Guide to Alpensia Ski Resort [2024]
/Thinking of staying at the Alpensia Ski Resort in Pyeongchang County, South Korea? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the resort, including how to get to Alpensia Ski Resort, ski rental prices, clothing rental prices, opening hours and facilities.
We can’t wait to come back to Alpensia Resort
Where to stay in Alpensia Ski Resort
The Resort has three accommodation options to choose from – the Intercontinental, Holiday Inn Resort and Holiday Inn & Suites. The first two are 5-star resorts, while the latter is a 4-star property.
Intercontinental Alpensia Pyeongchang Resort, an IGH Hotel
The Intercontinental Alpensia Pyeongchang Resort is considered to be the most upscale of the three, and also the most expensive. We chose to stay here because out of the three, the Intercontinental looked the best in pictures.
We absolutely loved our stay here – the rooms were spacious, staff were helpful and friendly, facilities were clean, and everything in the town was reachable within a 3-4 minute walk. We highly recommend staying here.
You can take a closer look at the Intercontinental Resort Alpensia here.
Holiday Inn Resort Alpensia
The Holiday Inn Resort is also an upscale property within the resort that is extremely close to the ski slopes, golf course and Ocean700 water park.
You can take a closer look at the Holiday Inn Resort here.
Holiday Inn & Suites Alpensia Pyeongchang Suites, an IHG Hotel
Lastly, the Holiday Inn & Suites Alpensia Pyeongchang Suites, an IHG Hotel is a slightly less upscale option that offers many different types of rooms. The suites are suitable if you have a larger group, as there are suites of up to 3 bedrooms.
You can take a closer look at the Holiday Inn & Suites here.
How to get to Alpensia Ski Resort
Shuttle Bus
Using the shuttle bus to and from the resort from Seoul is by far the most convenient form of transport.
Simply use book from the Tour To Korea website and choose where you want to get picked up and dropped off. The shuttle service reaches many areas such as Sinchon, Insadong, Hongdae, Myeongdong and Dongdaemun. There are also direct services to and from Incheon Airport and Gimpo Airport.
Prices are usually 19USD for adults and 16SUD for kids, except for the airport services which cost 35USD for adults and 25USD for kids. Always check the Tour To Korea website for the latest and most up-to-date shuttle times, as they will change according to the season.
Depending on where you’re coming from and the traffic, the journey from Seoul (and back to Seoul from Alpensia) can take about 2.5 – 3 hours.
Once you’ve purchased your tickets, you’ll receive an e-barcode in an email. Simply follow the instructions in the email and wait at your designated spot for a Purple Ski Bus to arrive. When you see one, flag the bus down, and kindly double check with the driver if he’s going to Alpensia Ski Resort. Usually, the bus drivers won’t speak much English, but they will recognise the name of resort. Have your e-barcode ready for the bus driver to scan when on board the bus.
To get back to Seoul, you’ll wait at the Alpensia Welcome Centre to board your bus. Again, tell the driver which stop you’d like to get off at.
Total Journey Time: 2.5 – 3 hours
Express Bus
To take the local express buss, you’ll have to get to Dong Seoul Bus Terminal, which is about 20 – 30 mins away from Myeongdong.
From the bus terminal, take a bus to Hoenggye Bus Terminal, which is about a 10-minute drive from the resort. The fare is 14,600 KRW for adults, 11,700 KRW for middle/high school students and 7,300 KRW for elementary school students.
Take a taxi to the resort. It should cost about 10,000 KRW.
Total Journey Time: 2 –3.5 hours (depending on where you start your journey)
KTX Train and Shuttle Bus
It’s also possible to reach the resort mainly by the KTX bullet train going from Seoul station to Jinbu Station. There are about 10 trains running a day, and it takes about 1.5 hours to reach Jinbu. The earliest train leaves at 6:01am and the last train leaves at 8:01pm. You can make a KTX reservation for the train here.
The train fare varies depending on which class ticket you buy, but the cheapest non-reserved seat costs 18,700 KRW for adults and 9,300 KRW for children.
From Jinbu, you can take a free 20-minute shuttle bus to the resort. The shuttle bus runs 4 times a day with an extra service at 8:00pm only on weekends and public holidays.
Otherwise, the shuttle times are at 11:00 AM, 13:00 PM, 15:00 PM and 17:00 PM. Therefore, if you plan on taking the free shuttle bus, you’ll have to time your KTX train ride to Jinbu so that you won’t have to wait too long for the next shuttle bus service.
