Park Hyatt Busan

We were given the Ocean View Family Suite, and when we entered, my wife and I both agreed the view was fantastic — a sprawling panoramic view of the Gwangan Bridge from the bedroom. Wake up and just admire it. The room makes good use of the space available: there's a good path from the door to the bedroom, with the living room and the bathrooms on the way. There wasn't much wasted space, and most of the walls had some kind of decoration or art. They really tried to incorporate the feeling of being in Korea, and specifically Busan, with some traditional art pieces.

There is no shortage of natural lighting, and I personally enjoy the dark ambient artificial lighting at night. The walls felt pretty well soundproofed — I didn't hear anyone in the hallways. Storage was abundant, with a wardrobe and hangers for coats or shirts. Finish quality was high, though some pieces felt a bit tired, like the furniture.

My only real complaint is that parts of the room felt a little strange. There are pillars with mirrors covering each side, presumably to make the space feel bigger and to reflect the gorgeous view. They did get in the way at times, making it hard to move through the living room or even get out of bed. That said, I do think the room was the highlight of my stay.

I really like the bathrooms at the Park Hyatt Busan. While they didn't have a complete spa vibe, they did feel very comfortable, modern, and clean. The bidets are modern and automatic, and most of the material is marble. Drainage from the showers was very good, and I really liked the bath — it reminded me of the baths I would take in the onsens in Hakone. Robes, slippers, and toiletries are all on point, and ventilation after a hot shower was very good. Absolutely no problems with water pressure or temperature.

The beds felt very comfortable. My wife and I both had a relaxing, recharging sleep. The blackout curtains and the light curtains worked very well and were automatic. I didn't hear the HVAC at all, and there were no hallway or neighboring noises to wake me up at night. Temperature and humidity in the room were solid, if not perfect.

Absolutely no problems with the tech implementation in this room. Wi-Fi was fast and available to high-tier members. There were USB and USB-C charging outlets, placed at both sides of the bed — very convenient locations. There was automation for the lighting and the curtains, and it could be controlled mostly from the bed. A nice little Park Hyatt touch I appreciate is that there's almost always a TV visible from the bath, so if you want to watch your favorite show while relaxing in the tub, you can.

I thought the pool was really pretty here. The gym was pretty well stocked, and the spa was complimentary to Hyatt Globalist members but $40 entrance otherwise. There was a lounge of sorts, but really it was more like a bar. Overall, what it had was pretty good, but there wasn't anything over the top that would make you say "wow."

To get to the lobby you have to take one or two elevators, depending on where you're coming from. From the parking lot that's two elevators, and it can be pretty confusing your first time up. From the front entrance it's one elevator and slightly less confusing. The materials used in the lobby and public spaces were very beautiful — either granite or marble, and the cut of the stone gave a feeling of luxury and elegance.

I've read some reviews of the property where people disliked the lighting, feeling it was too dark. I personally enjoyed it; I think the darkness gives a sense of elevated luxury, though at times it was too dark to see where you were going — an unintended feature, I'm sure. While I didn't feel the public spaces incorporated much Korean or Busan design philosophy, the general design is consistent throughout the hotel and with many other Park Hyatts. As far as I can tell there wasn't a signature scent or music, though I did see them selling a signature scent; I wasn't sure whether they just weren't pumping it that day or it was too subtle for me to smell.

Overall there was pretty good upkeep in the hotel. I didn't notice any obvious scratches or scuffs. The furniture is a little old and dated — that might just be the design of the furniture itself, but I wasn't the biggest fan. The bathroom had high-quality finishes throughout and felt like a true high-end hotel. Housekeeping did a good job as well, and I didn't particularly notice any uncleaned or unmanaged areas.

If you're staying in Busan, this is a prime spot. You could argue that being on Haeundae Beach is a better location, but you'd be sacrificing the panoramic view of the Gwangan Bridge, which I thought was one of the highlights of the stay. Either way, it was only a 10 to 15 minute walk to Haeundae Beach, so not too bad.

Check-in here was probably the worst part of this hotel, and it really got us off to a bad start. From the parking lot it was hard to figure out where we needed to go. We took the wrong elevator the first time, going to the fourth floor instead of the proper check-in on the thirtieth. What's strange is that there was a separate check-in desk on the fourth floor and I don't know its exact purpose — the fourth floor does contain the gym, sauna, and spa, so maybe it was check-in for those. Either way, they seemed to notice we were lost, holding six pieces of luggage, and didn't bother directing us to the right place.

We had to go all the way back to the first floor, figure out the right elevators, and take those up to the thirtieth. From there the process was pretty good — a standard check-in, with a front desk clerk who was nice and helpful and accommodated our request for an early breakfast delivered to the door. They didn't assist us with our luggage to the room, which is usually standard at a high-end hotel.

I don't have anything bad to say about the service — it just wasn't particularly outstanding. Everyone was generally nice, but they didn't go out of their way to help us. The one thing they did really well: we needed to leave the hotel by 4:30am and couldn't make breakfast, so we asked for an early breakfast delivered to our room, which they happily organized. It arrived at 4:30 sharp, packaged very nicely and ready to take to the airport. That really saved the service score.

There was nothing here that was over-the-top good in terms of service, but I did appreciate that when we told them we had to leave very early in the morning, they accommodated us by leaving a fully packed breakfast by our doorstep at exactly the time we asked. Very impressive.

Generally done pretty well. We didn't notice any huge operational flaws besides what happened on arrival. Elevators were all in service and decently fast, given they have to run up and down thirty floors. We didn't have a chance to experience housekeeping since we left after one night.

Unfortunately we were unable to fully experience the housekeeping, so this score is incomplete — but the room was very clean when we entered.

We were unable to experience the full breakfast spread since we had to leave before 6am, but we did receive a packed breakfast to-go at our doorstep. The packed food was very neatly presented and consisted of pastries and fruit. My brother-in-law took a picture of the actual buffet breakfast and had good things to say about it, though neither he nor my sister-in-law raved about it.

The hotel wasn't crowded, though there were bottlenecks at times, namely at the elevators due to the peculiar design. The pool was also quite popular, which I noticed every time I walked by even though I never used it myself. The lobby could be busy at times, but luckily the top-floor lounge and restaurants had seating available pretty much always.

Easy checkout experience. We were not offered help with our luggage, unfortunately, which was a shame since it was already so difficult to exit the premises — let alone with four large suitcases.