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Located at the base of Mt. Baekryun, the Grand Seoul Hilton offers the perfect facilities for leisure guests and conference facilities for business purposed guests. You can have the best time with our utmost service and facilities in the middle of the city just like you are relaxing at the resort.
Star ratings are intended to indicate the general level of features, amenities, and services to expect. This property is classified according to Giata.
HOTEL STYLE
Residential Neighborhood
Mountain View
Languages Spoken
English, Chinese, Korean
Location
353, Yeonhui-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03650 South Korea
Name/address in local language
Swiss Grand Hotel
3.9 reviews
Getting there
Somewhat walkable
Places to stay are graded on a 0-100 scale. The higher the grade, the easier it is for travelers to find restaurants and things to do within walking distance.
For guests visiting a company in the northwestern part of Seoul, we booked the hotel to know that the Swiss Grand Hotel is on sale. And we invited guests. But whether you stayed for a long time or a hotel, it was surprisingly unmanaged. The faulty USB connector does not charge the cell phone, the facilities are not very expensive, the hotel is too rough...the minibar is not running...the hotel is not even available as a one-time supplies regulation...the hotel is too old compared to the spacious room...I miss the old fragrance for the reproach. Please resume your stay at the former Swaziland Hotel.
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Automatically translated
Date of stay: December 2024
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Traveled on business
Room Tip:추우니 그것에 대비하세요…
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Perfect hotel for business conferences . It’s rather large (indeed a grand hotel) and spacious which is not what you will find in Seoul! The location is a bit far from the city and with limited options for food. The room was clean, and the bed and linen were comfortable. They don’t have USB or universal power points so you will need a travel adaptor if staying here. Breakfast was lovely and the gym is very well equipped. Staff were very friendly. You can see the hotel is a bit dated but has held onto its grand style .
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Date of stay: February 2024Trip type: Traveled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
My wife and I stayed at the Grand Hilton Seoul (353 Yeonhui-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-710, South Korea) for nine nights from the middle to the latter part of August, 2016. I was attending a conference in the conference center attached to and owned by the hotel; my wife was sightseeing. The staff in this hotel provided some of the best and most thoughtful service of any hotel I have ever stayed in. The hotel itself was quite nice. The hotel’s location has tradeoffs that make its location advantageous from one standpoint, but disadvantageous from another. The one real problem with the hotel is that food in the hotel is extremely expensive compared to the cost of food most anywhere outside the hotel, but accessing food outside the hotel is made somewhat difficult because of the location.
An ordinary taxi from Incheon airport to the hotel costs about 55000 KRW, and takes about 45 minutes. Be aware that there are several different types of taxis, and their rates substantially vary.
I had an injured leg that limited my mobility, and another person in our party was in a wheelchair, so I will also comment on the accessibility aspects of the Grand Hilton. Overall, this hotel did an outstanding job of accommodating people with physical limitations. In fact, the General Manager of the hotel personally spent a great amount of time helping my wife make arrangements to accommodate the travel and sightseeing needs around Seoul of the person in the wheelchair. He was absolutely wonderful, and we were very grateful to him for all of his kindness. It was also apparent that this same attitude of helpfulness to guests, displayed by everyone from the concierge to restaurant personnel and the bellmen, was due to leadership and training that came from the top.
We stayed in an executive room. If there are two or more of you in the room, an executive-floor room is probably the best value. The cost of a regular room plus two breakfasts was about the cost of an executive room. The executive room provided expedited check-in and check-out on the executive (11th) floor; a private concierge who spoke excellent English and was very helpful throughout our stay; and access to the executive lounge. The executive lounge had free soft drinks and water (which were otherwise quite expensive), and a “happy hour” that lasted for about two hours in the evenings. During the happy hour, sufficient food was served that we could make a light dinner out of it, and we often did. There typically was a salad, two meat dishes, and some petit-four types of deserts. The executive lounge also had a couple of computers for guest use, and a printer/copier. A limited number of printed or copied pages could be produced without charge; they were 1000 KRW per page after that. Unfortunately, the corner of the lounge with the computers was very dark, which made it hard to use. Everything on the computers was in Korean, which also made those hard to use.
