Popular Luxury Hotels in Gangneung-si

Seeking to spend a few days on the Korean Seaside, we booked on short notice 2 nights in an Oceanview Double at Seamarq. Overall, we had a wonderful, very relaxing time: we particularly enjoyed - the spacious, beautifully designed and functional room and lobby area, which truly provides a sense of space and an extension of the hotel space into the sea - the absolutely stunning 5th floor pools area, which was never really crowded and also stayed open despite some minor rain on our first day: comfortable sunbeds, generous opening hours (06:30 - 22:00, great) and good service by the mostly very young crew up here - the nice ocean side loungers, even though we still find it awkward that there is (at least officially) a 1.5 hour limitation to the use of the sunbeds (though at least during our stay this did not seem to have been enforced) - the piano player who brought a serene, peaceful atmostphere to the lobby every night, and the Lobby Bar with an excellent drinks, tea and small food selection - the thought-through room design, incl. the practical wet clothes hanger with clips to secure any item, and the Nespresso machine, tea pot etc. - the overall good selection and tastiness of the food at breakfast and at the buffet dinner (which we only joined once) To be among the very best hotels, Seamarq needs to fix a few things - the setup and food presentation of the breakfast / dining room is more reminding of a low-end, family vacation style: relatively crammed seating, presentation of the food buffet is without love (though the have a great choice - it's more how it's presented), and erratic service (e.g. on first morning nobody cleared used dishes from our breakfast table, while today this was done promptly every time...). - while there is a wonderful beach with the hotel's sun loungers, there are no beach towels available: this is the first time ever around the world we experienced this. Why not provide the same service as at the pool (where those are freely available)? - as others wrote, the elevator availability and waiting time is a real issue - with only 3 elevators that are also partly used by staff to deliver luggage wait times are often excessive. All these were not significantly spoiling our experience, and we would definitely be back here if staying in the area - though it would be easy for the hotel to improve on some of the items above. Overall a wonderful place to stay if in Gangneug, and wanting to be at (or better above :-) ) the sea