Seoul Grand Hyatt

Seoul is one of the only cities I know of that actually closes down for a major national holiday. Chuseok is perhaps the most important holiday in Korea. An entire city of 10 million people seems to empty out for one 3 day period a year. Buses run, but they're mostly empty. The roads that are usually choked with traffic are eerily quiet. Even internet banking is suspended, and for some people, their bank cards won't work during the holiday. That happened to Emily during our first year in Korea.

For this reason, we decided to spend Chuseok in the Grand Hyatt. It one of the two or three luxury hotels sitting on the side of Namsan (a mountain in the middle of Seoul). If offers beautiful views of the mountain and of the Han River. We were lucky enough to get a river view, which was beautiful at night. The hotel was built in the late 70s, and it shows. The lobby has wonderful vaulted ceilings and a distinct 70s feel to it. They even allow smoking in the lobby, which seems like a very 70s thing.

The room layout was that of a very traditional luxury hotel. It's far different from the modern architecture of newer hotels like the Park Hyatt next to Coex, which have things like rain showers and giant marble bathtubs. Instead, it's much more relaxed, with a very comfortable, but firm, couch, a TV, a more traditional tub, and, of course, one of the ultra-soft king sized beds that hotels like this are known for. We chose to purchase the Amour Package, which gave us a bottle of muscato d'asti, a chocolate cake, access to the sauna, and a free buffet breakfast.

The restaurants available at the hotel range from the buffet option to high end European, Chinese, and Japanese. We opted to eat lunch in the lobby, which gave us a good view of the river, get room service, and of course take our free buffet breakfast in the morning. Because we actually live in Seoul, we know where we can get any of the things available in the restaurants at a much more reasonable price. We were already splurging by staying in the hotel, we didn't need to break the bank on a $300+ meal we could get elsewhere for half the price. The only option that did intrigue us was the special summer poolside BBQ, but no reservations were available.

The bars left something to be desired. JJ Mahoney's is a faux-tiki lounge with live music, but they charge a whopping 23.5% consumption fee on top of a 10% service charge. I'm sure that's for the live music, but I don't love live entertainment that much. The Paris Bar was very nice if you wanted to drink a glass or bottle of wine. The rest of their selection was fairly limited. The lobby bar actually had the best variety of drinks to offer. The hotel's signature cocktails were only available in the lobby, and they had most of the wines and mixed drinks on hand that were available at the other bars.

It's not like that's really even something to complain about. We had a great time taking advantage of the hotel amenities, and had a great Chuseok.