Note that room prices as quoted were plus 11% tax and 10% service charge. We encountered a problem on check-in that apparently was an issue with the Visa card in Korea. The hotel takes a “guarantee” against your credit card, whereby they reserve sufficient credit on the card (without actually charging the card) to cover the estimated charges for your stay. In Korea, Visa limits this to the equivalent of the charges for five nights. We therefore had to return midway through our stay and go through the process again. I think customers should be warned about this when the reservation is made, or else the requirement should be waived.
Breakfast is normally in the executive lounge. However, we requested and received tickets for breakfast in the Buffet Restaurant on the lower floor of the hotel, where others in our group were also eating. The breakfast there was outstanding. It was a very large buffet, with a wide variety of fresh fruit, and an extensive selection of Western and Asian food. We never found it too crowded, even when the hotel was full, and items on the buffet were promptly replenished.
We did encounter one unpleasantness in the executive lounge on a Saturday evening. We were asked to leave without almost no warning in the middle of the happy hour. We were told that too many people had checked into the executive floor, so they were breaking the happy hour into two segments. Since we hadn’t been told about this in advance and were right in the middle of eating, and I was visiting with some colleagues, it was very upsetting. Worse, the lounge wasn’t even full. Had we been informed of this earlier in the day so that we could have planned accordingly, it might have been OK. As it was, it was unfair and poorly handled. I even noticed that on that evening, the selection of hot dishes consisted of fried cheese sticks and poor-quality French fries, instead of the much nicer dishes we found on all the other nights.
The room we had was nice. It was a good size, with an ample desk area and a comfortable, adjustable, “task” type of chair. There was a small couch and a chair in the room. The king bed was comfortable. The bathroom was large enough, with enough room around the sink to put toiletries. There was a very good walk-in shower. The shower had both a large “rain” head, as well as a handle unit. Hot water was always available, and the pressure was quite good. The door to the bathroom was a large, sliding door. It was a bit awkward to handle, but it worked. The toilet paper dispenser was mounted so that when you were using the toilet you had to reach blindly over your shoulder to get to it, but again, it worked. The closet was relatively large. There were a hair dryer and magnifying makeup mirror in the room, as well as provision for making tea and coffee.
At the desk good, there were two universal outlets, and both wired and wireless Internet were available. The Ethernet cable provided had a broken connector, but that was replaced as soon as requested. It was necessary to log in almost every time you wanted to use the Internet, even though a log-in was supposed to last for 24 hours. If you were an HHonors member, there was no charge for the Internet. The Internet connection was reliable, and the speed was adequate for doing text-based e-mail. However, it was certainly not adequate for streaming video, or for downloading large files. I had no problem sending SMTP or receiving POP3 e-mail, and there seemed to be no restrictions on accessing typical Web sites.
The room air conditioning worked well, and kept the room cool. The thermostat allowed setting the room temperature over a relatively wide range in 0.5 degree-C increments. However, we had difficulty keeping the room at a comfortable temperature, for reasons I couldn’t understand: it was always a bit too cold or a bit too hot. The outlet of the air conditioning was positioned so that it blew directly on someone seated at the desk: a sweater was desirable. Quite often, we woke up around 2:00 am or 3:00 am to discover that the air conditioning had shut off. It would come on again, but I never could find the sensor that was causing it to shut off. I don’t know if this was due to a lack of motion in the room, or something being controlled externally to the room. The temperature in the room each time had risen well above the thermostat setting. Once we got up and moved around, the air conditioning did go on and cooled the room back down. There was a window in the room that could be opened to get fresh air, and it had a screen. However, opening the window caused the air conditioning to shut off.
The lighting in the room consisted of tiny ceiling lights, except for two bedside lamps and a lamp on the desk. The lights in the ceiling were not really adequate to light the room. Except for the bathroom light (which was thankfully controlled by a simple switch), all of the lights in the room were controlled by a single touch panel next to one side of the bed. This was non-intuitive to use, did not have any instructions, and basically only turned all the lights on or off.
