LOTTE City Hotel Myeongdong — Hotel in Seoul

Just what we needed during our trip - it felt like a home base and was very comfortable. The shower was huge which made me chuckle. The room proper was small compared to US standards, but you should not really ever compare US room sizes with Korea's. For the country, it was pretty standard and big enough for 2 people and 2 suitcases. Room itself was clean and the beds were comfy. The view of the city was beautiful and fun to look at, especially at night. Location-wise, we had zero complaints. Extremely close to Line 2 train stations, many of Myeongdong's attractions, and a wide variety of food selections. We walked around the area late at night a few times and felt totally safe. It's not a grand hotel nor is it superfancy, but it was comfy and quiet (inside the hotel that is, the city was loud as ever - Koreans love to honk lol - and you could hear some of the sound from the 7th floor). The 7-11 attached to the hotel was a nice touch - very convenient. Same goes for the Angel in US Cafe attached. Very good coffee! The buffet-style restaurant there was also good, a bit pricey but nothing insane like I've seen at some highly luxurious hotels. We only ate breakfast at the buffet, so I can't speak for lunch or dinner, but the selections were great and they had many vegetarian options. The halal restaurant at the hotel was delicious as well!

Check in and check out was easy and fast. The women at the front desk spoke good enough English that nothing was lost in translation. Outside of that, I can't speak much for service since we didn't really interact with many staff and didn't have any special requests. But in my opinion, no news is good news.

I will say it's not a hotel to hang out at. We slept there and were out doing stuff the rest of the time. No spa, pool, or recreational at the hotel. We knew this going in and are by no means complaining. We don't like to hide away at hotels and prefer getting out and seeing the city. Just...

This hotel is perfectly located and contains all amenities that you could think of. It is our 11th day and we are on the 21st floor. The view is amazing, the hotel is clean and you have a lot of options in terms of how and when you want to get things changed (for bedsheets and towel). The famous Myeongdong is just a 10 minutes walk away and nearby you also have Euljiro 1 subway station, the green line number 2 that you will mainly take to go anywhere around Seoul (Han river, lotte world, palaces, Seoul university, City Hall, Gangnam and also changes to Insa-dong....) They have a laundry machine on the 3rd floor that you can use by yourself, cash only machines. It’s 4000won for the washer, 4000won for the dryer and 500won for the detergent (you usually will need 2 or 3). There is also a gym if you are not tired from all the walking, it looks cool and had stepper, weighs, treadmill, towels and shower amenities.The atm inside the building is for passbooks so mainly for Asia, but if you go at the back exit of the building, you have an international atm, you can withdraw up to 100,000won at once and it charges you 4000 won per withdrawal. It comes in very handy but I would advice to come with a good amount of cash from the airport exchange as they had the best rates from what we could see. There is also a coffee shop on the ground floor but I will make another review for them (Angel in us chain). Finally, on the 27th and last floor is the restaurant and breakfast area. It is 19000 won per person and although very tasty, it is mostly continental (croissants, bread, jam, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, coffee, tea, orange juice...) so we only ate there twice for convenience as there are a lot of other little shops around where you can treat yourself with Korean food :) A perfect score for me for location, style and...

Pros: The room was a good size, clean and quiet. Room cleaning services were excellent, and there was a cafe located conveniently on the ground floor, where hotel guests received a discount on drinks. Pay per use laundry was available (we found this pricey) with steamers and irons. Excellent location for shopping and sight seeing around the city. There is also a convenience store attached to the building, as well as an ATM (unfortunately didn’t work for us, not sure why) and nearby transit stations. Received 2 water bottles everyday with room service.

Cons: Despite setting the room temperature below 22 degrees for sleeping at night, the temperature failed to decrease. The thermostat was misleading as it allowed you to set a cooler temperature, but wouldn’t actually work. This led to much less comfortable sleeps. It seems like the hotel has control over the thermostats, which was a surprise for the price and caliber of hotel. It also appeared that only 1 elevator was working throughout our stay. Very long wait times and crowded elevators, particularly in the mornings. A couple of the outlets also didn’t work.

We were there for Earth Day (April 22) and I found it funny that they had a notice to turn off your lights for 10 minutes during a certain timeframe, or keep your curtains closed - quite performative and low impact. They had notices describing how they give less amenities to hotel guests for environmental reasons, however I don’t believe this has a large impact on how environmentally friendly the hotel is. It would have been more interesting to hear about what the hotel is doing on a larger scale, rather than passing the baton onto hotel guests who are...