Irene

I spent a whole day walking around Seoul doing value comparisons on hotels in preparation for my wife to come and visit. When I walked into Hotel Irene I was happy with the location and amenities offered and the price was fair so I asked to see the rooms. Satisfied with the cleanliness and size of the room I went ahead and booked there in person. In order to reserve the booking they asked that I pay the cost of the first night which I did. They took down my email and phone number. A month went by and I never received any reservation email, so I had a friend call (my Korean is too poor to communicate telephonically) to verify my reservation. They still had my room but quoted a price that was twice as expensive as what we agreed upon when the booking was made. I will not support a business that engages in such underhanded practices.

Situated in a side street which many bars. Our booking was not initially straight forward but they eventually found it in about 15 minutes. The room was not nicely made up - bed not made up properly but in our children's room it was fine. Wonder if the second room was made up hastily. Also one of the lights were faulty but when we mentioned it to the reception they bought in a standard lamp. Bathroom was the best bit with a spa bath and automatic functioning toilet!! They had english instructions so it was easy to set up! Out shower was over the bath but our children's room had one outside the bath. Room walls were a very dark brown - could do with a repaint in a lighter colour. We didn't have any noise problem until the Monday nights were tooting of taxis and sound of revelers were very loud.

I went to this hotel as it was listed as charging $66 US (27% discount) on Google Maps. Not so! I was charged ₩99,000 for the first night, rising to ₩129,000 the second night "because it's the weekend ". Looked OK, and conveniently located in a restaurant precinct, but not wanting to encourage dodgy advertising, I declined to stay.