Dragon Hill Lodge — Hotel in Seoul

My experience here wasn’t the best my wife and I arrived here actually looking forward to coming because of all of the hype from peers that came before me. There statements were like yea dragon hill is awesome! You have food everywhere, you have shops everywhere, a mini Px, a Pub, a place that has custom suits that can be made by hand. But I honestly never heard anyone say that the hotel itself like the actual rooms were great. So knowing myself I have to tell the truth if only the service was sub par. Ok first arrived to the room it looked like I had been time traveling back into the 70’s. The head boards wooden, the bed had lumps and dents in it from previous sleepers yeah like the ones from motel 6 in georgia. No offense to georgia but that motel in Atlanta needs some fixing up mainly the beds and walls you know what just shut it down. Any way the maid service was trash. Except for one awesome lady who made our beds when she came through. But the others hadn’t made our beds for 3days straight and didn’t even put trash bags in the trash can after emptying it. I do understand you have 1000s rooms to attend to but really please put it a bag in the can. The shower OMG! So my wife asked a hotel attendent that our water in our shower was cold/loot warm and not hot and asked if it could be hotter. The excuse she gave my wife was that it’s because of the cold weather outside that the showers were cold. I told my wife when she came back to tell me what the lady said. That hotels of this magnitude has a boiler room and the only way the weather can effect is if some opens the door to the boiler exposing it to the elements or something goes wrong with it. So I asked the next day myself having to raise some hell to get an engineer to take a look at the shower he said oh we can turn the hot water up a bit from this dial here on the thing a ma bobber. And bam hotish water comes spewing out but the pressure was lower but fudge it was hotter thank GOD. It was cold as ice before and now even warmer water thanks great job guy no really thanks because without you. It would have made it miserable to stay here. Hot showers are the best. So the last thing I called the damn front desk 3 times to get a lenders KIT. Which has dishes in it including forks and spoons and we haven’t seen the dang thing yet. This place needs to change before it ends up getting more reviews of this magnitude. I hope this review is read and I hope that it helps those who will come after my family and I because this is unacceptable. No lie NOVOTEL in suwon is setting the standard . It was the best all the way...

Great service, nice accommodations. It's on par to it's sister AFRC, Hale Koa, in some ways possibly better(?). In some ways not. Seems that Hale Koa has more to do on-premises, but DHL definitely has more to do off-post (it's in the middle of Seoul) The front staff are mostly US (service wives I guess), and the remaining staff (wait staff, retail shops) are Korean but with a much better grasp of English than you'd find in other working Koreans that are ubiquitous on US bases. I stayed for only one night so don't have depth of stay to judge. One thing I would change would be to have the vendors open earlier, specifically the tour/ticket concierge. They opened up at I think 9 (?) but some tours pick up outside gate one at 7, 8, ...so there is no buying in to some tours early the day-of. But that is a really minor gripe. I did not eat lunch or dinner so cannot comment; I did eat buffet breakfast and it was grand. Lots of good tasting good for about 15 bucks. Western foods on that buffet. There are a couple of gambling rooms (slot (?) machines only (?)) Appeared to be open 24/7 if you like that sort of thing. Lots of signage for various events and dinners , etc, for the near future e.g. Mother's Day this-or-that, etc. Beautiful grounds. Absolutely gorgeous walking areas. There's a kids playground complex as well, but as n empty nester I didn't scope of out too much. The in-house AAFES shoppette is sufficient, on par with a hotel it's size, and it has really cool Korean gifts sets such as alcohol serving and cup set in traditional Korean craft. Very good if one had to bring some gift home from Korea but didn't have a lot of free time to get off post. Retail vendors have tailoring, dolls; There are bars, coffee joints, etc. Wi-Fi is free, easy, Nd sas fast enough for my work email but I didn't stream entertainment so don't know.... I was passing through only one night on TDY toward another Camp, so my experience was cursory, YMMV, but it definitely looks like a place I definitively want to stay at if I were to...

A very nice hotel. A cab from the Incheon airport to the base varies from 65k won to 75k won. The Dragon has all the conveniences for military families and a perfect place to stay while visiting or transitioning to Seoul. The Dragon Hill Lodge has several reasonably priced restaurants (3 seated restaurants, bakery, pub, Pizza Hut, Subway and an ice cream shop), a swimming pool, gym, shoppette, casino, salon/spa, business center and shopping area (luggage, clothing, electronics, travel/tickets/tours).

The rooms are spacious. They have a kitchen area with a sink, coffee maker, microwave and small fridge. You can ask for a small kitchen kit with dishes, detergent, corkscrew, utensils and cups. The room has a desk, safe, iron with ironing board, oscillating fan, TV, Wi-Fi (not great) and a large dresser for clothing. The shower has plenty of hot water and decent water pressure. They have free laundry facilities all you need to do is buy laundry detergent. The hotel is dated a bit, but it is very clean.

The only detractors: it is on Base and you will have to wait a long time for a AAFES taxi, especially in the evenings. Also getting back on Base requires a specific Base taxi or you will have to walk from the gate to the hotel. The Wi-Fi in my room was not great. I had to keep using my hotspot.

The hotel is within walking distance to Itaewan. Itaewan has a large variety of shops and restaurants. The hotel is a short cab ride from several shopping districts - Dongdaemun, Myeong-dong, Seoul Station and walking along Cheonggyecheon river. Cabs are very inexpensive. You will find the local Korean food to be inexpensive and quite good. I had no issues with eating the food. Open your mind and try things. Tipping is not customary in restaurants or cabs however we did round up the cab fare to avoid the need for change.

I felt very safe and the location was very convenient for my needs. I would stay...