The Secret Garden Reviews

Secret Garden works hard to provide food, fun, directions, transportation, advice, Spanish lessons, a good night's sleep and everything else a first timer to Ecuador needs to get started. This is not the Hilton, this is a great place to get started on your journey. Don't expect five star service and food, do expect people who will try hard to help you find your way around and get you there safely and with a working knowledge of the language. I came back again and again and loved it here.

Great hostel to stay at - great atmosphere, travel agency and lots of info available within hostel, spanish and english speaking staff, laundry and reasonably priced and good breakfasts and dinnners available :)

This is not the Hilton for those Americans who complain about the service and food portions. This is a great little centrally located hostel with formidable steps and great services that works hard to feed and provide advice to many many demanding people with international volunteers looking to extend their stay. The food is wonderful, just not gargantuan servings. It is more than enough and very tasty. Want more? Buy more. Want better service? Dont stay at a hostel. This staff does a great job.

Cold showers are not acceptable at this price and this altitude! We managed to get a bit of warm water out of the sinks but all of the showers are FREEZING (we tried 3 on two different occasions). It's also fairly annoying that the bar and communal areas are shut up so early in such a sociable hostel: I do not need a security guard to tell me to go to bed! But the staff are friendly and helpful, perfect hostel workers with a brilliant knowledge of local hospitals...

The only thing that was annoying was that the awesome roof terrace closed at 11...which was the only place to smoke. It was not that the bar closed but it was the easiest quietest publis area and 11 is early even 12 would be better. The break fast was awsome even though it was not included I would get up to go which I would rather pay and have a good one like the one here then have a crappy one included. I had no problems with hot water but I heard ALOT of people saying it was not working.

Great vibe at this hostel and the terrace can´t be beat. The staff are all really friendly so it´s always fun to be around (specially when it´s raining). Had a great time and would definitely recommend the hostel to anyone traveling through Quito.

Amazing roof terrace, great location stones throw from Old Town. Much safer than Marsical. Would def recommend

One thing this hostel does best is get you where you want to go. While it's hard on the knees with the high stairs (omg and with heavy backpacks at 11k feet please) they have everything you need- from guards on duty to laundry to a travel agent right here. The neighborhood is not good though and that is the tradeoff. But they take care of you, the food is good and cheap, sometimes you have to chase down a hot shower. They know their Ecuador. I used them as a home base and I wasn't sorry.

A nice hostel with a good atmosphere. The roof terrace has a good view of the city. The rooms are basic, clean and beds are comfy. The showers not the best and to get anything like a warm shower you have top reduce the flow to not much more than a trickle. The problem is if you stay in the D,E or F side of the hostel there is a fire safety issue concerning the fire escape which is locked at night so a fire in the middle would mean no escape! The taxi service is overpriced %25 more than normal.

Positives: It's very quiet so it's easy to sleep well. The beds have individual reading lights. The Wifi is good. Negatives: The bathrooms are dirty and the showers are terrible. Technically, there is hot water but the water pressure has to be so low in order for it to be hot that it takes forever to shower. Breakfast is not included, which, for the price, it should be. The common areas close at 11:30 so after that time, you either have to go out or go to your room. The staff is unfriendly.

Very comfortable beds and relatively clean environment. The staff was kind and very helpful. A travel service is conveniently located at the first level of the hostel and provides excellent though slightly pricey day trips to places like Cotopaxi and Otavalo. They also provide longer trips. Service is excellent. Cheap dinners can also be ordered at the hostel at a relatively cheap rate, adding convenience and safety given Quito can be quite dangerous for tourists at night.

This hostel had a great location and a beautiful view from their rooftop terrace. The rooms and bathrooms where all clean and I felt very secure. HOWEVER it was very overpriced, and the staff was less than helpful, borderline rude. They offered breakfast, dinner and beers/cocktails, but they were all very expensive with small portions and average quality. They do have nice excersions, so If you don´t mind spending some extra and putting up with an unfriendly staff this might work for you.

All the staff were brilliant especially Marta who is the most gorgeous, fun and easygoing girl I met in all of Ecuador.

Great experience in Quito! The only small complaint is the temperature of the shower...not very warm at all. Would stay again! Had a lot of fun and met some great people.

Only 1-2 bath rooms provide hot water. The design of the hostel is bad, some of the rooms need to go quite a lot up and down steps to reach! It's very inconvenience when you are carrying your luggauge (and it's at the altitude 2800+).. Most of the staff are volunteers and they do not manage the customers well when they made much noise at night! We could not get a good sleep when staying at a room just beside the dorm room!

Excellent place to meet other travellers with really friendly atmosphere. The terrace views are really good. The meals are not included but are ok. Hot water is a problem, with either needing special sequences of turning the taps to get it, or having the flow really low in the electric showers. Staff is nice. but has been rude on occasion, wrt to checkout times. Good location, close to the nicer old town, but easy to get to Mariscal with the trolley. Overall recommended!

Our stay in the Secret Garden Quito was great! The atmosphere of the terrace, and the opportunity to meet other backpackers is a plus for this hostel. On the bad side, there is no hot water in any of the showers, and the price is higher in compare to the other hostels in the area. Final note, the location of the hostel is very good, it is in the center of Quito, 5 min away from the Basilica, and 15 min away from the presidential palace and the churches. Greatly recommended!

I stayed here for a total of 5 nights on my trip. From the very first moment to the last minute I was there, I was constantly impressed by the hostel itself and its wonderful volunteer staff. The rooftop terrace provides amazing views of the local area and serves as a great meeting point. The dorm beds were comfy and most of the time it was pretty quiet and sleep came easy. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Shout out to Jack, Marta, Jemima and Alex from Secret Garden! -Mike mikemo.zenfolio.com

great hostel with fantatsic vies over odl city

Everything was great, the staff were lovely and helpful and the hostel is awesome. It can be a little noisy at times, as the rooms are all looking onto a central stairway, but that was only a minor issue as everything else was awesome!