Booking The Trip: A (slightly crazier) Southeast Asian Path to India
Review: P.F Changs LAX (Priority Pass Restaurant)
Review: EVA Air 777-300ER Premium Economy Class Los Angeles to Taipei
Review: Plaza Premium Lounge Taipei Terminal 2 Zone A
Review: UNI Air A321-200 Economy Class Taipei to Seoul Incheon
Review: The Millenium Seoul Hilton
Trip Photos: A Day and a Half in Seoul
Review: Korean Air First Class Lounge Seoul Incheon
Review: Korean Air 777-300ER Kosmos Suites First Class Seoul Incheon to Bangkok
Review: Le Meridien Suvarnabhumi Bangkok Golf Resort & Spa
Review: Cathay Pacific Lounge Bangkok
Review: Miracle Business Class Lounge Concourse G Bangkok
Review: Malaysia Airlines 737-800 Business Class Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur
Review: Malaysia Airlines Satellite Golden Business Class Lounge Kuala Lumpur
Review: Kuala Lumpur A330-300 Business Class Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai
Review: SpiceJet 737-900ER SpiceMax Pune to Goa
Review: Air India A321-200 Economy Class Goa to Mumbai
Review: Air India A320Neo Economy Class Mumbai to Bengaluru
Review: Air India A319-100 Economy Class Bengaluru to Mumbai
Review: GVK International Business Class Lounge West Wing Mumbai
Review: Singapore Airlines 777-300ER Business Class Mumbai to Singapore
Review: Crowne Plaza Hotel Singapore
Trip Photos: 8 hours in Singapore
Review: Singapore Airlines A380-800 NEW Business Class Singapore to Hong Kong
Review: Singapore Airlines SilverKris Business Class Lounge Hong Kong
Review: United Club Lounge Hong Kong
Review: Thai Airways Royal Orchid Lounge Hong Kong
Review: Hong Kong Airlines Club Bauhinia Lounge Hong Kong
Review: EVA Air A330-300 Premium Laurel Class Hong Kong to Taipei
Review: EVA Air 777-300ER Premium Economy Class Taipei to Los Angeles

YOUTUBE: EVA Air: Los Angeles to Taipei
YOUTUBE: UNI Air: Taipei to Seoul Incheon
YOUTUBE: Korean Air: Seoul Incheon to Bangkok
YOUTUBE: Malaysian Airlines: Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur
YOUTUBE: Malaysian Airlines: Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: SpiceJet: Pune to Goa
YOUTUBE: Air India: Goa to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: Air India: Mumbai to Bengaluru
YOUTUBE: Air India: Bengaluru to Mumbai
YOUTUBE: Singapore Airlines: Mumbai to Singapore
YOUTUBE: Singapore Airlines: Singapore to Hong Kong
YOUTUBE: EVA Air: Hong Kong to Taipei
YOUTUBE: EVA Air: Taipei to Los Angeles

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A quick note on getting to the Hotel

I add this note as I think it’s a bit important. I’m a walker, and when I exit Seoul station and I look up and I see the Hilton only that far away (see picture below), I decide to walk to it regardless of the weather, bear in mind I had two check-in bags. If you are not a walker, or you are getting to the hotel from another place already, please ignore this section, but if you are coming from Seoul Station, this is very important.

Looks like not that bad of a distance right? It’s not and google maps will also confirm a very small distance. However what you really don’t see is that once you pass this first street, the slope becomes insane. I genuinely mean INSANE. If I weren’t rolling two checked bags on me, I would consider the walk a good exercise. However, this was strenuous and was sweating a bit by the time I reached the hotel, which I rarely do ever when simply walking. It is not a pleasant walk. The hotel offers shuttles between Seoul Station and the hotel so I would recommend taking that if you have luggage. But if you are just with a backpack and/or a roller bag, you can walk if you want. I probably would walk if I just had my roller and backpack. It would be a steep walk still, but still a decent exercise enough. Anyways, just something I wanted to point out and enjoy the rest of the review.

 

 

Lobby

The entrance to the hotel is a beautiful hall with seating in multiple places as you enter.

 

To the left, you have a nice pastry shop called Cilantro Deli and some wines that can be bought.

Seating was also ample around here.

As you go further left there were a couple shops if you were interested in buying purses, or anything of the sort.

To the right was the main check-in desks and elevators. The staff was amazing. As soon as we entered with 2 roller bags each, there was staff waiting to take our bags and hold onto them while we completed check-in and another staff who was very knowledgeable of the area and answered any Seoul related/transport related questions.

So if you want to go somewhere, you ask the staff at the desk how to get there, they will write the name of the place in Korean on one side, and the name of the hotel on the other side and guide you to a taxi driver who will then drive you to that exact place. No cash? No problem! All taxis accepted credit card. So you really don’t even have to speak a word to the driver which is mainly good if the drivers don’t speak English, which most didn’t for us.

Around the back, there were more shops in a hallway that also led to a casino. I wanted to take pictures but there were so many staff members there for the sole purpose of ensuring people don’t take pictures.

