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Busan 2013 - Horrible service from Mr Egg House

Before I forget what has happened that night, I'm going to pen down all the bad experience I had.
I have never ever pack up my bags and leave for another hotel at the very last minute.
Well, all thanks to mregg house, I did.
My post here is to highlight some of the things we've experienced. Whether or not you continue using their services, is of course entirely up to you.
This hostel is by far, the WORST I've been in - not only in terms of its infrastructures but also the service of their staff.
This is also the first time I see my bf flare up, because of the nonchalant attitude of the boss. Ironically, we were labelled as being rude, when he was being rude to us in the first place.

The story goes like this.
Both of us were excited to go to our hostel after reading so much good reviews of it.
I have to say it was my fault for not differentiating the various Eggs hostel - the one with many good reviews is Mr Egg Hostel Original (the one facing Haeundae beach, and owned by the boss called Sean).
The one I booked is called Mr Egg House, owned by this owner called John.
Mr Egg House is a standalone two,three levels high house.
I booked a 2 person bedroom known as the Twin room (shared bath) which cost 50,000 won on its website.
A rather decent deal I presume, because from the website it says:

Prior to my visit to Korea, I had high expectations of the Egg brand hostels, judging from the good reviews.
Furthermore, the photos above look really cute and warm right?
Well, my experience serves to tell you DON'T JUDGE A WEBSITE/COMPANY BY THEIR PHOTOS.

  • Unfriendly staff

So after our flight to Busan, we took a long subway ride to Haeundae.
The egg house wasn't exactly difficult to find.
Upon reaching, we went in to see nobody - but heard a female receptionist said "Come here".
Wow, that was a bit rude, but it didn't really matter at first.
My initial thought was, shouldn't receptionist come out and greet us or see who we were? Why is she hiding in her room -.-
When I went into the room for check in, she had a befuddled look.
I said, "Hi, I'm checking in today."
Her confused face gave me a scare, am I not getting a room?!
Thankfully (or I guess not), she found my name and I'm getting my room after all.
She asked for payment and we gave it to her. After which, my bf asked for a payment receipt, because this should be a mandatory slip to show that we have paid money right?
But, either her English comprehension was limited or it was not the standard procedure there, she gave me another weird glance again, saying "receipt?"
So I told her I just need a proof that I've paid money - and she looked annoyed! WTF.
"Do you want it now?!"
I said, "erm, if possible yes? haha" - I mean I just need a proof that we've given the money to her what. If she kapok the money how?
She looked so irritated and told me, "I said wait?" (wah lao, sounds rude la)
so I presume she wanted me to wait for my receipt.
So I just nod my head and said okay :) and went out to wait.
I didn't want any more irritated vibe from her, because she kept mumbling in Korean, and I know we had to stay there for 4 nights.
I just wanted PEACE.
After a while, she came out with this:
LOL, when I saw this, I looked at my bf and was thinking "Is this for real?"
An A4 sized print out receipt that even I can print it out -.-; but nevermind la. We'll just accept it.
Although at Shinchon hostel in Seoul, they'd have written proof of payment - grrr, what a vast difference between these two stays!
I said my thankyou and she gave us our keys to our rooms.
Typically, the staff would bring you to your room, but she didn't.
I didn't mind this either because it'd be easy for us to go up ourselves, so I said - "thanks, so we can go up now right?"
I think she thought I wanted her to bring us up, so she gave another irritated look again (oops, at that moment, I felt so sad and embarrassed)
Upon reaching the second floor, we had to key in password, and she gave us the code.
After which, she asked me to try keying it in to test - but her way of asking me to try it was quite rude. zzzz at that moment I was wondering, do I look like her enemy?
Reached our room, only to be greeted by a weird stale smell.
Argh, I felt very apologetic to my bf because I told him this hostel had really good reviews (when in fact it was Mr Egg Hostel Original)

After we unpack our stuffs, we didn't had much time to complain about the room anymore.
We just wanted to get out to haeundae beach and start travelling - and deal with these issues at night.
After all, I didn't wanna meet face-face with the female staff again :(
Unfortunately, it is during the night when we had the last draw and decide to stay for a night before moving out; all because of the rude boss who couldn't care less about us.
Here are some of the problems we faced:

  • Small room with NO AIRCON
Note that the room was stuffy and had bad smell, so we needed an aircon for ventilation - but the room had NONE.
Upon checking the room of the Taiwanese girls beside ours, we were confused why their rooms had an aircon but we didn't.
Furthermore, they paid an even cheaper price -.-
 Look at the squeezy corridor



