INSPIRE Entertainment Resort — Attraction in Incheon

My wife and I live only about 25 minutes away but wanted to stay at Inspire for a staycation ever since it opened back around December 2023.||We had gotten on INSPIRE's SMS list, and we received a message about a May promotion where rooms could be booked for only 155k KRW a.i. Given that rooms usually go for over 400k KRW per night, we jumped on it.||We drove in and arrived to the hotel at 2pm on a Wednesday. Ample parking. There is an e-kiosk where you can type in your email address or phone number, and via that contact information you will be notified when it is your turn to go up to the check-in desk. (At full capacity, the check-in desk is able to accommodate around 10 agents simultaneously.) For us, we ended up waiting about 20 minutes. There is some very comfortable seating in the lobby area. Anyways, the lobby is quite grand; just people watch for a bit, gaze at the ceiling some, and your 20 minutes are up!)||The entire INSPIRE resort is brand new, and for now, a strictly indoor resort. Very clearly, INSPIRE's location is positioned for people laying over at (or stopping over with flights in/out of) Terminal 2 of the Incheon International Airport. There is a waterpark ("Splash Bay": especially for kids), a casino, and a large 15,000-seat concert arena. Besides those three, there are three more artistic attractions. One is the Rotunda's "kinetic chandelier", basically very large lcd panels that look like chandelier stems, that independently drop down and raise up intermittently throughout most of the day and night. Another is the ceiling digital art in the Aurora Hall, where first-time onlookers tend to be caught ogling at it. And lastly is a digital art exhibit called Le Space (28k admission fee), which is basically a room made up entirely/wholly of digitalization. I suppose it's supposed to give a feeling mildly similar to the MSG Sphere in Vegas.||About a dozen restaurants in total, and about a dozen stores/boutique shops, within the resort's mall. The dozen restaurants, including what the resort calls its "Signature Restaurants", tend to be more on the expensive end. Included in that list of restaurants is Michael Jordan's Steakhouse. (Yes, the basketball player. He owns it. Not sure when/if he will be visiting INSPIRE soon, though.)||Besides those dozen restaurants, there is also a very aesthetically pleasing food court with 5 restaurants spanning Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and American fare (burgers and pizza). Prices are extremely reasonable at that food court, for a resort like this. My wife and I both got cheeseburger combo meals for 17k KRW each (about USD $12; they were above average). Each of the food court's restaurants utilizes an e-kiosk, so non-Korean language speakers will have no problem at all. The e-kiosks support English, Chinese, and Korean languages (and I think Japanese, I can't recall).||There is a buffet breakfast in Chef's Kitchen on the 2nd floor of the resort, but it is not standard for most/any of the hotel's bookings.||It is natural to compare INSPIRE with the Paradise City Resort (the latter of which is next to Terminal 1). Paradise City has the poshy, adult-oriented CIMER aqua-spa facility, and has some other external venues nearby, but otherwise doesn't have the kind of continuous walking intrigue/excitement that INSPIRE offers. Whereas Paradise City is extremely quiet and demure, INSPIRE is far more 'in-your-face' and pumps up the music throughout the entire resort to give a kind of resort-sized lounge-like experience. INSPIRE is also, in general, the bigger, far more colorful resort, compared to the conservativeness of Paradise City. The INSPIRE resort claims that its conference hall ballroom is currently the largest in all of Korea (My wife and I took a peek inside and that may very well be true!).||Onto our room. The hotel rooms are accessible via three towers: Sun Tower, Forest Tower, Ocean Tower. Each of those towers is accessible from the main lobby, and has its own independent lounge (with its own design vibe) with seating areas and a bar (paid drinks, not free). We were in the Forest Tower, which was very colorful. (The hallways smelled a bit though, most likely from the newness of the carpet.) Our 5th-floor standard king bedroom was well-appointed. (For Bonvoy fans: the interior design theme/vibe is reminiscent of an Aloft, but the sophistication and attention to detail is dialed up somewhere between a Le Meridien and a Ritz Carlton.) The bathroom was especially remarkable. The shower 'booth' in our bathroom was very large, capable of fitting 3-4 adults all showering together. :-D And also, the toilet was a smart toilet, where the seat raised by itself as you approached the toilet; so if you've never seen that before, it's quite a spectacle. (I only know one other hotel in Seoul/Incheon that has toilets with self-raising seats, and it's JW Marriott Gangnam.)||Two more bits of intrigue/luxury: The bedrooms are decorated with artwork prints, with small finger-sized museum-like info labels next to each (i.e. artist name, art's title, year). I think our room had 2-3 pieces of such artwork. Also, you may notice the air purification system integrated into the elevators. While you're in the elevator, if you look up, you can see that, instead of floor numbers, there are icons representing different indicators of air quality. So, apparently, the elevator was monitoring that.