Review: Millennium Hilton Seoul

Introduction: Finding my Seoul-mate
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Review: Conrad Seoul
Review: Millennium Hilton Seoul
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Review: Hilton Tokyo
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After a great month of living in the cramped hostel room, I felt the need to treat myself to another night at a hotel before leaving Seoul. As the Conrad was too expensive, I decided on the Millennium Hilton Seoul to leverage on the Hilton double points promo. It was also a better option as it is located right opposite (sort of) Seoul station, which was where I took the train to Seoul Gimpo airport via the Airport Railroad.

If you are going to the hotel from Seoul station, it is quite a long walk uphill so I recommend taking a taxi if you’re arriving with huge bags. There is a shuttle bus available to the hotel but I’m not exactly sure how to describe where to find the location. The best I can say is that it is at the back entrance to the Arex side of Seoul station at the open-air carpark.

The lobby of the hotel was huge and felt impressive for some reason.

I arrived at the hotel just past noon and thankfully I was allowed to check-in. I booked the lead-in King Bed room and was upgraded to a 1-Bedroom Executive King Suite. As a Hilton Honors Diamond member, I also had access to the Executive Lounge and was given the option of breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant.

Fun-fact (well not really), when checking in I bumped into the SQ crew who were getting ready to depart for Seoul Incheon, probably to operate SQ609 back to Singapore. If I was flying out on SQ the next day, I might have asked nicely with puppy eyes if I could have hitched a ride to the airport. 😉

What’s interesting about this hotel is that it features two executive lounges on levels 19 and 21 which are…exactly the same. From the decor to the food, both lounges are carbon copies of each other.

Warning, first world problem rant ahead. The Millennium Hilton Seoul has long corridors, and suites are located at the corners of the building which meant a very long walk from the lift lobby to my room. Urgh.

After what seems like forever, I finally reached the end of the corridor and the entrance to my suite. The hotel still uses the ancient magnetic stripe keycards where you have to insert and pull out the card from the reader. So sadly, Digital Key isn’t available here.

Entering the suite, the bathroom is to the left of the entrance and a closet was to the right. The suite itself was pretty decent and I had no major complaints.

Okay fine, if I had one major complaint it was that the bathroom of the hotel was still the shower-tub combo which I hate. The toilet was thankfully equipped with a bidet.

Bath amenities are Crabtree & Evelyn branded which is the new brand standard for most Hilton’s and DoubleTree by Hilton branded hotels.

The living area is pretty big and had a nice comfortable sofa. It also had decent views of Namsan Tower.

The cupboard that you see in the pictures is actually where the mini-bar and in-room safe is hidden. Along with more overpriced goods which you can get at much cheaper prices at the emart across the road.

There was a work desk in the living room but sadly, no universal power outlets can be found near it.

The bedroom of the suite is fairly big but it does not have an attached toilet. Meaning I had to walk out to the bathroom in the middle of the night to pee. Urgh.

The bed was comfortable and wasn’t too firm yet it wasn’t too soft either to me. Beside the bed were two bottles of complimentary water.

The in-room telephone was pretty old and the television remote looks like something out of the mid-2000s. I appreciated that there was a universal power outlet beside the bed instead of the two-pin ones.

After chilling in the room for a bit, I headed up to the executive lounges for a drink before I went to Myeongdong to meet my friends. The lounge was of a decent size and had plenty of seating with good views.

A small selection of biscuits are available throughout the day along with bar snacks (i.e pretzels)

The coconut cookies were actually pretty great and I ate at least 10 of them in one sitting. Oops. Drinks in the lounge were self-serve and alcohol is only available during evening cocktails.

I really like a lounge which has bottled water as this means I can just pop by the lounge to grab a bottle of water before heading out to explore the city.

As it was raining pretty badly that day, here’s a foggy view of Namsan Tower.

The facade of the hotel is pretty grey (well brown actually) and staring up at it made me feel smol. 

After an afternoon of retail therapy (read: purchasing snacks), I headed back to the hotel for evening cocktails. The spread at the lounge was actually pretty good and I chose to make it my dinner that evening. The soy chicken was excellent and the fried rice, decent. A small salad-ish option was also available.

The alcohol selection during evening cocktails was also pretty decent.

One cool thing I saw in the lounge was that the coffee machine had an option to increase the intensity of the coffee it was making. That was a godsend as I had tons of snacks to pack that night.

The next morning, I had the choice of breakfast in either the lounge or the hotel’s restaurant. As the restaurant always has a larger spread, I decided to head there first for round 1 of breakfast. The spread was good enough for me and the coffee in the restaurant was excellent.

The Eggs Benedict was actually pretty decent…although the muffin was replaced with puff pastry. As mentioned earlier, there is a barista in the restaurant and man did he make me an excellent cappucinno. Bottled juices were also available in the fridge.

After finishing round 1, I headed to the lounge to check out the offerings there (and to stuff my face again). The spread in the lounge was actually pretty decent but sadly, coffee was only from the machine. If you need a solid coffee to kickstart your morning, I highly recommend going straight to the restaurant for your caffeine fix. Breakfast in the lounge is definitely quieter though.

After breakfast, I went to check the gym out. The gym was big and had pretty much all the equipment you need for a good workout. The swimming pool is indoors and just beside the gym. An indoor driving range (small one) can also be found beside the gym.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I had a good stay at the Millennium Hilton Seoul. Although the rooms were slightly dated in my opinion (seriously, bathtub-shower combo?), they were still comfortable with no major wear and tear visible.

The lounge was pretty good in my opinion and I preferred the spread they were offering at evening cocktails at the Hilton over the Conrad. Breakfast was also pretty decent but not as great as that at the Conrad. I’d highly recommend this hotel if you are catching an early flight due to its proximity to the Arex at Seoul station.