I’m an ex-pat Seoulite (well, technically living in Incheon), and have lived here for almost a decade. Throughout almost that entire time, I have also been at least a Platinum status member. This Le Meridien Myeongdong Seoul is now my favorite hotel in the Marriott chain in Seoul (esp. for a fun weekend night out), and I’ve stayed at almost all of the Marriott hotels in this city. The only ones I haven’t stayed at are the two Moxy’s, the Courtyard Namdaemun, the Aloft Gangnam, the AC Gangnam, the 4P Suwon, and the Nest. So I’ve stayed at 20/27 of them!
The following is my trip report.
Wife and I made the booking 10 days before check-in date. We ended up getting the King Suite (“Suite, Club lounge access, 1 Bedroom Suite, 1 King, City view”). [Bonvoy members: Currently Titanium, I booked a standard room (“Deluxe Guest room, 1 King, City view”) via FNA + 2000 extra points, then burned an SNA. It was granted 2 days before check-in. Given that the standard room was 407k KRW and the suite was 930k KRW, I think it was a great redemption!]
About a week before check-in, I received a friendly email from the staff anticipating my stay. I wrote back, and they sent a personalized response. It was excellent hospitality.
As I understand it, there is no self-parking at this hotel. It is all valet parking, and it costs 25k KRW extra, per night. You receive a valet stub when arriving. We didn’t use our car during our stay. After check-out we paid the valet via credit card.
As of this writing, the hotel is basically a half-year old. The pictures on the hotel website are all very accurate; I also attached my own pictures in this thread, a handful of posts earlier. My wife and I were impressed by our Suite’s bathroom; the tub was huge and the shower booth could easily fit 3 people (haha). We also had an awesome 3.5-ft-tall air purifier in our bedroom, to freshen our air. We got Suite #1213 and it was the farthest from the elevators, with a direct unobstructed view of the front of the Chinese Embassy.
Well, the star of this hotel is easily the location. Basically in the middle of Myeongdong! If you are a first timer coming to Seoul, this is a great location. (If you are additionally a Bonvoy member, this could be basically a Top 2 hotel for you.) Just within a block, you can get all sorts of street food, and visit a couple major shopping malls. Also within a block is the Myeongdong metro station, on the Blue Line #4, which can deliver you to Dongdaemun, Namdaemun, and Seoul Station within minutes. An easy transfer at Chungmuro and you can also be at Gwanghwamun Palace in no time. So, well, this hotel is in a pretty great location in case you want to do some touring: Just enough walking and metro to make the tourism feel productive, yet far enough from those sights to feel relaxed when you get back to the room.
[Marriott Bonvoy members: Compared to the RYSE, this hotel has a pool and is also surrounded by far better street food.]
Breakfast buffet is pretty swanky and the dining room is in an upbeat space. It’s not the biggest breakfast spread among Seoul hotels, but it’s still more than enough. (There’s a pretty big congee station for those that care for that.)
My wife went to the swimming pool. There are no lanes, so as long as others are there, it’s very likely that you won’t be able to get straight laps in. She said that there was no attendee to process her entrance. She just walked in, there were about 10 lockers, and one shower booth. So, while the pool may be nice to take a dip, you’re not getting the formality of a country club at this hotel.
The Executive Lounge is very nice, especially in terms of the quality and sophistication of the food served in the evening. There is a great variety of salads and hot foods and finger foods and alcohol, with unlimited Prosecco. Some of the food is simple and well-prepared, other stuff is sophisticated and also well-prepared. If you have that lounge access, it’s definitely worth the visit. This evening food service in the Exec lounge, if actually charged as a buffet in a high-end restaurant, could fetch $25 to $35 pretty easily, just based on tastiness, variety, and presentation. I was impressed. If you have Executive Lounge access and you're looking to fill up on still a quite instagrammable Western-style dinner, just go there, forget about walking around. :-)
When we went on an April Friday night at 8pm, surprisingly the Executive Lounge had almost no guests, so it was very relaxing. While the food service ends at 9pm (on Fridays, at least), the lounge closes at 10pm. So, if you arrive at 8:45pm, the staff lets you plate up as much food as you want, and you can relax a bit with your plates until 10pm. 😊 That policy is really VERY kind, it really can show the GM’s heart. I wish other hotels would follow this Le Meridien’s lead.
I don’t really have any truly bad things to say about this hotel, but there are a few quirks.
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- Because another hotel is combined with this LM in the same building and yet have different dedicated spaces, entering and moving around the hotel is a bit of a bother. From the outside shops and restaurants, you enter the hotel building on either B1 or 1st floor, but regardless of whether you're staying in either hotel, you have to go from B1 to the 4th floor. And then on the 4th floor there are two separate bays of elevators, one for the other hotel, and one for LM. Sounds simple enough, but it can take 2-4 trips to feel confident how to get around!
- I found the music in the 4th floor lounge area (not the 14th floor Exec Lounge) and adjacent 4th floor (breakfast) restaurant ("La Palette Paris") to be a bit too loud for my taste. On this Saturday morning, the music during breakfast was basically island bongo music that repeated its beat every 5 seconds. Once I noticed it, wow, it started irritating me. So, don't start noticing that. LOL :-D
- Breakfast buffet is pretty good though, not the biggest spread in Seoul but I enjoyed it; get the pear/ginger shot if they have it under the yogurts (it was especially tasty and I think I'll start making it at home!). The refrigerated section repeated 1/3 of the stuff found in the Exec Lounge's spread from the night before, but that's OK. A quirk is that it seems almost like, "in a past life" when this was a different hotel, there was a small self-standing bakery/deli counter by the breakfast restaurant's entrance. That counter was removed and instead there's the pastries/bread section and juice section there, for the breakfast buffet. So, to get to the juice and pastries/bread, it almost feel like you are exiting the restaurant a tiny bit. It's roped off, so that you might still feel like you're in the restaurant, and it's no big deal, just a bit quirky.
I didn’t stay in the standard room, so I can’t say anything about its size. But I can say that the suite is a very good place for 2 people to hang out and stay. Aside from the very tourist-friendly and exciting location, the suite’s bathroom is also noteworthy. Overall, a very good stay.