Lotte Resort Sokcho — Hotel in Sokcho-si

FINAL VERDICT: Family oriented resort that has everything needed for a family vacation.||||3 Line summary||- The property is located on a scenic coastside hill, offering views of the East Sea, Seorak National Park, and Sokcho city downtown is a 10 minute drive. Resort is constructed to offer panoramic vistas to guests directly from their room window & balcony.||- Resort has everything needed for a familiy retreat. They have a large indoor water park(Sokcho Water Park), 5+ restaurants including one that you can do K-BBQ(Natural Soul Kitchen), large and fun kid’s cafe (Lala Kids Adventure), direct access to East Sea coast and the best Korean seafood shops are within uber delivery distance. They even have a mini golf place.||- Lotte Resort Sokcho also offers various family oriented programs that I recommend you check out. We chartered a catamaran yatch and cruised the East Sea, went to a local strawberry farm and harvested a couple baskets, tried Lotte’s cookie house making program which are all available through the resort.||||WHEN: May 2023||WHO: Family of 3, including a 17 month old daughter||WHAT ROOM: Character Suite Room|| We visited the Lotte Resort Sokcho as a family retreat in May with our 17 month old daughter. The Resort was our top choice because it had all the facilities that one would want one visiting a beach coast resort, and at the same time very family friendly as they provided baby amenities such as baby food, bed, moisturizer etc. We stayed at the Character Suite room, which is a spacious room that features a Lotte themed slide, hide&seek spots and children’s restroom. Our daughter had so much fun in the room - she rode the slide a gazillion times and played hide and seek with us. My wife liked the fact that the room had a good combination of contemporary designs and playful childrens’ furniture, all with safety in mind.|| Stay at the Lotte Resort was also memorable as we took advantage of the many facilities. On the first day, we went to the indoor Water Park which offered wave riding, a large lazy river, water slides of all sizes and a jacuzzi for relaxing. We headed to the BBQ restaurant (Natural Soul Kitchen) at dinner to charge up and had some fun cooking lobster, beef, pork and lamb racks. The restaurant also offered many Korean dishes that goes well with the BBQ we had ample choice. After a good rest in our beach view room, we headed up to R.9PUP, a pub on the 9th floor as the name suggests. The pub offers a wide range of Korean local brewery at a scenic view of the coastal beach. It was even better as the pub had a family friendly atmosphere where the young ones are invited to play the dart and chill on the bean bags on the terrace.|| All in all, this is a great one-stop resort that offers great view, nature, variety of dining options, all at the same time running large scale facilities such as the Sokcho Water Park. I definitely look forward to visiting again and with comfortably recommend to families looking for a good time together.||||TIPS:||- Visit around April through early November if you want beach related activities. East Sea offers a serene coastal ambiance and Seoraksan National Park is the best mountain in Korea offering courses for peaceful walks to challenging hikes.||- The resort facility is very large, and offers full suite of family fun ranging from K-BBQ, indoor water park and a family friendly pub/bar at the top floor offering breathtaking views of the East Coast. Plan ahead with your companions to decide what to enjoy.||||*Disclaimer:||1. My reviews are very subjective and based on my own experience.||2. I NEVER WRITE PAID REVIEWS.||3. I may have biased towards family-friendly experiences since I am a dad to our family of 3.||4. I favor quality, time and experience over...

Why I chose this hotel at Sokcho :|The sea view from rooms|The wide range of room options|The Lotte hotel chain I already know|The amenities and services on site.||We (2 people) booked a superior suite with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and an incredible view on the sea. It’s the perfect place to stay to recover from a very nasty jet lag. We slept very well, enjoying each of us our own bed and room. Maybe it was the best view I ever had lying on my bed.|The hotel is huge and comes with many amenities, which are well described on the website. In October the water park is closed and the hotel is pretty quiet, which is exactly what I was expecting. I personally would not come here during busy Summer holidays. |The staff is very friendly and speaks enough English for helping you to book a taxi. I was happy to be told that they don’t charge any longer a deposit on your credit card, which takes then weeks to be cleared out. Instead they charge the total amount due for your stay at check-in, which I find more convenient.|From the hotel (located on a hill), you can walk (along the sea) either on the left to the long sand beach, or to the right to the port, where you will find many seafood restaurants. We ate one evening at one of the hotel restaurants (Natural Soul Kitchen). The food was delicious, refreshing and healthy.||To reach the hotel, we took the bus from Seoul Express Bus Terminal (Gyeonbu Yeongdong Line, next to Gangnam area). It takes around 2.5 hours. The bus departing from this terminal arrives at Sokcho EXPRESS Bus Terminal, which is close to Sokcho beach and closer to the Lotte resort. Be aware that there are 2 bus terminals in Seoul from where you can reach Sokcho. At Sokcho, there is another bus terminal further north (Sokcho INTERCITY Bus Terminal). Make sure that you depart from the same terminal where you arrived if you have return tickets.|We didn’t manage to buy the bus tickets online. Apparently you need a credit card issued in SKorea to be able to process the payment. So we had to go directly to the bus terminal to buy our tickets. If you want premium seats buy them several days in advance. ||Even if your main interest is hiking in Seoraksan National Park, I think this hotel is the perfect « base camp », as in the morning you will wake up with this beautiful sea view and at night you will fall asleep with the sound of lapping waves.|I will come back for sure. The hotel, the sea, the mountains,... I didn't expect to feel so well and so...

The place looks overly sanitary. Its so clean. But I think they could definitely do a lot better. Considering that the time I'm writing this review, this place hasn't been open for more than a year, its not bad. But as I said, more can be done.

The room is spacy. I was in a grand deluxe family room. It had one queen size and single bed.

In terms of service, its kinda bad... I've read Korean reviews of this place and they all mentioned that their service quality wasn't as good as they can be. Sometimes, it can irritate you - as it did with me.

I haven't tried the restaurants there because I've read a Korean review that said their food wasn't worth the price. From the looks outside, they seem right. But I will not say much as I have not had any direct experience.

Their water park facility was a little disappointing... Specifically, it wasn't worth the price they were charging. But considering that it is a resort, its not bad... Maybe worth going once? I was there for around 30 minutes.

Try their sauna rooms. That was the highlight. There is a lot of different rooms and it is very nicely decorated. Looks very high quality.

Their game room was surprisingly good. It consisted of video, shooting, driving, basketball games and it also had darts. But it got boring after 15 minutes.

They have a 7/11 that has pretty much anything you need - food, drinks (wines included), funky looking pants, socks. It even had shoes - not a selection.

Their gift shop could be better...

If you like coffee, I recommend going to the flower coffee shop. Its probably one of the better tasting coffee I've had in Korea. The barista is really nice as well.

I hear that it gets really busy during weekends. Specifically, bus-loads of people come (literally in buses).

Also, this is a condo. Don't quote me but I hear it's 20-30g (one time payment) to have a condo there. I don't think you own the condo - you get 30 days a year. But keep in mind, people have similar dates for vacation... So what that implies is that when you want to book a vacation there, so will many others. And it could get...