We booked the 3 bedroom suite on the website http://www.worldhotel.co.kr/ For what we paid, I would give Vabien I a thumbs up. I do not think I can find another spacious apartment as such to accommodate my family of 5 for that price in Seoul.

I disagree about the furniture being dated, I think it's just the design. The kitchen was well equipped with diswasher, microwave, and a HUGE fridge. The washing machine had a dryer function but you will still need to hang the clothes out to dry for at least 12 hrs for them to dry completely. Do bring / buy your own laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid and a few more hangers. The Master bedroom had a queen bed & the other 2 rooms had a super single bed each. The master bathroom had a steam jacuzzi function which was fantastic for keeping warm while showering during winter. The ondol floor heating system was amazing. After placing our suitcases (with our clothes inside) on the floor for 2-3 days, our clothes were still warm 20 hours later (including a 6 hr flight) when we returned home. The windows were made from big pieces of glass, which gave wonderful views of the city.

The only grouse was that we were told that housekeeping only comes on Sundays, and even then, it was very basic. We were also missing chopsticks in the otherwise well-equipped kitchen.

Apologies, do not have any pictures of the large living room to show.

i recently stayed at vabien 1 with my family. The main reason i chose this hotel was because of the price and the fact that it was a serviced apartment. The hotel was reasonably priced and the location is quite central. City hall is within walking distance and there is a metro located just a few minutes walk away from the hotel.

The rooms itself were just ok. The rooms aren't the nicest you could find but it was clean and had all the basic necessities. A plus is that the rooms are big so our stay there was comfortable. One complain i have is that the bed sheets while were not dirty were slightly yellowed so that was a turn off for me. The furniture is also slightly old and worn but clean.

Regarding the service, we hardly required any so i can't comment much on this. the little interaction we had with the staff, they were definitely polite and were helpful when we asked for directions. The staff even printed us a map showing us the way to our destination. one important thing to note is that the hotel basically charge for extra things. we requested for a couple more pillows and blankets and were told that we had to pay.

I definitely would not compare it with a five star hotel, but for the price you're paying, it is definitely worth it.

Here is an email I sent to Vabien and there was no reply, I sent is by post and handed it into the reception by hard copy

Dont bother!


Dear Toby

We have stayed with you in Vabien for the last 2 months and we wanted to let you have some observations about our stay with which we were not satisfied

As you will recall when I checked in I had a list of items that needed to be done. Many of those were related to poor housekeeping and a few for maintenance. To the day we checked out this list was never completed and if I did not push you many of the items which were done, would not have been done.
We found some jewellery and a babies original birth certficate / medical papers in two separate occasions when we first moved into 1505. We handed these to reception and asked to be kept nformed if you found the original and rightful owner. We have never received any reply.
We used your driver Mr. Lee in the jumbo van to go to the airport but as my children have asthma we found it difficult as the van was always smelling of cigarette smoke. I complained to reception that this was a public guest bus and there should be no smoking. Then we tried again and there was no differnence. I also asked Mr :Lee about the smoking but nothing changed. I was taken to my office each morning and even in 15 minutes my clothes were smelling of smoke. Mr. Lee is a very nice and courteous man, and a good driver - we have no complaints there but the vehicle should be no smoking
Whilst we enjoyed the breakfast, and in fact please pass on our compliments to the chef, we observed that many guests were using the wide and excellent spread of food like a 7-11 personal take away buffet - "to go". There were children and adults coming with plastic containers and taking food away to their rooms. We are sure that this is not permitted, nor normal practice
There are many, many occasions when we had no towels. As you know we agreed to have houskeeping up to Friday lunchtime and then no more over the weekend until Monday lunchtime. This is a span of 3 complete days.and all four of my family wash in the morning and evening, that is 8 towels per day. It was agreed that we would get these towels, double every weekend, it happened just twice. We also went to reception on a Saturday as we had NO towels and were told that as Vabien was full that there was not enough towels to go around all the guests. After I complained a lot we got some towels, specially washed and dried for us at night
Housekeeping was poor, it was superficial and many times the standard was poor. Even now you will see greasy doors and dirty floors
There are many times when my family and I came in and out of Vabien and many times when your front desk staff did not even acknowledge us, no good morning or good evening - nothing, we felt insulted by this.
After I checked out of Vanien on Friday I discovered I had left a neck scarf behind on Sunday so I went back to Vabien to collect it. This scarf was on the headboard of the bed in the master bedroom and is a scarf I have had for 25 years overseas - it is used as a momento of home. Anyway I went to reception on Sunday (yesterday) and your trainee there called housekeeping and they said there was no scarf. I knew it was there so I asked if I could look and she agreed and took me to the room. Can you imagine what I saw when I went into 1505 just 40 hours after checking out? I left the place in a very neat and tidy way. There was empty pepsi cans, papers etc. on the settee and coffee table and WORSE, there was a member of your housekeeping staff lying on the double bed in the master bedroom watching thr television!!!!!! She jumped and said there was no scarf! She knew why I was there, but I looked and sure enough the scarf had fallen behind the bed. ALSO there was a huge bottle of HITE beer next to the bed. This room should have been made up ready for the next occupant, can you imagine whay a new prospective guest would have thought. Your housekeeping staff are using empty rooms to watch TV, have a drink and lie down. It is appalling.
There is more but I think you will understand that we are not happy residents. There are other Vabien residents in my company (GS) office and NONE of them are happy with the service. I will also make sure that they know my experiences too.- and I will warn new prospective residents of my problems.

Finally, I request that you reply to this email by Thursday or I will have to put it in writing formally to your and the management of Vabien. The minimum we should expect is some explanation and closure on the above items by Thursday

I mean what I write

Disappointedly

The Taylor Family

I stayed at Vabien 1 for six months while working in Korea. Excellent staff, good location (close to the subway) good food and nice amenities make this a good place to stay. The addition of Vabien 2, which is steps away has nicely increased the selection of Western restaurants. There are lots of Korean restaurants, a supermarket and even a Starbucks nearby.