As part of a 3 week South Korea trip, I also stayed 5 days in Jeju island. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Jeju hotel, the largest Hyatt hotel in Asia-Pacific. The hotel features 1,600 rooms and suites, 13 restaurants, and a casino. Please read my review to learn what it’s like staying at this huge Grand Hyatt Hotel in Jeju.
Jeju Island
Before talking about the hotel, let me first talk about Jeju Island itself. Jeju island is a volcanic island approximately the same size as Maui. It’s located south of the mainland of South Korea and roughly an hour’s flight from Busan and Seoul. Jeju used to be very popular with Korean tourists and was a prime location for honeymooners. Jeju has some beautiful beaches, UNESCO sites and natural waterfalls. This also attracted me to Jeju. However, Jeju also has some other sites.
The first thing you notice when you walk the streets of Jeju is the litter everywhere. The contrast with Seoul and Busan is shocking because both Seoul and Busan are really clean cities. Besides the litter, there is a surge in local crime. I didn’t notice this myself but Jeju residents think that the foreigner-only casinos are responsible for this.
In South Korea, gambling is prohibited and most casinos only admit foreign nationals. Jeju island has 8 foreigner-only casinos and the Grand Hyatt Jeju is one of them.
It quickly becomes clear that Jeju is 100% catered to Chinese tourists. Chinese tourists do need a visa when they want to visit South Korea, but Jeju offers visa-free access to Chinese tourists. When walking the streets you regularly see signs of ‘Alipay’ and ‘WePay’ and certain restaurants and shops mainly cater to Chinese tourists having only Chinese signs outside.
In 2024, 68% of all foreign tourists were Chinese, followed by Taiwanese tourists. This number is likely to increase and this is raising concerns by residents that Jeju island is becoming a “Chinese Island”. For all the above reasons, as well as reported rip off food prices, the number of domestic, Korean tourists is dramatically dropping.
I wanted to mention this because when staying at the Grand Hyatt Jeju and walking the streets in Jeju, I felt more that I was in China than in South Korea.
The Grand Hyatt Jeju
When you enter the hotel for the first time, it feels more like a hotel in Macau (or Las Vegas) with the big covered car entrance area.
Check-in is quick and efficient though. Even though as a globalist I can also check in at the 6th floor – at the Hyatt Club Lounge – the check-in in the lobby area is just as efficient. I used a suite upgrade voucher for this stay and as a result we got a 130M2 suite with a separate bedroom, living space, walk-in closet, and bathroom with a huge island bathtub.
Suite Grand Hyatt Jeju
Our suite was at the 34th floor (the hotel has 38 floors), and this provided excellent views of the North site of the island. More impressive than the view, was the suite itself. A grand living room, tastefully decorated, is the first thing you see when you enter the suite. Decoration looks more like a Park Hyatt and the bathroom and walk-in closet don’t disappoint either. On the contrary. This might be the nicest suite of all Hyatt hotels we ever stayed in. And this includes Park Hyatt hotels in Doha, Dubai, Chicago, and Zurich. Really very impressive.
Of course, in the bedroom there is a big, comfortable king bed. Both the bedroom and living room have a huge, 75-inch Samsung flat-screen television.
The sofa in the living room can be transformed into a single bed and on top of that, a rollaway bed can be placed in the living room.
130M2 is really big for a hotel suite and this suite proved the perfect room for our family.
The Grand Club
As a globalist, I got access to the lounge. There were no age restrictions, and thus besides breakfast, we could all enjoy Tea & Snacks between 14:30 and 16:30 as well as Evening Cocktails between 17:30 and 19:30. Club Access is also granted when booking this as part of specific rooms such as suites.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that also the Lounge is grand. It has a capacity of more than 200 people and this makes it the biggest Hyatt Lounge in the Asia Pacific.
The breakfast offering is very average though; limited selection of fruit, pastries and other offerings. But this is made up by the selection of food during the Evening Cocktail hours. Every day of the week, a different offering of food and snacks and that makes access to the Club Lounge a very worthy benefit.
Conclusion
Jeju island has some fantastic sights. The OSulloc Tea Museum should also be mentioned. Even though it was packed when we visited the Museum, it was definitely worth visiting. And I loved the cake!
Our stay at the Grand Hyatt Jeju was simply perfect. Our suite was excellent and the lounge was a nice place the hang out and enjoy some drinks and food in the evening. Special shout out to Jay Jeong, who made sure we enjoyed our stay and provided us with some complimentary macarons which were great! It’s a pity my wife ate almost all of them!
Leave a Reply