything. Very relaxed atmosphere, including staff, all of whom are friendly and helpful.

Disliked: Slightly dirty. There is a dog there, so if you're bothered by that, watch for it. Otherwise, it's a very cute one.

11 July 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: i am so glad to choose this hostel. The view from our room was so good! it has a good view of al alhambra and granada! The price was really reasonable and cheap! It had good wifi and kitchen. i had a nice moments with my fds.

Disliked: it is reli hard to find the hotel at first time, i thk the intruction from the website or the hostel can be improved because actually it is not so difficult to find. it is better to be backpacker instead of carrying luggage. anyway, once u see the view at nite. everything is worth to do

09 July 2011 Alicia would recommend this property

Liked: The hostel was small and a very friendly laid back environment. I was traveling alone and it was a perfect place to meet people, everone was super cool. Isa and Nick are great and will help you with any questions you may have. I would highly recommend Rambutan Guesthouse.

Disliked: It was a bit difficult to find the first time, but all the neighbors are used to that so if somone sees you wandering around lost they will certainly help you find it. After the first time the walk up the hill really isn´t that bad. I thought it was quite worth it.

03 July 2011 Edgar would recommend this property

Liked: It was a chill atmosphere, I didn't feel like I was in a stuffy unfriendly place.

Disliked: It was just a climb to get to, no one really wanted to run up the stairs with me lol

30 June 2011 Nathaniel would recommend this property

Liked: The Rambutan will save your life (or at least your trip). Wallmarts, megamalls, supermarkets, megachurches, sweatshops and pop songs. Nabisco to Nike, Playboy to Pepsi. The western world is shrinking, and movement across its borders is increasingly facilitated by a new movement in tourism that is determined to reduce travel to little more than a virtual act, hermetically sealed against even the possibility of outside influence; against challenge and change and the virtues of lessons learned outside the numbing blue border of your facebook page. Hostels are not immune to this. After a month of traveling through Portugal and Spain, it has become clear that the hostel of the past has given serious ideological ground to the budget hotel. Do me a favor when you visit Seville: head straight for the Oasis Palace. Witness the birth of the superhostel, witness the gleaming hallways and double doors with muffled hydraulic hinges, witness fifteen bunks evenly spaced across climate controlled rooms with polished black tile and an invisible staff that attends to their charge with the glassy-eyed exhaustion of factory workers. This is the future. The hostel is dying, and its replacement is robotic and scary and alienating the same way shopping malls are robotic and scary and alienating. It's a grim scene. Enter The Rambutan, a hostel so friendly, so human, so charming and so ideally situated that it can singlehandedly turn back the tide of those soulless sleep factories that leave travelers feeling empty and homesick. Perched atop a hill across from the Alhambra (giving it the benefit of a jaw-slackeningly spectacular view of both palace and city) The Rambutan sits along the fringe of the old city, several narrow streets away in every direction from roads wide enough for a car (A fellow hosteler observed that this district of Granada is rather like Venice, scrunched up across a mountainside) and directly behind a sprawling cactus garden that gives the front porch a rather fortified, if not refreshingly rural aspect. There are kitchens in every room (more or less) and in the main living room, long lazy morning breakfasts of toast and cereal and tea stretch on till 11. In the evenings, you will often find travelers out on the porch, staring out at a dramatically lit Alhambra with their journals or chatting over a beer with new friends before going go out in to the old town for tapas and flamenco. But it wouldn't be The Rambutan without it's fabulous owners; Nick and Isa. Nick runs a nonstop list tours and guided activities that will help guests squeeze the absolute most of their visit to Granada (and, wisely recognizing that tours may not appeal to all guests, has even produced his own map of the city that is so densely packed with things to do and see and eat that no matter how long you originally planned to stay it suddenly won't be enough) while Isa not only manages to juice more out of said map than anyone thought possible but also appears to have a habit of producing delicious chocolate cake every so often (one of the more dangerously tasty things I have ever put in my mouth) and taking hostelers out for ice cream. It should come as no surprise that my visit more than doubled, and I wasn't the only one. One of the most appealing aspects of The Rambutan is that newcomers have a difficult time determining who is staff and who isn't, as people who end up staying for longer than they had initially expected often END UP as staff, which fact is better than any recommendation I can think up. Perhaps this all can best be summed up by a short journal entry that was penned whilst looking around the living room on my last night, trying to describe out what makes the Rambutan so special (trying glean a lesson or two, should I ever try and open a similar sort of spot myself) : "The ideal hostel should be a tidy burrow, a quiet little clubhouse with walls of tattered paperbacks and a saggy old couch that is more comfortable than it looks. Photos should be tucked in to the fames of other, older photos or maps, each with a barely decipherable caption, literally enveloping the room in a hundred little pinpricks of its own history. There should be a big table for planning adventures and people around who know enough to help you do so. Accessible only by foot, it should be deep in that cramped little distract that tourists didn't know they needed to know to know a place well. It should bring travelers together in the early evening on a porch with a spectacular view, discussing how they had arrived two weeks ago, expecting to stay only a night." - - - (To Nick and Isa, Poker and Bobby and Jamie the Cat-Watering Australian; you made my trip.)

