Hotel Review: Gyeongju Park Tourist Hotel

Prior to my trip to Gyeongju, I had read numerous posts online about how convenient the location of this hotel was, so I decided to book 2 nights at this property.

Well, the hotel is definitely conveniently located, as it is only a minute’s walk from the Gyeongju Express Bus Terminal, and approximately 5 minutes to a busy street lined with people, street vendors, and odd sights to see.  Most importantly, it is located only about a 7 minute walk to the entrance of the Tumuli Tombs, the start of an entire area of sights.

Aside from the great location, there really isn’t much else to praise this hotel on.  We arrived late at night and the man at the front desk rudely asked us to pay for the 2 nights we were there before he would give us the key to the room. Paying first wasn’t a problem, as many hotels in Asia seem to require this. However, it was the attitude of the employee that didn’t sit too well with us.  After everything was settled, he pointed us in the direction of the stairs, where we had to lug two large suitcases up 2 flights of stairs, as there were no elevators, which made it a bit inconvenient.

When we finally got into our room, we were pleasantly surprised to find a computer with free internet in the room.  However, the pleasantness stopped there.  The bathroom looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the 70s, consisting of blue walls and dark green tiles everywhere. There was no shower curtain, so the entire bathroom pretty much got wet when we turned on the water, but I guess this is quite common of Asia.  There was also a very loud noise every time we turned on the sink.  Our beds were so old that we could feel the springs against our backs all night.

The next day we came back from sightseeing around 7:00pm to find our rooms completely untouched.  I guess maid service doesn’t happen at this hotel. But the worst part of this experience happened when we got back to our rooms and all of a sudden, an older man opens the door and walks into our room. When he sees us, he turns around and leaves before shutting the door. Of course, I went right out to the hall to see who he was and what he was doing in our room.

It turned out that he was an employee of the hotel and there were actually two men out  in the hallway.  The second man (the one who did not bolt into our room) held out some towels and asked us if we needed some towels and said that the first guy was just trying to bring us towels.  They acted like nothing happened and it was no big deal and didn’t apologize for bolting into our room even when the do not disturb sign was hanging on the door outside.
In summary, I would recommend staying away from this place. If I had to do it again, I would have rather spent more money and stayed somewhere else. The hotel was cheap and the computer in the room was a great bonus, but there’s no way I would do it again.  Aside from the location, everything about this hotel was horrible.
Gyeongju Park Tourist Hotel
Address: 170-1 Noseo-dong, Gyeongju-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea