Seoul Rex Hotel

The hotel is old, but the location is very good and the front desk staff are exceptionally friendly and helpful. I don't understand why some people left negative reviews. To me, it's well worth recommending and deserves good reviews.

For one night, it was comfortable enough, though the stay was pretty mediocre. The decor feels stuck in the 80s and reminded me of my childhood. It's one of the few hotels I've seen with floors for smokers.

The only hotel issues we ran into were the shower occasionally shifting from hot to lukewarm, and our room being quite dark in the evening because of its color and lack of lamps. The most annoying part was being woken early by a cherry truck right under the window, playing a recorded sales pitch. That's not the hotel's fault, though. The staff were friendly and helpful. When some clothes went missing, they sorted it out within minutes. Laundry is available at the hotel, and the room was clean whenever we got back at night. Internet and electronics worked without any trouble. The location is excellent, close to restaurants, malls, markets, and city life, with a subway station just two steps away. It's a good place to stay if you don't plan to spend all day in the room. If you do, don't take a trip to Seoul. We were happy to stay at Rex Hotel.

I booked four rooms for four nights about a month ahead, but GM Lee Dong Jin was eager to argue with customers and challenged me over several things. First, he asked everyone to handwrite their name and passport details instead of accepting passport copies. Fine. Then, although I'd booked three different room types at different prices, we were given four identical double-plus-single twin rooms. He called it an upgrade, but there's more to the story. The rooms smelled of smoke everywhere, and the bed sheets were a sandy dust color. For the price, Siloam Jjimgilbang is much cheaper and a better place to stay. Strongly not recommended. I'm sure you'd be dissatisfied like I was.