5 Days in Seoul: Korstay Hotel

The main purpose of this trip is to watch a Kpop concert. Yep. This is also the main reason why I chose Korstay Hotel to stay in. The hotel lies in Gangseo where the concert will also take place: KBS Arena.

Now, let me talk about Korstay Hotel.

I booked a room from Agoda and was happy with the cheap price. It's only Php5,520 for 5 days and 4 nights. A steal, indeed.

Upon booking confirmation, I asked the hotel staff to send me directions on how to get to their hotel from the airport. Here's what they sent me.

As you can see, it is a very detailed instruction and we were able to follow it easily. A little over an hour from the airport, we reached the hotel and was greeted by the smiling face of a female staff.

Though her English is not so good, she tried to explain the hotel rules to us and we were able to understand her. Soon, we were escorted to our room.

The room was quaint and clean just like the reviews I've read, so we were satisfied. There are towels, lotion, shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, toothbrush, and 2 bottles of water in the mini ref. What's missing was a closet to hang our clothes in but a clothes rack by the corner wall made up for it.

We left the hotel and went to the concert venue. After the concert, we went straight back to the hotel because we were beat from the 4-hour flight and the concert.

Here's where the one bad thing about Korstay Hotel happened.

I already posted a review in Agoda about this incident but I will still tell the story here.

Upon reaching the hotel after the concert, we immediately walked to our room, unlock the outer door and went to the comfort room. As I was unlocking the inner door to the bedroom, the key that was handed to us when we checked in wouldn't fit! So I approached the staff, a man this time, and told him that the key wouldn't work on the second door.

I heard him say, "Why did you lock it" before proceeding to take something from his table drawer and walking towards our room. I thought it was a spare key but it's not! What he had in his hands was a card (more like an ATM card or something of the same size). So he tried to open the door using that but he couldn't get it to open. He asked us to wait in the lobby for a while and so we did.

2 hours later, it's almost midnight then and we're really tired. I'm trying my best to reign in my patience because WHY THE HELL DON'T THEY HAVE A SPARE KEY!! AND WHY IS HE OPENING A DOOR IN THEIR HOTEL LIKE A COMMON THIEF!! WHY!!!

At last, he approached us and said that he called for help. YOU ONLY THOUGHT OF THAT NOW?! But the reason he's telling us this? It's because he's expecting us to pay for the fee! He even told us that it's going to be expensive because it's almost midnight. WHUT?!

He said the fee would be 50,000 won (50 US dollars). Next, he said that he called another one because the first one is not available. He said that this one is cheaper because he's only charging 40,000 won. This is where I spoke up because come on, why do we have to pay for anything that concerns your hotel?

I asked him why do we have to pay. He was taken aback at first. Maybe he didn't expect any of us two girls to speak up. My tone was low and even and in my head, I am at my calmest although my friend said that though it's true that my voice is low, I wasn't raising my voice or anything, I still scared her. Maybe it's the way I said it but I merely said one word at first. "Why?"

The staff then started to say that they only gave us one key, so why did I lock two doors? I replied and said that it's common practice for people to lock the door behind them and we weren't warned not to lock the bedroom door. Had we known, we wouldn't have closed it. Then he said, "Let's split the fee. I pay 20,000, you pay 20,000." I asked him again, "Why?" He said, it's not my fault and it's not your fault either, so let's just split the bill.

I don't want to pay. Why would we pay? I would've argued until I could get what I want but my friend, ever the pacifist that she is, talked to me and said that she'll just pay for now so as to get the door opened and we can rest for the night. We'll just talk to the female staff who didn't tell us not to close the bedroom door and get a refund. I'm not done yet but I conceded.

We stayed for 5 days and 4 nights in Korstay Hotel but only on the 5th day did we see the female staff again. And that was when we're about to leave for the airport. I would've talked to her to refund the 20,000 won but there are new guests she's welcoming and we wanted to leave early for the airport.

So, that's my Korstay Hotel experience.

In Agoda, I gave 3 stars for Korstay Hotel. That would've been 5 stars because the hotel is actually very good. It's clean, accessible, water pressure is good, drain and sink didn't clog all throughout our stay. But the fact that we had to pay 20,000 Korean won is so unjust, I couldn't let it slide.

Lesson: DO NOT LOCK THE INNER DOOR!