Sokcho I Park Suite Hotel and Resort

The room was okay, but the AC was awful and I had trouble sleeping through my entire stay. There’s no room service if you’re only there for a few days. It’s within walking distance of the intercity bus terminal, but that’s about all the location has going for it, with only a handful of restaurants nearby. I’m assuming the building started out as an apartment complex and later became distressed, with lots of vacancies. It doesn’t seem to have been designed as a hotel, and the flawed elevator setup makes that pretty obvious. It wasn’t built to handle heavy foot traffic.

The rooms are spacious, comfortable, and very clean. There’s a good restaurant nearby, plus a convenience store on the ground floor. The lift setup makes little sense, though, and it took me 10 minutes to catch one. The low room price makes sense once you see what costs extra. The pool is 30,000 won for a four-hour slot, not a full day, which costs more than the room itself. Breakfast is 22,000 won.

The balcony view was nice, but getting anywhere in the building was a headache. With only four elevators serving more than 30 floors and a huge number of guests, waits get bad, especially at check-in and checkout. I saw lines of over 20 people on several floors. The lifts keep stopping even when there's no room for anyone else, since they seem to decide they're full by weight. A frustrating setup. If riding elevators is part of your vacation plan, this place might suit you.

For what it costs, the service felt very bare-bones, more like an Airbnb than a hotel. We booked for three people and got just two bath towels, and there was only one pillow per guest. There are no housekeeping visits for stays under two nights, and even taking rubbish out was a struggle because there seemed to be no bins. The staff didn't seem enthusiastic either. The elevators are a joke, like using a 1990s lift and hoping it happens to come to your floor. Guests were clearly frustrated.