||Although the resort contains that indoor waterpark (on the 1st floor), the hotel also has its own large indoor pool (on the 3rd floor). INSPIRE hotel staff tell you during check-in that there are 6 separate timeframes where you can access that pool during the day, and you have to call in to reserve a spot during one of those sessions, before you can visit. I didn't go but my wife did. She said that, on the women's side, there were only around 20 lockers, and about 4 shower stalls; in other words, it's not the biggest pool facility that you'll find. She told me that there are no swimming lanes, and also that the pool's water wasn't really all that clean (this was a Wednesday evening when she visited). So, do consider figuring all that into your expectations.||When my wife went to the swimming pool, I decided to head to the casino. As with all but one casino in all of Korea, this casino is off-limits for Koreans. In order to enter, you'll need to produce your non-Korean passport. The casino is a decent size, but is heavy on Baccarat. (If I had to wager a guess, this caters to the heavily Chinese clientele at this casino!) I found only 3-4 tables that were playing cards, and there were 2-3 roulette tables. I'd say a good 70% of the floor space is dedicated to slots. There is a Japanese restaurant in the casino, and also a lounge area where apparently free food is served to casino guests. Besides ATM's, the casino floor also has a few machines capable of converting 15 different currencies (!!) into Korean currency, so if all you have is greenbacks or Chinese Yuan, bring those anyways.||INSPIRE has a membership program, and it is apparently tied to its casino more than the hotel itself. In fact, apparently, if you can't get into the casino, you can't get access to the resort's membership program. In case that's actually correct, that would be unfortunate to be blocking off so many Koreans from earning INSPIRE resort membership points. Truth is, the signage promoting the INSPIRE membership program is everywhere you look, inside the resort. And all that information about the points earning and redemption systems was very confusing!||Check-out was 11am the next day. If you drive in, do be sure to give them your car's license plate number so that you can have free parking. If you don't register your license plate with the front desk, parking becomes very costly!||If you are coming in for a concert at the arena, and just want a place to unwind and have some fun, then this is really a cool place. Do keep in mind that this is a resort, and there's really very little nearby within a 20-minute drive (aside from the airport). As long as you understand that, and don't have much desire to leave the indoors of the resort, this is generally a 5-bubble stay. If possible, try to look for...

My wife and I live only about 25 minutes away but wanted to stay at Inspire for a staycation ever since it opened back around December 2023.||We had gotten on INSPIRE's SMS list, and we received a message about a May promotion where rooms could be booked for only 155k KRW a.i. Given that rooms usually go for over 400k KRW per night, we jumped on it.||We drove in and arrived to the hotel at 2pm on a Wednesday. Ample parking. There is an e-kiosk where you can type in your email address or phone number, and via that contact information you will be notified when it is your turn to go up to the check-in desk. (At full capacity, the check-in desk is able to accommodate around 10 agents simultaneously.) For us, we ended up waiting about 20 minutes. There is some very comfortable seating in the lobby area. Anyways, the lobby is quite grand; just people watch for a bit, gaze at the ceiling some, and your 20 minutes are up!)||The entire INSPIRE resort is brand new, and for now, a strictly indoor resort. Very clearly, INSPIRE's location is positioned for people laying over at (or stopping over with flights in/out of) Terminal 2 of the Incheon International Airport. There is a waterpark ("Splash Bay": especially for kids), a casino, and a large 15,000-seat concert arena. Besides those three, there are three more artistic attractions. One is the Rotunda's "kinetic chandelier", basically very large lcd panels that look like chandelier stems, that independently drop down and raise up intermittently throughout most of the day and night. Another is the ceiling digital art in the Aurora Hall, where first-time onlookers tend to be caught ogling at it. And lastly is a digital art exhibit called Le Space (28k admission fee), which is basically a room made up entirely/wholly of digitalization. I suppose it's supposed to give a feeling mildly similar to the MSG Sphere in Vegas.||About a dozen restaurants in total, and about a dozen stores/boutique shops, within the resort's mall. The dozen restaurants, including what the resort calls its "Signature Restaurants", tend to be more on the expensive end. Included in that list of restaurants is Michael Jordan's Steakhouse. (Yes, the basketball player. He owns it. Not sure when/if he will be visiting INSPIRE soon, though.)||Besides those dozen restaurants, there is also a very aesthetically pleasing food court with 5 restaurants spanning Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and American fare (burgers and pizza). Prices are extremely reasonable at that food court, for a resort like this. My wife and I both got cheeseburger combo meals for 17k KRW each (about USD $12; they were above average). Each of the food court's restaurants utilizes an e-kiosk, so non-Korean language speakers will have no problem at all. The e-kiosks support English, Chinese, and Korean languages (and I think Japanese, I can't recall).