Boutique Villa De Aewol

My wife and I made plans to bring my adult cousin to Jeju.  We wanted to spend time hanging out with her but we wanted our own privacy and didn't want the hassle of connecting rooms.  Thus overall we needed a multi-bedroom suite.  And we wanted a hotel/resort right next to the coast, not a hotel in the middle of downtown Jeju.  This 4-story resort hotel fit all those requirements, in its "Royal Suite". Everything looks quite brand new in this hotel. There are some small scuffs and scratches here and there, and the paint job is not 100% perfect, but the interior is very clean and proper. As of October 2024, the furniture throughout the hotel and its rooms still looks great. The bathrooms use "Perceige" bath products; it appears to be a Korean brand but basically unrecognized/unrecognizable outside of Korea... Believe it or not, the only one minor complaint I have about the hotel is that the slate flooring in the hallways going from the elevator to the rooms is very old.  Everything else (e.g. the walls and signage) seems to have been renovated.  Perhaps management is willing to spend some money to polish up the slate.  Before I get into describing our room, I'll start by saying that this resort is a good 40-minute drive from the airport. When you do get here, you'll find plenty of (free) parking with big parking spaces. No valet parking service.  *THE ROOM ("ROYAL SUITE")* The Royal Suite is a corner room and thus has a wraparound balcony. Now, if you've taken a look at pictures of the Royal Suite on some websites, I think this is where you need to pay special attention to my review, because those pictures don't really explain the layout of the suite. When you first enter the Royal Suite with your key card (ours was #401), you enter a hallway. In the middle of this hallway there is a door to a full bath (with large shower booth but no tub).  At the end of the hallway, there are two doors (one to the left and the other to the right, each lockable from the other side).  If you open the left door, you get the room with the two single beds and an en suite bathroom with a bathtub.  If you open the door to the right, you get a living room and a Queen bedroom "area" (partitioned off by some skinny pillars), with its own "en suite" room including sink, refrigerator, and closet area... but no toilet/shower/tub. In other words, the Queen bedroom side of this 2-bedroom suite offers "private" access to a living room with a sofa and loveseat but with no private access to a bathroom. Occupants of the Queen bed will need to leave to go to the shared hallway to use the bathroom or take a shower. So, it is a bit awkward. In our hallway was a well-constructed folding clothes rack. Not sure what it should be used for, since we did not have a washing machine in our room.  Maybe it's intended for swimwear to dry on, out on the balcony. The bedroom on the left and the living room on the right both have 50" LG smart tv's.  Both rooms have effective blackout curtains. The left-side bedroom included an LG Tromm Styler, which was cool. For those not in the know, it's basically a machine that dry cleans your clothes for you. This room also has a small round portable dining table including two chairs.  A couple general notes about all the rooms: there are limited hangers in the closets in the room. If you expect to hang a bunch of clothes for your stay, you might want to bring your own or buy some cheap ones.  If you only need maybe 5-10 more, you can try walking down to the front desk to ask. They grudgingly gave me 6 more... The slippers provided in the room were reusable vinyl/cushion ones.  Helping the environment, sure, but not very comfortable or sophisticated... If you lose your room's key card, it's a 20k KRW penalty.  Our entire Royal Suite struck me, to use a kind of metaphor, as a kind of poor man's "Ritz Carlton".  (I'm a Bonvoy Titanium and have stayed at a bunch of RC's around the world, if that matters.)  What I mean by that is that there's a lot of the white/gray marble theme (albeit fake of course), dark woods, and gold/glass fittings. Very little in the room actually looks obviously like plastic, aside from the TV bezels and the telephones (where plastic is pretty typical anyways)... The walls are very good at soundproofing the suite, not only from external noises but also between the two wings of the suite.  *HOTEL FACILITIES* The facilities in this hotel are OK but certainly not outstanding. The outdoor "tiered" pool is nice and the pool water is mostly very clean. (Hotel guests receive a rubber bracelet that should be worn as proof of admission into the pool area.)  Adjacent to the pool, there is also an outdoor (charcoal) barbecue area where apparently you can purchase a barbecue meal service from the hotel.  On the premises are a couple restaurants.  Lastly, in the basement of the hotel is a cashierless24-hour mini-convenience store where you can buy all sorts of snacks and drinks and ramen. There are a couple microwaves and ramen water kettles there too. There is a full-size 24-hr convenience store within a 5-minute walk of the hotel's front door.  About 2.5 miles away (search Naver, not google), there's a cafe called "Flying Aewol"... a nice spot for decent scones /croissants, a very good coffee, and an amazing view.  (If you must google, this cafe is right below the "UFO pension".)... Another great spot, this time for dinner, would be "전복죽일번가" (just look for it on Google Maps), which is just a few minutes away by car... Breakfast in the hotel is 18k krw per person per day. It is not a buffet but rather a set Korean meal.  If you want any kind of Western continental breakfast, you'll need to go off the resort grounds... Booked under Agoda, my booking actually came with a free Yacht Excursion. Be sure to ask at the front desk whether your booking comes with that, in case you're unsure... Check-in and check-out were seamless.  *BOTTOM LINE* This is a very respectable resort, but our "Royal Suite" room was especially fit for 2 couples and it's about as good as it gets if you are a family of 4 who want a homey atmosphere. The location is excellent and the interior design is also very good. If found in Seoul, our suite would have been USD 500 per night, easily.  We paid USD 280 per night for this 4-night stay in Jeju, and I think that's a very respectable price if you need a bona fide 2-bedroom apartment-like suite.  (Search for my Youtube video review of this hotel's "Royal Suite".)