All guests of Alpensia Resort must show their hotel reservation to the bus driver to be able to board the bus.
Alternatively, you can take a taxi from Jinbu station but it might set you back about 15,000 – 20,000 KRW.
Total Journey Time: 2 – 2.5 hours
Taxi
If you want to avoid the hassle of public transport, you can always take a taxi from Seoul which will cost you about 300,000- 350,000 KRW.
Total Journey Time: 2 – 2.5 hours
Book a Private Transfer
Alternatively, you can book a private transfer - which would be my preferred mode of transport in terms of ease and convenience.
👉 For a safe and reliable private transfer going directly from Seoul to Alpensia, book this private transfer.
👉 If you’re traveling straight from Incheon Airport to Alpensia, then book this transfer instead.
Total Journey Time: 2 – 2.5 hours
You can also book your transfers through the widget below:
Drive/Car Rental
Of course, you can always self-drive to the resort. This also gives you the added convenience of driving anywhere you want in the area and venturing out to different cities and towns if you’re a bit tired of the resort.
Car rental prices in South Korea vary, but the cheapest is around 61,000 KRW a day for a small car. A sedan will cost around 135,000 KRW a day and an SUV will cost around 165,000 KRW a day.
You can check out car rental prices here.
Short History of Alpensia Ski Resort
The Alpensia Ski Resort is located in the province of Gangwon-do, in Pyeongchang County. It is some 150km away from Seoul, and takes about 2.5-3 hours to reach by car from the South Korean Capital.
The Resort is still fairly new, having only been completed in 2011. A cool fact about the Alpensia Ski Resort is that it was one of the venues for the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games, and, even more significantly, hosted as a venue for several events in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics including the ski jump, biathlon, cross-country skiing and bobsleigh. Alpensia also served as an Olympic Village for the games. After the Olympics were over, Alpensia also hosted the 2018 Winter Paralympics.
Alpensia is only a 5-minute car ride from the more popular and longer established Yongpyong Ski Resort, which is considered one of the most popular ski resorts for skiers in South Korea.
Skiing and Snowboarding at Alpensia Ski Resort
Of course, the main reason you’ll want to visit the Alpensia Ski Resort is probably to ski or snowboard. Here are some statistics about the slopes at the resort:
Highest lifted point: 960m
Lowest skiable point: 800m
Vertical drop: 160m
Lifts: 3
Runs: 6
Longest run: 900m (‘Bravo’)
Terrain park: no
(Source: Snow Guide Korea)
Although Alpensia is picturesque, it isn’t really the place for technical, high-quality skiing or snowboarding. With only 3 chairlifts and 6 runs down a length of 160m, Alpensia will leave experienced skiers wanting more. With that being said, the resort is perfect for beginners and first-timers. The snow here is gentle and soft, and the un-intimidating slopes make it extremely suitable for newbies (like myself) to gain their footing in the snow without freaking out at how steep the slopes are.
Families with young children will love Alpensia Ski Resort. More seasoned snow adventurers should check out Yongpyong, High1 and Phoenix Park for a wider variety of slopes more suited to their skill level.
Alpensia hosts 6 runs, named Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo and Foxtrot. Alpha is the beginner slope and Bravo is the intermediate slope. All other slopes are considered advances slopes. For more detailed information about the runs click here.
I snowboarded for the first time ever at Alpensia, having never previously done any skating, rollerblading or ice skating at all. I wisely stuck to the Alpha slope and still struggled, as I was completely learning from scratch by myself without any proper lessons. However, I’m glad I chose Alpensia as a place to start because, even though I fell on my backside several times during my woeful attempts, I didn’t suffer any injuries due to the soft terrain.
Ralph on the Bravo Slope
Alpensia was a great learning ground, and makes me feel more confident that I can attempt to go down other runs at more advanced levels next time. Ralph on the other hand, blitzed through both the Alpha and Bravo runs pretty confidently and is probably looking to stay at a ski resort with more advanced slopes next time!
It was my first time snowboarding!
Alpensia Ski Resort Rental Costs, Prices and Fees
The cost of skiing or snowboarding in Alpensia can be considered to be moderate. It’s certainly not cheap, but it’s comparable and almost the same price to neighbouring ski resorts and resorts in Japan.
The cost of renting all this certainly wasn’t cheap!
The lift tickets and clothing rental do tend to be slightly less expensive at Alpensia compared to Yongpyong, so that’s a positive.
