This hotel is situated on a forest covered headland overlooking Haeundae beach (Korea's Bondi or Waikiki) in the countries second lagest city, Busan. The hotel location is very nice and it is the only hotel in Haeundai which is actually on the beach. All the others are across the road.

Check-in. This was both my first stay as gold preffered guest and my first stay at a Westin so I was pretty excited. At check-in we were upgraded to a SPG club floor executive room(but with no club access). The check-in service was quick and efficent. When we got to the room I relized I had left my SPG card at the desk. 30 seconds later it was delivered to my room whithout my having to ask.

The room. Our executive room looked out over the small habour behind the hotel. The more expensive ones have beach rooms. Executive rooms comes with a PC with highspeed internet access. This was a good bonus because the selection of TV channels was very poor so the PC gave us something else to do. The room furnishings were stylish and seemed relativly new. The beds were comfortable and the massaging toilet seat complete with blowdryer was certainly a novelty. The only negative, other than the TV channel selection was that the room was little warm and the air-conditioning didn't help that much.

The food. The room service menu was expensive. My cheeseburger and chips was KRW 21000 or about USD23.00. It was yummy though! The mini-bar was suprisingly cheap however. The alcoholic drinks were only about twice the price as 7-11 as opposed to the usual 5 or 6 times.

The pool and sauna. Our rate included access to the indoor heated pool and the gym and sauna. The pool looks out over the beach and was not at all crowded. They do make you wear swimming caps for some reason. The sauna was much the same as any korean sauna. Remember you have to go completely naked at the sauna in Korea which can take a little getting use to.

Overall. The hotel was very nice really. Even though it was very busy on the weekend of our stay service standards were kept high and were given all of the gold SPG benefits. Most of my luxury hotel stays have been in South East Asia so it seemed very expensive to me but isn't compared to other hotels in Korea. Our rate was around USD $175.00 inc tax and service.

Review submitted by camsean73.

Posted at April 5, 2007 10:16 PM