YHA Brecon Beacons Danywenallt

Lovely hostel and campsite in a great location. We camped and it felt luxurious being able to use a proper kitchen! Camping area is secluded and has plenty of picnic benches and fire pits for barbecues. The kitchen is well equipped but not huge, so can get quite busy if people are trying to cook different things at the same time. Brilliant for cycling, it's right on the Taff Trail and there is a new secure cycle storage shed to keep bikes dry. Talybont is close by with a good village shop and cafe, bike hire and several pubs on the canal.

So this place is handy if you’re hiking Pen Y Fan or similar. Only 20mins from the trail head. Unfortunately it’s outweighed by the poor service and quality of the hostel. We chose to leave early after 1 night. Pros: Location. Price. Drying room. Large communal dining room. Cons: Long uncut grass making outside space unusable due to damp and bugs. Poor water pressure causing shower to cut out mid shower; had to find a member of staff downstairs at 7am while wet and soaped up to get it fixed; staff member explained this happens often - so either get it fixed or leave instructions on how to reset shower in the room? Mattresses in our room were plastic which were loud as we moved in our sleep causing disturbed sleep and were very warm to the point that we woke up sweating. The duvets were inexplicably thick and rigid, almost like mattress toppers. No bug net on the windows despite a noticeable presence of midges. Very thin walls and doors meaning that all noises can be heard and resulted in disturbed sleep. Our room was above the communal kitchen meaning that our sleep was disturbed by banging and talking late into the night. Doors throughout the accommodation are either stiff, get stuck, or the door closers cause them to slam, again adding to the noise and disturbances. Despite another reply from YHA in these reviews re decorating each year, our room was poorly decorated and not finished, there were marks on the walls, unpainted skirting boards, cobwebs, cracks in walls. Despite the YHA website advertising that the accommodation provided pizza in the evenings, we were told upon arrival that only breakfast was being served; so coming unprepared to cook ourselves food we would have needed to find a local shop unexpectedly; the YHA staff member didn’t suggest local shops when advising dinner was not available. We had some items in the fridge, the next morning the fridge was out of order and our items were kindly placed in a second fridge; unfortunately there was no note as to how long the first fridge had been broken or when our food was moved so we were unsure how long it might have been sat in a warm fridge before being moved; a note slipped under our door would have sufficed. Upon arriving our first interaction was from a chap in the staff accommodation asking that we move our car to make space for others (we hadn’t parked unreasonably and to move meant parking too close to another car); didn’t introduce himself; no pleasantries. WiFi didn’t work, only 3

A well kept Youth Hostel with a comfy lounge where we met some other people and soon got talking about the days events and much more besides. And a friendly atmosphere. Kept clean and tidy with a good choice of breakfast freshly prepared.