Lift Price
Ski and Snowboard Rental Price
Ski or Snowboard price list
Clothing Rental Price
Clothing rental price
Locker Rental Price
The cost of renting all this certainly wasn’t cheap!
(Source: Alpensia Resort)
We thought the prices were of decent value for money. If you don’t want to pre-plan ahead, you can just buy your tickets at the ticket counter at the regular prices.
However, in purchasing our ski lift passes and clothing rental, we used Tour to Korea, an online service where you can make reservations, buy your ski passes and transport. The package was a lot better value for money than just buying our tickets upfront at the ticket counter, so we would recommend doing this.
2024 UPDATE: The above website now only deals with shuttle bus services, and I have yet to find a link where you can purchase ski lift passes. If you see one, let me know in the comments below so I can update this section!
View from the Alpensia Chair Lift
We purchased Alpensia Ski Lift Pass & Rental Package 2 (Ski Lift Pass + Ski Rental + Clothing Rental) and chose the Afternoon & Evening option, which allowed us to snowboard from 1:00pm to 10:00pm at night. There is also a Day option, allowing you to use the pass from 9:00am to 5:00pm.
The listed price for the package on the website is 101 USD, but we paid 71USD each because Tour to Korea offered us a 30% discount promo code because we had purchased our shuttle bus tickets from them too (more about that later in the ‘How to get there’ section of this post). Your most updated discount code arrives in an email upon purchase.
You could try the following codes if you don’t receive the email
Package-1 Ski Lift Pass + Ski Rental (Day, Afternoon&Evening) - 50% (Alpensia): TTKAP01
Package-1 Ski Lift Pass + Ski Rental (Morning, Afternoon, Evening) - 40% (Alpensia): TTKAP02
Package-2 Ski Lift Pass + Ski Rental + Clothing Rental (Day, Afternoon&Evening) - 50% (Alpensia): TTKAP01
Package-2 Ski Lift Pass + Ski Rental + Clothing Rental (Morning, Afternoon, Evening) - 50% (Alpensia): TTKAP01
Ocean 700 - 40% (Alpensia): TTKAP03
Once you receive an e-voucher for your purchase, find the Alpensia Ski House and present the voucher to the ticket counter to collect your ski lift passes. Then, present your voucher to the clothing rental counter to collect your clothing. Then, present your voucher to the ski and board rental counter to collect your equipment. Remember to specify to the staff which activity you’re going to do for the day (snowboarding or skiing).
Ski Lessons
For relatively affordable private ski lessons, I would book through this Viator experience. It can work out to be quite inexpensive if you have a lot of people in your group. Non-skiers can also participate in snow sled activities.
Alpensia Ski Resort Opening Hours
For the day session, you can hit the slopes from 9am to 5pm. At 5pm, the slopes get cleaned and prepared for the night session.
We didn’t know about the cleaning break, so we took a lift ride at 5pm and then were rushed down the slopes by patrollers so they could clean. Because I took the wrong lift ride up the intermediate slope (yes, I know, stupid of me), I couldn’t snowboard down the run and ended up having to be placed in a trolley, guided down the slope by one of the patrollers like a sitting duck. It was a totally foolish thing to do, but ended up being a pretty fun way to go down! (wouldn’t recommend doing what we did, though).
The night session runs from 6:30pm to 10pm every day except Saturday, when it finishes at 12:00am midnight.
Food and Convenience Stores
There is surprisingly a lot of dining options within the Alpensia Resort. We were pleasantly surprised with the amount of options available. From Korean Barbeque, Japanese Restaurants, Taverns and more, you won’t run out of dining options here – and most of the restaurants are fairly priced too! We didn’t have to pay too much more than your average meal in Seoul (an average meal in the resort cost us about 10,000 – 14,000 KRW).
The Ski House also has a small food court, so you won’t have to walk too far if you’re looking to eat something in between skiing.
We memorably had a delicious Korean fried chicken dinner at the restaurant in front of the Intercontinental Hotel, called Kloud.
If you’re really looking to save money on food, there’s also a Lotteria, Domino’s Pizza and Baskin Robbins.
The Resort has not one, but two CU convenience stores. One is more of an express store, and the other is a bit more like a small supermarket. Admittedly, the prices here were a bit inflated, but not too much more expensive than the average CU store in Seoul. Sometimes we stocked up on instant noodles at these CU stores to save money, so it was really convenient to have these open until late.
Shopping
There is limited shopping available at the resort, but they do have a Duty Free Shop (with some overpriced items) and a few ski gear stores so that you can stock up on your ski apparel. They also have a ski gear store at the Ski House for some last minute purchases before you hit the slopes.