The room had a small refrigerator. It came stocked with the usual mini-bar items, at very high prices. However, there was room for us to put our own items in the refrigerator. There was an ice machine down the hall.
The Grand Hilton is located well away from the center of Seoul. It is next to and partway up a hill, which actually has quite a nice green area with trees on it, and there are hiking trails. The hill is very steep. The advantage of the overall location of the hotel is that it is away from the noise and air pollution of the center of the city. This actually is quite a noticeable enhancement. The disadvantage is that it can take a long time to get to many of the tourist sights from the hotel. For example, it took more than a half hour to go from the hotel by taxi to the Korean National Museum. The hotel is about one and one-half to two city blocks up a hill with a slope of about 30 degrees from the nearest area where there are any stores or restaurants. If you exit the entry driveway at the front of the hotel and walk down the hill for about 1000 feet (300 meters), going under the expressway, there is a 7-Eleven. Next door is a barbeque restaurant. However, walking back up that hill would be very difficult if you are not in good shape. If you turn left at the 7-Eleven and walk about an additional 2000 feet (600 meters), you’ll come to Tongil-Ro street, the major street. Continuing directly across this street is a Lotte supermarket (it is well to the back of the store that faces this street). This supermarket has Mountain Dew! Continuing to the right on Tongil-Ro leads to a McDonald’s, a pizza place, a KFC, a number of Korean restaurants, and the Hongje subway station. There is an elevator giving access to the Hongje station at the Number 4 entrance to the station, on the southwest side of the street (on the right-hand side of the street as you are walking away from the Grand Hilton). A taxi from the Grand Hilton to the Hongje station costs about 3000 KRW. It takes about five to 10 minutes to get a taxi at the hotel, and taxis going back to the hotel are easy to catch on the street outside the station. It is a five-minute drive from the Hilton to Hongje station.
The Hilton does have a complementary shuttle bus that runs a route from the hotel by the Hongje station and to downtown Seoul. However, the shuttle runs only every two hours or so.
We were told by the General Manager of the Grand Hilton that he used to be a chef, and that he takes the safety of the guests at his hotel personally. He said that he made regular inspections of the restaurants around the hotel, and insisted that they maintain hygienic practices or he would report them to the authorities. He didn’t want his guests getting sick. As a result, he felt it was safe for us to eat at the restaurants around the hotel.
The conference facilities were excellent.
As mentioned, the only real disadvantage of this hotel is the cost of meals inside the hotel. The food is excellent, but expensive. Dinner at one of the restaurants is typically 75,000 to 140,000 KRW per person, without alcohol. It would be difficult to find lunch for less than 30,000 to 40,000 KRW, if that. If there was just one lower-cost option for food, this would be an amazing hotel. This one disadvantage aside, the service and caring attitude toward guests are outstanding.
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Date of stay: August 2016
Rooms
Cleanliness
Service
Trip type: Traveled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
the hotel was clean and comfortable. we cam in late at night and only had one night there. our child wanted to sleep in late but we were able to keep entertained and fed in the lobby while we split up. the taxi ride was easy and overall i like this place and would stay if i was in Korea for a short or long visit - this time was 23 hours - just the max time ot have a layover but no charge!
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Date of stay: July 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from SwissGrandHotel_MKT, 제너럴 매니저 at Swiss Grand Hotel
Responded Jan 29, 2020
Dear hellofloyd, First of all, Thank you for staying at Swiss Grand Hotel and we are more than pleased to know that you had a comfortable and satisfactory stay. We would like to happily serve you once again and express our appreciation for leaving your valuable comment
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Checked in yesterday evening feeling stressed and tired after a long flight from London. Felt instantly revived to find the Swiss Grand Hotel was large, slightly glitzy but welcoming and the staff extremely courteous and helpful. Pleased this will be my base for a week while I attend a weeklong conference in Seoul. My thanks to the conference organisers for selecting this hotel.