  • Bathroom with no toothpaste nor shampoo and body wash, and no toilet paper -.-

The Taiwanese girls were also complaining that there wasn't any toothpaste or shampoo and soap as said in the website. However, because they couldn't speak English, I offered to help them ask the boss, since I wanted to ask him about the wifi issue too.
  • No/limited wifi
FYI, the 2 signal bar at mr egg hostel is already one of the best I've captured. A few times when I used my laptop, the signal was zero and it disconnect me off. 
So I switched to my phone, but it was worse.
Ironically, this wifi thing was what bonded me and other Taiwanese guest in the hostel. We were complaining that we had no wifi access, and 5 of us girls went out to the balcony so as to tap on the wifi.
Seriously, what kind of hostel provides such lousy wifi? And, it labelled on its website it has free wifi?
Do they mean FREE BUT FAULTY WIFI?
The Taiwanese girls were also complaining that the hostel and rooms look so different from what was presented on the website, and that they were disappointed.
  • The call to John

So when we went back to our hostel at night, around 9+ pm, we entered the receptionist area again. Sadly nobody was in, which was weird! How can a hostel be left alone with nobody to care for it?
We waited a while, before my bf spotted a phone number that asks us to call a number if we had any issues.
I asked my bf to call and ask about the wifi issue, after he talked to the boss, the boss didn't give us any solution to rectify the problem! And, he did not mention he would be coming down even though we had issues. 
We headed up to our room to unpack our stuffs and bathe, before going down again to check if the boss is back. We needed our aircon badly to sleep! 
Hello, we already paid the money, how can we pay and not get the stated services or amenities labelled on the website?!

This time, I called John and asked when he is coming down because we had questions to ask. Do you know what he told me? He said he was having chicken at another hostel (Miss Egg).
BLOODY IRRESPONSIBLE.
I was thinking OMG, WHAT?! But I tried not to be pushy and said, "okay, haha sorry to disturb, see you later".
Thinking back, am I a fool? =.= I should be getting the services I need, not that my requests were difficult? 
We just wanted to know if we can have an aircon room thats all!

At this point, I was a bit dissatisfied about his attitude. If tourists come to stay in your hostel, shouldn't you have someone manning it? At the receptionist were us and other Taiwanese tourists who were waiting for John to come back as they had their own questions to ask too! Because there were quite a lot of us gathering at the receptionist area, my bf decided to call the boss to come down, since the other Taiwanese girls said they can't communicate with him.
My bf asked John about our aircon issue through the phone - and this was when John said he had "No idea" how to help us and gave us a couldn't care less attitude!
I think my bf got angry because our problems could not be rectified, so he told John to come down for a while and talk face-face.
How can you say you had no idea, when you're the boss of the hostel? Are we free-stayers in your hostel?
NO! We paid money and put trust in you and your hostel! 
Within 10 minutes, John came. He had this irritated look (wth why are they pissed off), and said in an unkind manner who were asking for him!
So I told him, "Hello, we had problems with our aircon", and I think he got pissed off because he told me "You later".
He quickly shot down my question and asked "any more problems" (directing to the taiwanese girls).
zzzzzzzzzz, fine. 
After which he entered his reception room, while me and my bf and other Taiwanese girls were waiting for our problems to be solved.
Just then I heard "YOUR NAME. WHAT'S YOUR NAME. HEY YOUR NAME".
How would I know he's directing the question to me -.-; when we entered the room, I think my bf was pissed off as well by John's rude attitude towards me, because he told John, "can you don't be so rude?"
I was a bit worried about my bf, because this was the first time I see him getting worked up :(
I've never seen him raising his tone nor throw any tantrum! Even when I told my Korean friend, she was shocked because she told me he looks like a gentle man (yeah I know so too!)
This goes to show how irresponsible the hostel was to make my bf angry!
To cut the story short, I told John that it is unacceptable that our room has no air conditioner. I asked if we can have a new room, and he said he can't help! 
I was really disappointed.
We told him that his website stated there is, and it is not possible for us to sleep without air conditioner because the air in the small room was stale and stuffy. 
We merely wanted to change a room, but he gave excuses that the hostel is full (Rubbish! It's not even full please, there's only a few occupants la!). 
He even said that "during summer, koreans don't use air cons" - trying to reject our appeal to get a room with the aircon!
WHAT A JOKE!?!??! I replied, "but we need it!". And he started to raise his tone and said he was just saying that Koreans don't use aircon during summer.
Hey, please don't lie, furthermore it isn't exactly summer on that date!
I think my bf got enough and told him we just need our solution.
This was when the boss started to flare up and said we are so rude, and even said, if we are not happy we can get lost and "go find a new place to live". 
WHAT THE HELL.

John, the unfriendly boss
It was already near 11 pm by then. 
I calmed the boss down knowing that it's impossible for us to just pack our stuffs and leave for another place - plus, I PAID ALL THE MONEY HELLO!
This is by far the most disappointing travelling experience. 
He shouted for us to wait while he settle our new room. I decided both parties shouldn't provoke each other any further, so I just smiled and said, okay we will wait.
Sometimes, there's no point having both parties lashing out at each other. I'm just going to keep calm and get my things done.

