Whalers Guesthouse

The vue from the hostel is simply incredible. The staff is kind, every space is clean up every day and you are at walking distance from everything in town.

This hostel is an amazing place - inside and in its place on the water. I have been to many hostels recently in BC and this is the one I will be going back to frequently. The dorm beds are very comfortable, the place is clean clean clean; the kitchen is great to make meals in. I loved the staff and their willingness to be in communication. The location in Tofino is central to the co-op for food and also to gift stores. It's a fun place to meet other traveller's too.

I had a very bad experience with the reservation itself. My son was travelling to Canada and I made the reservations for him. Tofino is very expensive and this was expensive but still the most reasonable option. Even for a private room with shared bathroom the price was over 200 CAD. However when I booked, they did not have the same type of private room for the 5 nights so I had to book 3 different rooms which is very inconvenient (for my son and for the hotel). I made the reservation with HI Canada website and saw that there is free cancellation until 48 hours before arrival. It also said that you can cancel by 1 AM and the cancellation is by mail. Two and a half days before arrival, I checked room availability again and saw that now the same room type (private with half bathroom) was available for the 5 nights. So I reserved this room also for the nights with the different reservations. I did not cancel the old reservation right away since it was night and my son was asleep. I waited for the morning to make sure he was OK with the change (which was partly a downgrade). Mistakenly I thought that I can cancel by 1 PM (it made sense to me as 48 hours before arrival) so only in the morning when my son woke and approved the change, I sent the email to cancel the unneeded room, assuming it is within the free cancellation period. However I got a reply from Juliane, saying that since the cancellation was after 1 AM I will be charged for the 2 nights of the room that I cancelled (more than 500 CAD !!!) in addition to the payment for the new reservation. I replied and explained that it was an honest mistake of confusion between 1 AM and PM, and that actually I did not really cancel my stay but only changed the room type that was now available. However Juliane replied that since this is the policy, they are charging, and only if they will sell the cancelled room they will refund. Eventually the room was sold only for 1 night so I was partly refunded, but still I was over charged with more than 250 CAD, above the charge for the room he stayed in, which was expensive. I was very disappointed with this attitude, since I only made an honest mistake and the hotel almost didn't lose any money since we only changed the room type. I suggested paying the difference between room types but it was not approved. So far for my bad experience. This is what my son said about the hotel and the stay: Location is great - close to everything you need (supermarket, pharmacy, restaurants), in front of the ocean. Nice facilities - they have clean and equipped kitchen, room with pool table and guitars, but most importantly for me as a surfer: surf room to store board and hang wetsuit for drying. They let you buy a reserved parking spot. I had the shared bathroom private room (with toilet, without shower). Showers were clean and just in front of the room. The room was well equipped, and felt cozy (as well as the lobby and hostel in general).