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Date of stay: February 2020Trip type: Traveled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from SwissGrandHotel_MKT, 제너럴 매니저 at Swiss Grand Hotel
Responded Feb 2, 2020
Dear Rita P First of all, Thank you for staying at Swiss Grand Hotel and we are more than pleased to know that you had a comfortable and satisfactory stay. We would like to happily serve you once again and express our appreciation for leaving your valuable comment
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Not a convienient location if you must spend most of time in either business district or tourist area. There is shuttle bus service to two major areas nearby. Also, not easy to access from the airport if you are travelling via limousine bus as you will have to walk up the hill to check in.
Arrived via taxi. There was no doorman at all. I had 3 bags with me but two bell attendants did not offer assistance. Actually, they did not even greet. Hotel did not look busy at all.
Check in was not accepted as hotel standard check in is 3pm. No other benefits or flexibility for Hilton Honours members. Compared with most hotel chain brand including Hilton, standard check-in time is late and most of chain hotels would allow check-in earlier if they had room on arrival. Front desk did not even offer to finish the check-in procees first at least I do not have to line up again when I come back at 3pm. They do not seem to be working towards making guest journey easier and convienient.
I went down to fitness club to relax at the sauna while waiting for a room. It was -11, coldest day this year. Again, no flexibility at all and I actually think they are not so interested in maximizing daily revenue for the hotel. Fully understand that it is chargable which is very common in hotels across Japan and Korea. For in-house guest, it was offered at the discounted rate of KRW22,000 compared to normal price of KRW33,000. I mentioned that I completed registration process and wish to relax while waiting for my room. I also suggested fitness receptionist to call front desk. It was rejected and they need to see room key for the discount. Yes, no hospitality and flexibity in this hotel. I thought Hilton's brand slogan is "We are hospitality". Well, non-sense and standard is standard.
Room was generally okay apart from smoking smell. Called service express twice but no one picked up. Just went around the corridor to borrow air freshner and housekeeping staff did not speak English and Korean. Had to use body language to communicate. Well, cannot even speak local language at the 5 star hotel? Not acceptable. I wonder how they will communicate and train them properly.
Full of dusts around the TV and clothing rack. Found a hair on the bed.
Put the air temperature to 23degrees and for 20 hours I stayed in the room, temperature never reached 23 and it was cold in the night.
Check out as normal. Generally, front desk agents and guest service agents are quite rude and not professional. This hotel is generally worse than double tree hotels in service.
The only staff who smiled with genuine hospitality and service from this hotel was a gentleman who took us down to limousine bus station. Greatly appreciated. Without him, I would rate this hotel at terrible status. A person like him makes difference and shoule be recognized and appreciated.
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Date of stay: December 2018Trip type: Traveled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from GrandHiltonSeoul_MKT, 제너럴 매니저 at Swiss Grand Hotel
Responded Dec 13, 2018
Dear NamidA88, First of all, thank you for staying at Grand Hilton Seoul. We are deeply sorry for your unsatisfactory stay during staying at the Grand Hilton Seoul. We shared your comment with related departments and will do improve the insufficiency. We would like to happily serve you once again and express our appreciation for leaving your valuable comment. Bernhard Brender General Manager
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We tried to check-in early. We knew it was a long shot and were told we had to wait. I was traveling with 16 teenagers, so we asked to pay to feed them since their breakfast was still going on. We were told since we were not guests, we could not do that. After I made it clear that we were about to drop thousands of dollars at their hotel, they allowed us to pay the $25 to eat cold food. Since we needed to go eat lunch too, some of us tried to exchange money at the front desk. Once again, we were denied because we were not guests yet. There were other schools staying there for the conference and were not given any help ordering pizza for their group (initially being told that they could not do it). Finally there were many errors made by the reservation and front desk regarding our bill. We were made to feel that it was ALL our fault, even when we walked them through all the written communication that clearly showed they had made the error. I know that Asian culture one does not want to lose face, but when you are in the service industry you also need to think about costumer service.
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Review collected in partnership with Hilton Hotels & Resorts
Date of stay: November 2019
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Traveled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from GrandHiltonSeoul_MKT, 제너럴 매니저 at Swiss Grand Hotel
Responded Nov 18, 2019
Dear Harding2096, First of all, thank you for staying at Grand Hilton Seoul. We are deeply sorry for your unsatisfactory stay during staying at the Grand Hilton Seoul. We shared your comment with related departments and will do improve the insufficiency. We would like to happily serve you once again and express our appreciation for leaving your valuable comment.