Now going back to the front entrance,If you walk forward into the hotel, there’s a nice set of steps that lead to the lower floors and we have some restaurants here. which we’ll check out in a minute.

There are doors on the bottom floor of this hotel which lead to a kind of outdoor garden with a lot of nice fish.

Restaurants

This hotel has 6 restaurants. I actually visited one of them, which we’ll look more into.

The following restaurants are found if you descend down the flight of stairs in the central area of the ground floor.

Taipan is the Cantonese restaurant at this hotel.

This is the Italian restaurant at this hotel.

This was the English style restaurant which also boasts an outdoor terrace and barbeque during the summer months, like when I was there.

I didn’t get eyes on Genji, the Japanese Restaurant, but now let’s check out Cafe 395, their international style restaurant.

To get there from the main entrance, simply walk across the sides of the stairs, where you’ll walk by plenty of seating and arrive at the restaurant, which also had a bar.

And here’s the menu

The menu was pretty big and fairly pricey too. Given that we hadn’t eaten in close to 5 hours, we stopped for some food here and ate light so we could enjoy street food in Seoul.

Here are the menu items we shared:

The fries came with the dish below, we really didn’t eat any simply because we didn’t want to.

Ideally, we would’ve eaten some Korean dish, but just in case we didn’t like the street food, we went for a safe option in case we could easily eat so we wouldn’t remain hungry during the day.

Spoiler: The street food was awesome and we enjoyed almost everything we had.

The Room: Deluxe King Bed with City view

Here’s what you see as soon as you enter the room.

 

Immediately to the right, you’ll see the bathroom which has a set of towels and washcloths. And trust me, It didn’t look like that when we came in. We used it a bit before I remembered to take any pictures.

The room also had one of those fancy seat warming toilets.

Here were the two amenities provided at the shower.

This was something that was available, though neither of us had any use for it.

The shower also wasn’t too hard to use after a couple minutes of fidgeting. The top knob controls the water power and the bottom knob controls the temperature.

These were the amenities provided for showering. There was soap, shampoo, and body wash. I almost never use a hotel provided soap bar as almost all are not the best quality and leave soap residue on the skin even after the shower is done. This dries your skin super fast, and for a hot and somewhat humid day in Seoul that was to come, I definitely didn’t want that on my skin.

To the left upon entering, there was a closet where you could hang your clothes.

There was a safe and hangars for our use along with a couple of extra counters.

As is with a lot of hotels, there were a lot of chargeable items that you could use. Though none of these ever represent a good value as I find these items to be consistently insanely overpriced. Even as a Hilton gold member, none of this is free.

Nope, not even the drinks.

In the room, there was a sort of bench that you could use to open a bag or rest a bag on, as I did with my check in bag.

The bed was nice and big, and comfortable.

Every brand under Marriott or Hilton always have different policies for what amenities are provided. So whether I got these two free water bottles because that’s what this hotel does to all guests, or it’s a treat for my Hilton Gold status, I don’t know.

At the far end of the room was a desk with the usual binder of the typical stuff like room service menu, important numbers, and the like. The table and seat could be used for lounging. Or you could be like me and use it as a standing stool to cool my head from the AC up high before walking out into piercing hot weather.

This was my view, which was pretty hindered, though not bad. However, if the sun is out, I highly recommend keeping your curtains closed. That sun was hot even through the window and made us close our curtain within minutes to keep the room cool.

Here’s another look at the working desk, which has a pretty nice swivel chair.

Here’s another look at the seat and table.

The power ports in this room were international standard, which sometimes big companies can’t even get right. There was one right at floor level by the desk, and another 110V one inside the bathroom and those were the only pbest I could tell.

The Executive Lounge

With my gold status, I also had access to the executive club lounge which was on the 21st floor. Your card grants you the ability to even select floor 21 in the elevator so there’s no checking of room keys when you reach floor 21 since the only way to get up there is having an eligible card.

This photo angle pretty much sums up the entire seating area of the lounge.

There were wonderful views of the mountain from here.

You could also get views of the North Seoul Tower which was spectacular (more photos from up top under the trip photos tab).

Now let’s check out the buffer selection. I was here for dinner and breakfast so we’ll look at what they had for both.

Dinner

There were some snack items.

 

The scallop rolls were great and I went back for more a couple times.

The smoked salmon was also really good that I went back for more. Even though it’s really bad for you, I only ever have smoked salmon during travel, so I indulged.

The street noodles were chilled but tasty. It would’ve easily been the best thing if it were served warm, but they served it chilled.

There was also a setup with all kinds of drinks.

The dinner selection was nice across the board. Of course there were only 5 main courses or so, but I wasn’t expecting a grand selection. After all, it’s a hotel lounge.

Breakfast

Now let’s have a look at what was available for breakfast.

 

Conclusion

So what do I think of this hotel? It’s a nice, modern, clean, well staffed, and well-placed hotel. Being just a short* distance from Seoul station, this is a great hotel to stay in and I would highly recommend it to anyone staying in Seoul.