Fairfield by Marriott Seoul

I booked a stay for two nights on the 11th of may 2020 and checking out in the 13th of may 2020. The room is advertised as 23m2 online, but when we arrived the room was only roughly around 17m2. Which is much smaller than what was advertised. I do believe customers should receive rooms advertised online and Marriott Fairfield Seoul should never pretended to have very large room sizes. I did complain to front desk, but all they can tell me was that they can’t do anything about it, and that all rooms are the same size. And moving to another room was not possible; nor were the problems rectified. I did tell the receptionist to get the duty manager to give me a call back. But a call back was never received. As a customer of Marriott, and I’ve stayed in Marriott all over the world, this is one of the worst experiences I have had with your company. It was an implied term of the reservation that the accommodation provided would be of the size that was advertised, with good customer service expected from Marriott. But I got neither.

I do think the rooms are smaller than advertised too which should be corrected. Other than that, I think it's what people should expect from a Fairfield, in Asia at least. You can open your luggage next to the door but it would be tight to open it near the bed. For 1 person, it's suitable. Even for 2, I would say it's on the tighter side but not really a big deal. They utilized the room size properly I think. There is no real door separating the bedroom and the bathroom. Just a sliding door, which was a bit awkward. I liked how clean everything was and although this location is not exactly close to the main tourist spots, it's situated in YoungdeungPo which is a great location for drinking and eating and also shopping. I'd rather stay here than near Myeongdong because it's so much closer to the airports. Oh and the prices for this fairfield is always on the cheap side.

We booked Seoul Fairfield for an early Christmas vacation, and loved our decision! The hotel is very reasonably priced, we’ve read reviews about the small room size but found that it wasn’t as bad as we had expected. It’s small but cozy, and had everything we needed including coffee, fridge, a few complimentary drinks and snacks, and the room is very well lighted (window pane was large with ample sunlight). The bathroom is on a squishier side, there is a glass door that swings both ways, and you can either close the toilet stall or the shower room area. The door shares the same hinge, so if you are traveling with friends and have privacy issue, this hotel layout would have some problem. Although the location isn’t as conveniently located as one of the more famous destinations such as Dongdaemun or Myeondung, the hotel is 2 minutes away from the subway which gets you to anywhere in the city. There is also a airport limousine bus line #6008 which stops at 30 seconds away from the hotel door, that can get you to and from the Incheon Airport within an hour’s time. You can pay cash upon getting into the bus to get to the airport, you don’t need to buy tickets in advance. Everyone at the hotel is super duper friendly and helpful, the gentleman who helped us check in was very warm and enthusiastic. We checked in later in the evening and was hoping to see some snow for the Christmas holidays, so we asked him about the weather since it wasn’t snowing when we arrived. We actually knew that it wouldn’t snow while we were there, but during the short conversation he took our question seriously and even helped us go online to check the weather forecast for the next few days. We weren’t expecting that level of detail-oriented service, so that definitely kicked off our trip to a wonderful start. The hotel uses a very smart elevator system where you tap your room key at a sensor and it will tell you to go which elevator, which will whisk you to your floor directly without having to press anything while you are inside the elevator. This also prevents long waits and stopping by other floors, it controls where you are going directly and takes you there in express-time. Across from the hotel is an area with lots of restaurants such as Korean BBQ, fried chicken, and convenient stores. Some of the restaurants open 24 hours. And the perk of it is that because the location isn’t at a prime location, therefore the prices are quite friendly and much cheaper than the prices you see at restaurants in Myeundong, etc. Most of the people there are locals rather than tourists, but most of the menu will have simple English translations. The food is quite tasty, and afterwards you can just walk back to the hotel by crossing one street. Overall, we loved the stay, and would choose it again!

For the price, this place is tough to beat. The room si quite small but was comfy for what we paid. The layout was quite innovative and made great use of the space provided. The area around the hotel is also great and many shops around. The lobby houses a Starbucks which is very convenient plus Shinsagae a 5 min walk down from the hotel for dinner. Parking is 12000 won which is a bummer as it was just a garage and no valet. In Seoul, typically that means it is valeted but not a dealbreaker here.

My wife and I stayed the last couple nights in the basic ("Premier") room. Bed and linens definitely comfortable enough. The room is small-ish, no doubt, but if you are a group of two people, and you have big bodies, this basic room might be a bit too small. My wife and I are both quite slight, so it was OK for two nights, no problem. (MOST IMPORTANT TIP: If you want to avoid noise, ask for "city view"! The "park view" is directly above the trains rolling in (or out) almost every 1-2 minutes.) Just outside across the road are all sorts of Korean restaurants, mainly down this large alleyway. A 7-11 just connected to the hotel from outside was convenient to buy some breakfast foods. My wife and I knew about the 15k KRW parking/night fee, before we booked. She and I agreed that this fee should be waived for some elite members. Anyways, I'm only gold at the time of this writing, so we weren't surprised to not get that fee waived. (In our opinion, the hotel can stand to charge everybody 4k KRW extra per night and then waive the parking fee for gold and above.) Gold status gave me a higher-floor room and a 2pm checkout. Nothing more. It has been mentioned before here, but definitely the bathroom is not for strangers to share. :-)