||There is a buffet breakfast in Chef's Kitchen on the 2nd floor of the resort, but it is not standard for most/any of the hotel's bookings.||It is natural to compare INSPIRE with the Paradise City Resort (the latter of which is next to Terminal 1). Paradise City has the poshy, adult-oriented CIMER aqua-spa facility, and has some other external venues nearby, but otherwise doesn't have the kind of continuous walking intrigue/excitement that INSPIRE offers. Whereas Paradise City is extremely quiet and demure, INSPIRE is far more 'in-your-face' and pumps up the music throughout the entire resort to give a kind of resort-sized lounge-like experience. INSPIRE is also, in general, the bigger, far more colorful resort, compared to the conservativeness of Paradise City. The INSPIRE resort claims that its conference hall ballroom is currently the largest in all of Korea (My wife and I took a peek inside and that may very well be true!).||Onto our room. The hotel rooms are accessible via three towers: Sun Tower, Forest Tower, Ocean Tower. Each of those towers is accessible from the main lobby, and has its own independent lounge (with its own design vibe) with seating areas and a bar (paid drinks, not free). We were in the Forest Tower, which was very colorful. (The hallways smelled a bit though, most likely from the newness of the carpet.) Our 5th-floor standard king bedroom was well-appointed. (For Bonvoy fans: the interior design theme/vibe is reminiscent of an Aloft, but the sophistication and attention to detail is dialed up somewhere between a Le Meridien and a Ritz Carlton.) The bathroom was especially remarkable. The shower 'booth' in our bathroom was very large, capable of fitting 3-4 adults all showering together. :-D And also, the toilet was a smart toilet, where the seat raised by itself as you approached the toilet; so if you've never seen that before, it's quite a spectacle. (I only know one other hotel in Seoul/Incheon that has toilets with self-raising seats, and it's JW Marriott Gangnam.)||Two more bits of intrigue/luxury: The bedrooms are decorated with artwork prints, with small finger-sized museum-like info labels next to each (i.e. artist name, art's title, year). I think our room had 2-3 pieces of such artwork. Also, you may notice the air purification system integrated into the elevators. While you're in the elevator, if you look up, you can see that, instead of floor numbers, there are icons representing different indicators of air quality. So, apparently, the elevator was monitoring that.||Although the resort contains that indoor waterpark (on the 1st floor), the hotel also has its own large indoor pool (on the 3rd floor). INSPIRE hotel staff tell you during check-in that there are 6 separate timeframes where you can access that pool during the day, and you have to call in to reserve a spot during one of those sessions, before you can visit. I didn't go but my wife did. She said that, on the women's side, there were only around 20 lockers, and about 4 shower stalls; in other words, it's not the biggest pool facility that you'll find. She told me that there are no swimming lanes, and also that the pool's water wasn't really all that clean (this was a Wednesday evening when she visited). So, do consider figuring all that into your expectations.||When my wife went to the swimming pool, I decided to head to the casino. As with all but one casino in all of Korea, this casino is off-limits for Koreans. In order to enter, you'll need to produce your non-Korean passport. The casino is a decent size, but is heavy on Baccarat. (If I had to wager a guess, this caters to the heavily Chinese clientele at this casino!) I found only 3-4 tables that were playing cards, and there were 2-3 roulette tables. I'd say a good 70% of the floor space is dedicated to slots. There is a Japanese restaurant in the casino, and also a lounge area where apparently free food is served to casino guests. Besides ATM's, the casino floor also has a few machines capable of converting 15 different currencies (!!) into Korean currency, so if all you have is greenbacks or Chinese Yuan, bring those anyways.||INSPIRE has a membership program, and it is apparently tied to its casino more than the hotel itself. In fact, apparently, if you can't get into the casino, you can't get access to the resort's membership program. In case that's actually correct, that would be unfortunate to be blocking off so many Koreans from earning INSPIRE resort membership points. Truth is, the signage promoting the INSPIRE membership program is everywhere you look, inside the resort. And all that information about the points earning and redemption systems was very confusing!||Check-out was 11am the next day. If you drive in, do be sure to give them your car's license plate number so that you can have free parking. If you don't register your license plate with the front desk, parking becomes very costly!||If you are coming in for a concert at the arena, and just want a place to unwind and have some fun, then this is really a cool place. Do keep in mind that this is a resort, and there's really very little nearby within a 20-minute drive (aside from the airport). As long as you understand that, and don't have much desire to leave the indoors of the resort, this is generally a 5-bubble stay. If possible, try to look for...