Disliked: Nada

19 June 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: The view was amazing. They people were real characters. I'll never forget it!

Disliked: The bikes need a little TLC.

17 June 2011 Laura would recommend this property

Liked: fabulous!!

Disliked: nothing at all, nothing at all.

15 June 2011 April would recommend this property

Liked: Absolutely magical location, with a stunning view of the Alhambra. The staff were so fantastic and helpful- the hostel definitely had a more personal/familial feel to it because it wasn't a big chain hostel. And we had a kitchen WITHIN the room, which was really nice (w/refrigerator and everything). Just a great experience, one of the best hostels I've ever stayed at. Would DEFINITELY stay again. Sitting around on the terrace looking at the Alhambra, toking up, playing music together, climbing up to a mirador to see the sunset...had such an unforgettable time, only made possible by the wonderful people there. :)

Disliked: An absolute bitch of a climb up from Plaza Nueva (the main plaza closest to the hostel)...and the directions to the hostel were kind of bad I thought. I got lost on the way there, and I had a lot of luggage, so that was quite annoying. My bed was saggy, could feel the springs underneath, and I didn't have a locker in the room cause the lock had been taken off (the staff let me keep my important stuff in their safe downstairs). But otherwise- totally amazing. And even the climb is neutralized by how beautiful the view is when you finally get there. These things are very nitpicky, cause the hostel really was awesome. Although, it was a very hippie atmosphere, so if you're not into that, maybe it won't be your thing. But for me, it was pretty much PERFECT.

10 June 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: Spectacular view, cozy and intimate veranda with back-to-nature decor, simple and sweet, interesting location amongst the winding small walkways of the hills in Grenada, friendly staff with adorable dog, varied backpacker crowd, close to Al Hambra

Disliked: Complicated directions to guesthouse...although written directions are provided an image or video guide should be provided to find this place. My tip, do plenty of research before going and leave your bags in your car while you try to find the guesthouse in the Grenada heat. Also, not very clean. Hairs in my bed, towels provided were ridden with hair and dust...but apart from that average.

31 May 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: Fantastic view of the Alhambra and the city.

Disliked: The hill up to the property is challenging. There is a bus, but if you want to save a few euro's it's quite a work out.

28 May 2011 Andreas would recommend this property

Liked: the atmosphear. its true this place makes the best of your vacation. absolutely worth the walk. i chose it for the reviews i read, and it was even better than i thought. place was clean and had comfy doublebed. cosy common room, patio with the most incredible view. we loved it, took great pictures,had an amazing time

Disliked: nothing

27 May 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: the best place in granada!!!

Disliked: excellente place!!!

22 May 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: It was a bit out of the way but a much more genuine Granada experience. The people I met were incredible. The rooms were nicely furnished and kept quite clean.

Disliked: Nothing whatsoever.

20 May 2011 Emma would recommend this property

Liked: loved it. poker. bobby. jamie. isa and nick. friendly and generally lovely people to be around. personable and considerate atmosphere. stunning views. (there WAS a bee that insisted on waking me up in the morning with its rather loud buzzing. but that is the bee's fault and noone elses..) already missing granada and would walk back there for one of jamie's soft boiled eggs..

Disliked: pah. nada. oh. put a small sign on the front door or something. everyone looks for door numbers etc n there isn't a clearly visible one..(well i went past twice before realising i was in the right place anyway..)

15 May 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: Great people, awesome view, very friendly staff

Disliked: nothing really :)

12 May 2011 John would recommend this property

Liked: Great group of people at this fine establishment. I really had a good time! I was a little surprised when I first called and found out that they didn't speak much Spanish but that's OK because the staff was super helpful and friendly. You have a walk a little ways to get to the hostel but it's worth it because it has an amazing view of the city. The directions they gave were more than adequate to find the place.

Disliked: Sometimes it was a little bit of a trek but I only say this because I was travelling with the momma at the time and it was a little rough on her legs I suppose. I didn't find it a problem though.

07 May 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: the views truly are spectacular and the breakfast is adequate

Disliked: noise of other guests and some staff are friendlier than others. The climb up to the property also is not great with bags etc.

05 May 2011

Liked: View

Disliked: No maps avaliable of the city, impossible to find, far to walk to

04 May 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: fantastic place and fantastic view

Disliked: the only thing is that is far from the center, but for the place it doesn't matter

27 April 2011 Daniele would recommend this property

Liked: The view

Disliked: It was messy

26 April 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: very friendly, funny backpacker chill vibe, great view.

Disliked: hard climb up a hill to get there, pretty cramped, you can't sit up in bed if you're on lower bunk, pricey for value (should be more like 15 euros a night but I paid 25).