30 March 2024
Late night disaster
Arriving in Seoul
It is now Sunday morning not Saturday night. I hoped to be out hiking by now, but no. Getting here was a disaster as my hotel cancelled my booking and gave my room to someone else and they had no other rooms! I will come back to that...
The flight was actually fine, we arrived early, it was half full, the Korean style food they served was excellent, even in economy.
Then the first problem, it took 90 minutes to go through the passport checking queue. A lot of people did not handle this well.
This meant I would not be able to catch the airport train into town as it stops running at 11pm, and I would have to go find a bus. That was not too difficult, the ticket kiosk was easy to figure out and allowed foreign credit cards. The bus took about an hour and I arrived at my hotel soon after midnight.
This is when they told me that they considered me a no show and had given my room to someone else!
I was outraged and demanded to speak to the manager etc. They were very apologetic. This was the Toyoko Inn, a major global chain. I even showed them that when I made the booking months ago that they had replied to me through booking.com telling me my midnight arrival time was fine. It has to be a very common thing for people to arrive then!
I had been checking accommodation options in Seoul leading up to my departure and there were very few other options available, they all cost a fortune. Prices had doubled since I booked months ago.
The hotel check in staff agreed to ring around and find me a room in another hotel, they were kids and were shell shocked because I wanted to call the police and threatened to come back every day and yell at the manager.
I suspect they had happily re sold my room to someone else at double the price which is bullshit, but probably hotel policy when availability in Seoul is low and the possibility of charging a huge rate for people booking at the last minute becomes available. It seemed a bit like a flight overbooking policy that some airlines get away with.
So they found me another hotel nearby, but I got their last available room they do not normally sell, that costs twice as much as my Toyoko Inn booking that had been cancelled. The room is made for people in a wheelchair and in a state of disrepair! I think I might be able to change rooms in this hotel to a better one, they were apologetic about the strange room they had to give me at such short notice.
Here is the bus I took. I had researched bus options before arriving thinking I would be too late for the train, and I was. The late night bus is actually faster than the trains I would have taken, but with added potential bus related confusion which did not eventuate on this occasion.
And here are the shots of the weird low room for someone in a wheelchair. There is effectively no desk which will annoy me. Hopefully they can find me a better room in the hotel somewhere for my 2nd night onwards.
This hotel is not on any website I can find, so it must only be on Korean websites. This means it operates the flood the entire bathroom shower method that I have experienced here a few times before. A strange concept!
The bonus is, if I get to move rooms, more room shots. Also no hiking today as all my messing around meant almost no sleep, and I know my reader(s) hate when I go hiking.