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Before i forgot my currently several stays at Grand Hilton Seoul, I decided to review my stays at this property.
As a Hilton diamond member who is pursuing approximately 30 stays at 'only' hilton property, I recommend, except happy hour at its EFL, this property because of its distinctive atmosphere and its devout staffs.
First, this property has unique mood which holds its 90s-retro-atmosphere, remaining at its architectural design and even lounge bars. I think that it makes a marketing distinction from other hilton properties which primarily follow upscale luxurious mood. Also, It is well-fitted with its surrounding old town: Hongeun-dong.
Second, this property has great treasure like Ms. Mia Kim (MinJun Kim). When I checked in at EFL, Ms. Kim gave me a scrupulous care with her benign manner. I felt like She was truly openning her ears for my personal requests. Recently, since I visited Conrad NY, I thought that her attitude level must be reached to that of Conrad in U.S.
However, in spite of these advantsges, this property has still stumbling blocks for Hilton Diamond members because of their 'passive' executive lounge management. In comparison to its past 2017 executive lounge, the decrease in food and beverage service leads us hesitate to choose this property again. With its rice soup, even though 'recently' the lounge manager strives to add one more hot food at its happy hour, it may not enough to satisfy the humble desire of hilton diamond members who expected at least three hot foods because this property labelled 'hilton' on its name (in Eastern Asia)! Generally, we may not need expensive hot food but instead even cheap meat balls are positively acceptable.
If this property can enahnce the happy hour scrupulously in near future, I am ready to stay at least 10 times for 2019 and to advertise this to other true hilton diamond members in Korea.
I hope that I can revisit this hotel with my pleasure!
Choi
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Date of stay: April 2019Trip type: Traveled solo
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Response from GrandHiltonSeoul_MKT, 제너럴 매니저 at Swiss Grand Hotel
Responded May 1, 2019
Dear seokhwanc2018, First of all, thank you for staying at Grand Hilton Seoul and we are more than pleased to know that you had a comfortable and satisfactory stay. We would like to happily serve you once again and express our appreciation for leaving your valuable comment. Bernhard Brender General Manager
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Stayed at the newly renovated executive floor. Overall, hotel itself is good, service is recommedable. However, the location is really way off. Its in the middle of nowhere with no restaurants within walking distance. I am in korea for a business trip, so really it doesnt matter. However, if you are here on leisure, then probably would not want to choose this hotel. location is far from Myeong Dong, the shopping area and also from MRT station.
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Date of stay: April 2012
Value
Rooms
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Traveled on business
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Old, badly maintance, room is very old, bed is very hard, pillow is not comfortable. Receptionist very rude, no eye contact when answering quentions. We requested a connecting room as we are travelling with young children but the receptionist simply answer "No more room!" without even checking her computer. We later call the manager and she immediately change us to a connecting room. The next moring we found the the coffee shop was only 1/3 full - so how can they have a full house if the coffee shop was not full. The whole hotel was also very empty !!! This Hotel location is off from major attraction and shopping area. Stay at other Hotel when visit S
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Date of stay: October 2010
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia88 contributions94 helpful votes
I was in Grand Hilton for Expo on September 2018, there's 2 routes for the shuttle bus and different timing. They stops at multiple train station but i mostly stop at Itaewon where 1 or 2 station away from Seoul Station cause Seoul station too big and confusing. You can find the map in my profile.
Hope it helps!
There are more places to choose from in the Seoul area.
PRICE RANGE
$105 - $158 (Based on Average Rates for a Standard Room)
ALSO KNOWN AS
grand hilton seoul hotel seoul, hilton international seoul, hilton seoul, seoul hilton
FORMERLY KNOWN AS
Grand Hilton Seoul
LOCATION
South KoreaSeoulSeodaemun / Hongeun-dong
NUMBER OF ROOMS
396
Prices are the average nightly price provided by our partners and may not include all taxes and fees. Taxes and fees that are shown are estimates only. Please see our partners for more details.
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