This is a failed huge project. I think Mohegan didn’t do enough research before investing over a billion dollars in Korea. Here are a few things to mention: The hotel is located in the middle of nowhere, Incheon. It’s an area that’s developing but will need decades to reach a livable standard. This means, there is no bus or subway station nearby the hotel. The closest bus stop is a 30minute walk to the hotel. They provide a drop off service to the airport but they don’t pick up from the airport. There are very few taxis in the area, and it’s difficult to catch a ride. Although, it’s relatively close to the airport (10-15cab ride), it’s still W15,000 to get to the airport and many cabs are reluctant to go to the hotel especially during events because of the chaos at the entry to the hotel. They have yet to determine a way to provide a smooth entry to the hotel during large events, and not to forget to mention, check-in. Which leads me to #2: Their check-in process is a nightmare. I waited 2 hours to check-in to the hotel during a non-event/non-holiday/non-break/weekday. Which should be the quietest time of the year. I had to wait in line to get on the queue to check-in. After I waited two hours, I had to get in line again to actually check into the hotel. As a hotel that tried to bring Vegas to Korea, they failed terribly in this aspect, because there isn’t a single hotel in Vegas that’s puts their customers on a 2 hour queue to check into the hotel. I know this, because I am a Vegas resident and go on many staycations. So what do you do when you have to wait for 2 hours? Leading to #3: They offer maybe about 15different restaurants? But you can’t eat, because you don’t know if you’ll have enough time before they call you. They have about one or two handful of shops but not every shop will pick your interest. Most of their shop spaces are empty because of the lack of business they have had the past few months. They offer an arcade for the kids but it’s quite small. They have a casino, but Koreans are not allowed to gamble which is over 90% of their clientele. You can watch the show on the street by the casino, but it’s quite short. As a hotel that’s trying to draw foreigners (which is why they built a casino. Koreans aren’t allowed to be there), they sure don’t have the staff to accommodate them. I understand that their business didn’t go as planned and the majority of their guests are Korean, but if you planned on having foreign guests, you should have the staff to accommodate them. The staff is far from bilingual, and I know this because I am actually bilingual (Korean and English). All the staff have very very limited ability to speak English. They really need more capable staff to accommodate the non-Korean guests. I’m pretty sure they also planned on having Chinese guests because of all the signs in Chinese, but they don’t have the ability to service them. Their biggest draw of local customers (Korean) is Splash Bay but this pool is accessible only once per day, which is unheard of in Vegas. They also close in the middle of the day for cleaning, also unheard of in Vegas. Their large slide was closed, they didn’t have any jacuzzis, part of the kid’s area was closed, they charge even hotel guests for towels on weekends, and their actual swimmable space is small especially with the amount of crowd that’s brought into the pool. There are many better indoor pool options in Korea, so coming all the way to this resort doesn’t make any sense. They spent way too much money in the Casino area. The Casino area has its own restaurants, cafe, etc but there aren’t enough customers for these areas to stay in business. They shouldn’t have built separate restaurants/cafe for casino guests, it deprives other visitors from trying all of their restaurants.

TLDR: failed huge project, won’t...