Leisure
Alpensia Resort has tons to keep you entertained in your downtime when you’re not skiing.
Other activities you can do at the resort include:
Golfing
Visiting the Ocean700 Water Park – includes a sauna and large indoor swimming pool
Watch a movie at the Alpine Cinema
Play arcade games
Gamble at the casino
Sign up to experience a VR game
Visit the Alpensia Sportspark and Observatory Tower
Lots of things to do at Alpensia Resort!
If you want extra information about any of these, we recommend you visit the Alpensia website.
Vibe
The overall vibe of Alpensia Ski Resort is quiet, peaceful upscale and family-friendly. There’s not a whole lot that goes on in the town, but a steady number of shops are open, and you will see people walking around – but it’s by no means overcrowded, even in peak season.
Peaceful Alpensia Resort
We personally found the vibe to be a lot more low-key than other ski resorts. Especially since the month before visiting Alpensia, we stayed at Ski resorts in the Italian Dolomites such as Cortina d’Ampezzo and Ortisei, which were filled with visitors. This is a good thing because there will be fewer skiers on the slopes, which reduces the chance of a collision and increases the terrain you can ski on.
What happens in the Summer at Alpensia Ski Resort? Is it worth visiting?
In the summer, the ski area turns into a 100,000 square-metre flower garden, and you won’t be able to ski or snowboard.
During this time, you can make use of other Alpensia Resort facilities such as golfing, riding the Alpine Coaster, or visiting the Ocean700 water park, which is especially a hit with families.
The usual restaurants and facilities will be open, including the Alpensia Cinema. The surrounding Pyeongchang area will also be filled with beautiful, green mountainous scenery.
You certainly won’t be stumped with things to do summer, but we wouldn’t recommend going all the way to the resort in the summer just for the resort. It might be worthwhile to stay at the resort and use it as base, but to make a summer trip worth it, you should explore other areas of Pyeongchang too.
How to get around Pyeongchang
I’ve heard you can use a combination of bus and taxi to get around to different places, but it sounded too complicated to me.
We visited Sangwonsa Temple using a taxi and the view was amazing there
I would say that, apart from driving yourself, the only realistic way to get around the area is to hire a private driver or to take a taxi to places you’d like to go. You can enquire about hiring a private driver for a day at your hotel. I was given a quote of 250,000 KRW for a private van at the Intercontinental.
It cost us around 80,000 KRW to visit Sangwonsa and Woljeongsa Temple in Odaesan National Park
As you can see, those options are pretty expensive. We only ventured out of the resort one of the days, to Sangwonsa Temple and Woljeongsa Temple by taxi. The whole journey from the hotel and back cost around 80,000 KRW.
Things to do in Pyeongchang County
There’s a lot to do in Pyeongchang, here are a few ideas.
Odaesan National Park – go hiking in one of South Korea’s most beautiful national parks. For day hike, undertake the Birobong Peak course. Easy temples we would recommend you visit are Sangwonsa and Woljeongsa Temple, which you can access by car without hiking.
If you happen to be visiting in the autumn and don’t have access to a car, I would recommend booking this Odaesan National Park tour, which visits both Sangwonsa and Woljeongsa Temple.
Beautiful Sangwonsa Temple in Odaesan National Park
Pyeongchang Trout Festival – try your hand at ice fishing, a festivity the locals love doing.
Scenic Woljeongsa Temple
Daegwanryeong Yangtte/Daegwanryeong Samyang/Daegwallyeong Sky/Daegwallyeong Pure Sheep Ranch – all these ranches are pretty similar so I would only visit one, but in the summer, they’re especially pretty to visit as they showcase green, rolling hills and farm animals you can meet.
Other ski resorts – if you’re a little bored of staying at Alpensia, check out nearby ski resorts such as the Phoenix Snow Park and Yongpyong Ski Resort.
Final Verdict - Should I Stay at the Alpensia Ski Resort?
Cheongsong Pavilion from above
Our final verdict on Alpensia Ski Resort is that it was 100% worth it. We absolutely loved staying at a peaceful and scenic ski resort with plenty of food options. It was such a relaxing stay. We also loved our experience at the Intercontinental Hotel, and it couldn’t have gone any better.
Overall, Alpensia Ski Resort was the perfect place to have my first snowboarding experience and I would come back in a heartbeat.
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Thinking of staying at the Alpensia Ski Resort in Pyeongchang County, South Korea? Read our guide to learn everything you need to know about the resort.