Iris Pension

We never even went inside the room, and lost the money we paid. At the time, though, our safety mattered far more. My friend and I were two students from abroad, without parents, and had booked a night after skiing at Vivaldi Ski Park. We’d looked at Iris Pension’s reviews and checked how far it was from both the ski park and the bus terminal, since we were coming from Seoul. Based on that, we thought it would work for us. We didn’t check in at 1500, and from then until we tried to check in, Iris sent no email or confirmation message. Around 2130, after skiing, we called the number in Agoda’s confirmation email. We asked whether it was Iris pension. The man who answered said no and hung up abruptly. We tried to get taxis and asked locals for help. The pension was only a three-minute drive from the ski equipment rental shop, but walking would take 30 minutes. It was -10° and snowing, and we didn’t feel safe doing that. We ended up walking along roads without proper pavements or streetlights. When we got to Iris pension, there was nobody to greet us. The area felt eerie and left us feeling really vulnerable. We couldn’t find instructions for opening the door, and saw no sign of other guests, which seemed odd on a Friday evening during holiday season. After several more attempts to contact Iris pension, we tried to get another taxi to somewhere safe nearby, Vivaldi Park. The area was so isolated, with nothing close by, that we couldn’t book one for about an hour. We did finally get a taxi back to Seoul, but it was very, very expensive. Without it, we would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere at night, as we already had been for about an hour. If we hadn’t managed to get that ride, we were going to contact the police because the situation felt extremely dangerous. We learned to choose accommodation in a busy area, especially outside a big city like Seoul. If you’ve read this far, I hope you make the sensible choice and do NOT book Iris Pension. Iris Pension, we don’t expect anything from you. You seem not to care about your customers, so I doubt you’ve even read this. Thank you.