L’Escape Hotel Seoul advertises itself as a pet friendly hotel in Seoul. It has a whole page on the website stating how it is pet friendly. Providing goodies in the room etc. However, from my experience, this is very much a pets allowed hotel and not really pet friendly at all.
The website has a whole page dedicated to it being pet friendly. So I didn’t really think much of it to be honest. Usually I’m a stickler for checking out all the minor details but this time I didn’t. Big mistake!
Pet Fee
When booking the room I noticed that the rate I booked included the pet fee so I didn’t really think much of it. However, when I actually checked, the pet fee was 100,000 KWN (US$76) PER NIGHT! This is something I would never usually pay and was the same price as we paid for the whole room for us 2 humans! Not only that, we didn’t even get any cleaning during our stay. So how they can charge a pet fee per night when they aren’t even cleaning the room is crazy. If that wasn’t bad enough, the hotel seem to have some deal with Dyson and they even had the cheek to leave a Dyson vacuum in the room. As if I was going to be vacuuming the room before leaving after having paid such a ridiculous fee already. No thank you.
You do get a pet bed and some dog food and treats for the pet fee, so at least that’s something. Although I don’t usually eat other food in case it upsets my tummy.
Pet Policy
Upon check in we were handed the pet policy of the hotel. This isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website (that I could find anyway). Nor was it mentioned upon booking. Most of the terms are standard, such as no excessive barking, pick up after your dog etc. However, the one that stood out to me was that dogs aren’t allowed to be left unattended in the room. This as you all know is a game changer for me. I don’t understand how any hotel can be pet friendly but not allow pets to be left unattended in the room. How are you supposed to have breakfast? How are you supposed to go for dinner? We were told we could order room service…. erm I don’t come on holiday to sit and order room service!
We asked for pet friendly restaurant recommendations nearby and were told the nearest was a 20 minutes taxi ride away. Or we could eat in ONE of the hotel restaurants, the Chinese restaurant (who comes to Korea to eat Chinese food?!) but we’d have to have a minimum spend of 200,000 KWN (US$150) for the privilege of allowing me in. No thank you.
They tried to say it was for the dogs safety. But surely the owner has to be responsible for the safety?! I’m totally fine to pay a deposit in case of any damage and also fine to agree to be within a 10 minute walk of the hotel in case of excessive barking (which we all know I’m a good boy so wouldn’t be an issue) but come on, pets safety?! Give over.
The Room
The hotel and the room itself was pretty nice actually. It’s designed in French style so has a boujois feel to it with lots of deep dark colours. The pet rooms all have wooden floors for ease of cleaning I guess. The bed was nicely decorated and it had nice amenities.
Conclusion
I’d say that L’Escape Hotel Seoul should say that it’s pets allowed rather than pet friendly. I don’t think you can say you are pet friendly when you don’t allow pets in the restaurants and then say they can’t be left unaccompanied in the room. As well as the high fee that was the same price as the room rate I don’t see any reason to choose to stay here with a dog.
The hotel on a whole was nice though and if we travelled without a dog, then I would have enjoyed my stay here. So if you are petless then it could still be a nice option as it’s directly at the subway station so it’s convenient too.
Whilst we didn’t have the best experience at L’Escape Hotel Seoul, we did enjoy Korea as a whole. If you want to take your dog with you to South Korea, check out my post on importing your dog to Korea here.
If you’ve stayed in any pet friendly hotels in Seoul, let me know in the comments below.
Don’t forget to check out my Amazon store (affiliate link) which has all the details all of my recommended products I use then travelling. You can check it out here.
Woof woof, Wylie x
If any of my travel tips help, please feel free to leave a small donation which would be greatly appreciated 😊