Seoul Recent Experiences
 

Does anyone have any recent experience in the following three hotels? Grand Mercure Imperial Palace Seoul, Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Hotels & Residences & Novotel Ambassador Seoul Gangnam.

The two things I’m specifically looking for are as follows.

1. Main one. The ability to control the air conditioning (staying in June).

All my previous visits to Seoul have been during winter and as noted in other threads, room temperature has been an issue. Especially so in the Pullman; -15 outside and windows wide open all night to combat the heating. This also seems to be an issue there in the summer months, hence the Pullman isn’t under consideration. The only hotels where I could control the air conditioning were the Ibis in Busan & the Novotel Ambassador Gangnam. My last stay though was just before the pandemic, so perhaps things have changed? Scouring reviews on the internet has produced mixed opinions.

2. Recognition of status.

Is lounge access extended to the other guest (my wife) in the room. Again I’ve seen mixed reviews, though most are a number of years ago.


Thanks.

Where did you stay JDP1970 ?
I am doubting between Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Hotels & Residences and Novotel Ambassador Seoul Gangnam, for my first visit in South Korea for September.
As a Platinum I would have lounge access as well.

Registered guests, see here

https://all.accor.com/loyalty-progra...index.en.shtml

Ended up staying at the Novotel Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun Hotels & Residences. Other than a couple of lounge visits we pretty much just used the hotel for sleeping. The hotel was fine. Booked a Superior room & we were upgraded to the Executive Floor (stayed in the Hotel section). Lounge access was extended to include my wife. The lounge did get quite busy during happy hour, but we always found seats on the days we visited - get there early if you want one of the seats with a view. Decent selection of food in lounge. Aircon was acceptable, though I'd have preferred to be able to drop the temperature a touch cooler (min setting 20 but the real temperature never got that low).

Didn't use either of the pools, I was informed at check in that it was free as Platinum, but there was a requirement to reserve at weekends. The rooftop bar known as the "Social" is now closed (I'd seen comments in reviews that it was down to weekends only). It's a shame, as this would be a decent space to have a drink outdoors with decent views & they've got plenty of seating up there. Breakfast can be taken in the lounge through the week & at the restaurant on week days.

One thing I will mention, the rooms come with one of these new bathroom set ups, that offer a lack of privacy in the shower/toilet. A glass partition separates them with white dots on the lower part of the glass. These dots don't provide great privacy anyway, but the upper is just plain glass so anyone who's tall, really can't avoid seeing what's happening next door. Who designs these things?

Stayed in them both now albeit, my stay at the Novotel in Gangnam was back in January 2020 when I was only Gold, so not quite a like for like experience. You can find reviews of the Gangnam hotel on FT.

What's the purpose of your visit to Seoul? Dongdaemun is much better located for the typical tourist sites - whilst there's a lot more happening night life wise around Gangnam. With an excellent metro system it's not an hard city to travel around anyway, so I don't find location too important there. The metro doesn't run all night though, so if you are going to be out until the small hours in another part of town, plan on a Taxi home. An airport limousine bus will take you directly to/from either of these hotels.

If you've any specific questions I'll try and answer.

Just finished a single night stay here at Novotel in Dongdaemun.

Easily summarised as perfunctory and clean with an average breakfast and lounge offering. Decent views though. Went from cheapest room to executive floor. Staff was a mixed bag but that’s not a surprise in Seoul.

Any reflections on Grand Mercure Imperial Palace Seoul? From the website, it looks like the 'residences' have been renovated and sport modern decor, while the other classes of rooms have a very strange Victorian styling.