Its very basic. No room service, no minibar, no working airconditioning, interrupting electricity supply.
Rooms are ugly and screaming for renovation.
Radio plays military music.
Korean TV channel shows WWII and Korean war chronicles with hysterical shouting by the off-picture anchoreman. Key TV-star is Kim Il Sung, beloved chief and supreme commander. Telephone is OK, good international line. Local calls though are impossible. You can't even call other rooms.
Hotel restaurants, let it put mildly, are not exactly Michelin-star. They got no menues. They just bring you rounds of meals in small portions. Some are eatable, some look like a travesti of food. They say it is specific because it is Korean. Not true, I tried good Korean food in South Korea.
Staff speaks poor English. Surprisingly some of them speak basic Russian. Overall staff is indifferent to guests, but some of them are rather suspucious and hostile. Especially waiters and guards who look no less than security service officers.
There are some other issues, not exactly specific to this hotel, but to every other hotel in Pyongyang.
1) No internet, no cell phones, no Wi-Fi, no newspapers. North Korean leaders prefer to keep people happy by stripping them off any unauthorized information.
2) You can't go out. Foreigners are kept isolated from the locals - the hotel guards will simply not let you out. And if you make it out, there is 'a punishment' as we were expalined by our guide. Although he did not specify what is the punishment, for some reason I think this is something in between life in prison and beheading.
3) Our guide explained to us that it is very intimidating for Koreans when foreigners: a) do not show respect to the beloved leader (Kim Il Sung) and his son Kin Chen Il; b) make pictures of people in military uniform (all people there are in military or military-like uniform); c) laugh or speak loudly; d) wear inapproprirately (overall appropriate is military-like).