On a side note, the Taiwanese tourists were also complaining about their service attitude - one of the girls did not get back her change from John because he said he does not have enough change. How can a hostel run in this way? Furthermore, the Taiwanese tourist had to stay up till 11pm for John to come back and return her change (what's more, after her prompt that he forgot to return the change?)

In the end, John got us a room with the aircon. However, there was no apologies from him.
Instead, I had to apologise and said, sorry for the troubles. 
Feel like hitting myself -.- but at least I was being nice!
Told my Korean friend, and she got her bf to help us out. I really owe my friend so much :( It's great to have locals as your friends so if anything goes wrong, they'll be there to help!
It was already 12am by then, and my friend called and suggested that I stay there for a night and leave for other places
At that point, I felt so lost - and also apologetic to my bf. I could see him getting drained and tired.

In the end, because of the RUDE SERVICE AND ATTITUDE we have received from MR EGG HOUSE, we packed our bags, and searched for a new accommodation - all in a day.
We stayed up till 2+ am just to google on the possible accommodations we can stay in.
Although there are a lot of motels nearby Egg House, both of us never want to stay in Haeundae agian, because of such bad experiences.
Additionally, we noticed after moving to our new hotel at Seomyeon, that Haeundae is so ulu!
If you are staying in Egg House, be prepared as there aren't many shops or restaurants.
Contrasting to this was our Angel Hotel at Seomyeon that is RIGHT at the shopping district!
We were able to shop once we get out of the hotel! :)
Also our hotel, which I'll blog about soon (note, it's not a hostel), was of similar rates BUT offers HOTEL SERVICE!
This was a vast difference from the "nightmare" at Mr Egg House.

Well, I believe that things turned for the better after that day - although it really marred our Busan experience..so much that both of us will never wanna go back anymore!
I hope my experience tells you that it doesn't mean hotels are always expensive, neither are hostels cheap!

Also, I'm being asked by the tourism organization to leave a feedback on the tripadvisor website. I will gladly do so.
Hopefully other tourists would take note of our experience, and that Egg House would also improve in their services.

Update: my review is now gone because Mr Egg House has been removed form Tripadvisor, no idea why, but I guess with the shitload of complaints on tripadvisor, the bosses better remove their listing.
I strongly suggest you to AVOID this place!
For their fb page, pls click here: https://www.facebook.com/mregghostel?ref=stream&fref=nf

5 comments:

  1. Bumped into your blog while trying to get more information on Mr Egghouse. As an avid traveller myself, I just experienced the most appalling, blood-boiling stay EVER in my whole life travelling in the same guesthouse you did - I was told I had to leave by 7 am at 2 am in the morning, for highlighting to the owner through email about their poor service - which included the owner banging on the door at 12:30 am asking us to pay immediately, and harrassing my fellow travel party to vacate the premise at 2:00 am. He even had the balls to say that us Malaysians are the worst in the world and he scared the shit out of my friend that she apologized profusely to him just to calm things down. I wonder if you reported the matter to KTO? My blood is still boiling so much that I want to do everything I can to ensure that absolutely nobody, especially us SEAs to even step foot in their premise, for good.

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    1. Hi, thanks for letting me and other readers know. I really hated their service, and I've complained to their officials. The boss really sucks in his service and attitude. It was my first day to busan and his hostel SPOILT MY WHOLE TRIP. Although months have passed, I'm still fury with anger.

      Please complain to KTO and other relevant authorities. And, let me know what they replied you. I read on tripadvisor other's reviews and it was bad as well. They should consider closing down their hostel -.-

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    2. Hi Cherry,

      I finally got the time to write down my experience with Egghouse Busan and am going to post soon to Tripadvisor. Here's the detailed account:-

      http://countingdayssince1987.blogspot.com/2013/10/mr-shitty-egghouse-busan-korea-dont-let.html

      I hope you don't mind that I link to your post as well as it'd be good to let as many people as possible know how shitty this place is.

      Yeah my travelmates esp was so traumatized our plans to stay in Haeundae for at least 2 days had to be scrapped, we left Busan @ 6 am headed for Seoul and never looked back. It was so horrible. =_=

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  2. Dear all, thank you so much for sharing!!! I actually mixed up Mr Egg Hostel and Mr Egg House. I've made a booking for Mr Egg House. But after coming across your reviews here, I decided to cancel my reservation with them and book other hostel in Busan instead. Thanks!!!

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    Replies
    1. Glad to have saved you. I don't think it's by chance that I met up with such an a$$ boss. Sure enough, others faced such problems too. Hopefully your stay at Mr Egg House would be better

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