This article is reprinted from a reader's WeChat public account, Lazy 33's Food, Drinks, and Fun. Original link.

Overnight at Incheon Airport

International flights at Incheon Airport operate from two terminals, T1 and T2. SkyTeam members and partner airlines are in T2, such as Korean Air. Others are in T1, such as Asiana Airlines.

At the moment, T2->T1 is not accessible, and you must enter South Korea to go that way. (According to the latest news, it's open now. It was previously closed because of renovation~)

Most of the information can be found on the airport website, such as duty-free shops and restaurants. The restaurant list is here:

If you're just overnighting for a connection, staying airside without entering the country is the most convenient choice. There are transit hotels inside the airport. The T1 one is currently under renovation, and the T2 transit hotel is best booked in advance—it has been pretty popular lately. You can book a standard room through the official site found on Google Maps. For family rooms that can accommodate more than two people, you can email [email protected] to make a reservation. There are more economical options such as overnight lounges, but we weren't considering those with a child in tow.

I had originally booked the T2 transit hotel, but then a Hyatt FN was about to expire, so I canceled it and booked the Grand Hyatt Incheon outside the airport instead.

ICN - Grand Hyatt Transportation

Grand Hyatt is near T1, just 4 minutes from T1 and about 16 minutes from T2.

There are two shuttles available:

1. The hotel shuttle starts at 6:00 a.m. and runs every 30 minutes. Details are here:
Hyatt

2. The airport shuttle starts at 5:00 a.m. and runs every 10 minutes. Details are here:

From the airport to the hotel, we took the hotel shuttle, near 1F, Gate 2A.

One Night in Transit at Grand Hyatt

This hotel is basically designed as a transit hotel, and we found that most of the guests had not made reservations. The hotel has two towers, west and east. When we checked in, we filled out a transit form and waited in line for a while, only to be told that guests with reservations didn't need to fill out the form or wait in line, and that our room was in the other tower. So we had to ask hotel staff to help move our luggage to our room.

This year I only had Explorist status, and at check-in we were upgraded to a view room; a suite would have cost extra. The room was pretty good, and the hotel added an extra bed for free.

Late June in Seoul was still pretty muggy, and people like me who can't stand humidity were sweating buckets.

The area around the hotel looked pretty desolate, and there weren't many people around at dinner time either.

We ordered room service, and the kid was pretty happy with his kids' meal—rounding up, that still counts as having eaten in Korea.

We gave the kid melatonin, washed up, and went to sleep. By a little after 2 a.m., everyone in the family was awake. Our flight to Beijing was at 8:20 a.m., and since we weren't familiar with Korean airports and wanted to leave plenty of time for an international flight, we packed up and checked out at 5 a.m. The front desk was empty at that hour, and staff only walked over from a distance when they saw us coming.

We didn't have time to try any of the hotel's other facilities. Overall, as a transit hotel, the hardware was pretty good. On the service side, luggage delivery was a bit slow, but everything else was fine. However, because of a series of incidents at the airport (I'll write about them in the next post), unless you're in the same situation as us and urgently need to use an FN, I still recommend staying in a transit hotel to save yourself a lot of trouble.

Grand Hyatt - ICN T1 Airport Shuttle

The hotel shuttle doesn't start until 6:00 a.m., so at 5:00 a.m. you can only take the airport shuttle. The stop is just across the street from the hotel entrance, very close by. With buses every 10 minutes, the wait is short. The only issue is that the shuttle stop is almost entirely in Korean. We waited for what looked like an airport bus, and even after asking the driver once we boarded, we still couldn't get a clear answer about whether it was going to the airport; it was the other passengers who told us. The ride from the hotel to T1 is very short, only about 5 minutes. T1 has two stops, and we couldn't figure out which one to get off at, so we got off at the first T1 stop, which happened to be where the Asiana Airlines check-in counters were.

Even though we arrived 3 hours and 15 minutes early, things still ended up feeling rushed. This was yet another major international airport experience that was not great, after Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. I'll complain about it in the next post.

2023 Series: The Trip Home to China

About the Author

This post is reprinted from a reader's WeChat public account, Lazy 33's Food, Drinks, and Fun. They're all original articles—if you're interested, give them a follow.