Busan Yeongdo Bayhound Hotel

It was an okay stay for the price, and the check in and check out were easy. But I felt a bit misled by the old photos. They made it look like the hotel was the tallest building in the area, but there are a couple taller ones nearby, and I was briefly confused about where to find it. Seeing a can of Raid in the room made me nervous about cockroaches. I didn’t find any, but there was a mosquito even on the sixth floor. The location is handy for Jagalchi market, and there’s a line of vendor stalls by the water next to the hotel for a late night snack. The elevators are small: one only goes to the sixth floor, the other to the tenth. I barely spoke with staff beyond check in and check out, so I can’t say how helpful they are. There was no shower curtain or partition, so I sat in the shower trying to keep water from going everywhere. There’s a drain in the floor, so maybe it’s meant to get wet, but some tiles looked like they were coming off. The Raid can and lack of recent photos left me feeling deceived.

The lobby was quaint and inviting, and my room was comfortable, very clean, and surprisingly spacious. The staff were incredibly helpful with my questions. After a luggage wheel broke earlier in my trip, a concierge pointed me to a good place for an inexpensive replacement and took the broken one off my hands. I was only there for two days, so I didn’t look into many amenities, but I recall there was self service laundry and a cafe serving breakfast. A few things in the room bothered me. There were large water stains around the windows, mostly hidden by the curtains, and I didn’t like the fragrance used in the room. The bathroom was impeccably clean, but the bedroom was a small step down from the main floor, so I stumbled a few times going into the bathroom. There was no shower curtain, and even though I tried hard to limit splashing, bathwater ended up over much of the room. The toilet also had a weak flush and no bidet functions. Still, I wouldn’t call the stay terrible.

It’s good value, very clean, and feels new. If you’re driving, complimentary parking is available. The metro is a bit of a walk, around 10-15 minutes, so it may not suit you if you don’t enjoy walking. Breakfast was nice, with a choice of Korean or Western set menus. They also offered complimentary beer and simple snacks in the afternoon. There was renovation work next door, though, and the noise started very early in the morning.

The service was poor. At check in, the staff member didn’t explain things like the Wi-Fi code or how to use the air conditioning, and he had a bad attitude when we asked about the hotel. There were a lot of scratches, and the place looked different from the pictures online. For the same price, I think there are better options here.