YHA Cotswolds

Ticked all the boxes for us. Clean, comfortable, affordable, free overnight parking, and good location. The cooking area in the (very clean) kitchen diner is small, however. Patience needed. Cirencester is a handsome town with good shops and places to eat. Our top tip is to avoid Amore Mia like the plague. It may be metres away, but the food is bland, and ridiculously over-priced (happy to pay for fine food but this is not it)and you are secretly charged £1.50 PP when offered extra parmesean with your meal. No knowledge of their (decent) wine list. Plenty of other establishments around that will take your hard-earned money and serve you delicious eats.

Stayed here with my partner for two nights. ||The hostel communal areas were very clean. The bedroom (room nine) consisted of two bunk beds and a small en-suite shower room. The room was clean and tidy (albeit a few marks on the walls but to be expected). The room was extremely warm and even with the window open as wide as possible there was no air flow. I ended up sleeping on top of the bedding to help keep cool, but even then I was still too hot. The bed was not the comfiest, very firm and a thinner mattress than standard. However it was manageable for the two nights.||There was a plug socket right behind the bed which was ideally situated (if on the top bunk there was no plug socket nearby). Two hangars in the room (again, if four in the room not ideal). The room was extremely small, for the two of us it was fine but if there was the four that the bunks can accommodate then it definitely would have been a tight squeeze. The bathroom was adequate sized, a wet room type situation. However the shower soaked the entire bathroom as the drain couldn't accommodate all the water coming from the shower, the water would flow past the drain and almost reach the toilet. Was nice to have the ensuite facilities.||The lady at the front desk was polite and welcoming and checked us in promptly. However we weren't given any information about the hostel other than a small card with the key code and WiFi password on.||Good central location in the town and nearby to lots of lovely villages just a short drive away.||Parking is paid at a public car park. Free between 6pm and 8am but then quite pricey by the hour out of these times.||Would stay again as an adequate hostel and clean.

I was a little concerned after reading reviews about this hostel, however we had a lovely time with no issue at all.|Three of us stayed in a small but comfortable room with 2 bunks and a small en suite bathroom. |We used the perfectly adequate kitchen and comfortable dining room several times. It was cleaner than most YHA kitchens and well equipped. Only one cooking station but plenty of space for other food preparation at the same time.|Some reviewers have complained about the size of the rooms and the kitchen, we had no issue at all with the size, standard YHA accommodation.||Reception is open 3-10pm, however there were no issues with access outside of these hours.||Extremely convenient location right in the centre of Cirencester. |Whilst The Brewery Car Park (short stay) is right on the doorstep, I recommend using Sheep Street Car Park if you intend to leave your car there during the day as you can pay for the day. The car parks are right next to each other, and Sheep Street is about a 90 second walk to the YHA.

Awesome rooms, awesome breakfast, awesome gardens, little bar and fab little self catering kitchen

This was overall a lovely experience however the shower room was snug and was a job to clean after each shower. Then once we all got into bed there was a flashing light, it turned out one of the alarms of sort was flashing and it did so all night. We also woke in the night as it was very hot in the room and so we opened the windows and had to roll up the blind so the air could come in. When we woke we had people walking right past the window and they were looking in on us sleeping which was a little Radom. Maybe a net curtain or similar would be good? Otherwise it was great it was a great room and facilities were clean and modern and the kitchen was well stocked.

I visited for a single night to break up a longer multi-day journey. As it was just myself travelling, I booked the single-bed room (Room 1, ground floor), which also happened to be the accessible room. ||||I booked through the YHA website, thinking it was a YHA hostel. Turns out it is actually managed by another organisation. This meant the hostel was furnished differently and the cafe menu was different to normal YHA hostels. It’s also worth noting that towels were included, despite it not being mentioned on the YHA website.||||The hostel was kept clean and tidy throughout. The room was well presented, albeit very basic (although about standard for hostels). The room had a bit of a colder feel than I’m used to with hostels, but this might be because it was the accessible room. The window for this room was right next to what most people used as a smoking area, but the windows were well enough insulated that I couldn’t hear or smell anything.||||There only appeared to be one member of staff on duty during my visit. He was very friendly and upbeat and had a great knowledge of the area. There was only one issue during my visit, which he noticed before I did and resolved it very quickly.||||Being in a central location, there was plenty of places to visit in the evening, as well as many places to eat out.||||The only parking available was in pubic car parks. These were free between 6pm and 8am. The closest car park only had a three-hour maximum stay during the day, but this should be fine for anyone who is spending most of the day elsewhere and just returning to the hostel in the evening.||||If I am in the area again in future and need to have another overnight stay, I would be more then happy to return to YHA Cotswolds (a.k.a The Barrel Store) again, although I would probably try one of the other rooms.

We had an excellent stay in a family room. Clean and good bedding. Appreciated the toiletries and excellent hot shower. Central location and reasonably priced in an area which is rather pricey.

Cannot recommend highly enough for a short stay. We opted for a room with two bunk beds and a bathroom. Perfect size, clean bedding and towels, couldn’t ask for anything more! Staff on desk (only open from 3ish) very friendly and knowledgeable of area. Perfect location, right in the middle of town and next to a Tesco and a car park (free from 3pm-8am). Has a communal kitchen and dining area to use.