LoungeEnthusiast

The same Feuillatte can also be had here at Carrefour on the French side of the border for less than 20€. And no cards needed.

Courmisch

Or most French supermarkets really. It's also in Auchan IIRC.

Then again, you cannot bring your own drinks on board

You could use the Carte Carrefour though.

OldHigsonian

We visited the lounge on Thursday morning. We got there just after the London flights had been called so it was empty of people, but full of dirty plates and glasses.

The thing Mrs Higs noticed was the horrible stains on the chairs. Almost every one in the area immediately opposite the entrance had horrible, suspicious dark stains on them. Someone had screwed up with the fabric selection.

Food was nice. it still feels ridiculous to have to ask for a glass of orange juice.

Trav1970

At least on some hours, they have juices on self service on the upper level. Why not on the main counter, go figure...

remymartin

Juice is fattening. Who cares about OJ when it's champers that should be self-service!

cistavoda

Seconded. Some times they do!

intuition

I've now have had some time to contemplate about the premium lounge


One of the greatest flaws is that they didn't plan floorspace very well.

Yesterday, it was at maybe 80% of its seating capacity. Ie it was easy enough to find a seat, but it still felt very crowded, because of all the foot traffic. Especially the "bar-area" where champers are self service is very crowded. Everyone entering the lounge, going for food or drinks must pass this narrow path.

The separate "drink stations", mentioned by Trav1970 above is an attempt to rectify this, but it still isn't very obvious to people that drinks can be found at different stations.
And for example, at the juice station, there is a list of complimentary drinks that is not present at the station.

When coffee machine needs cleaning, staff takes it apart, and goes to the upstairs lounge area to dispose of garbage and clean.

Many small issues like this, makes me think the contractor was focused on design - all venustas and no utilitas for those versed in architecture.




Another thing I think they missed, is that they didn't design each section with a specific purpose. Even though they spend a lot of time/money on designing the environments differently, you still get people eating and talking loudly on the phone everywhere. To eat at your seat, some (me included) have found out that the small side tables are movable and can be put infront of your seat. There are not so many of these tables so one has to go for a hunt to get one.
As for phones, I guess a separate sections might not work (no one has the sense/decency to move to a private area before spilling all their personal or business secrets in public) but the filt chairs with high back and sides would have helped quite a bit.


With longhaul flights going both east and west, there are travellers trying to adopt to just about any timezone. One thing that struck me is that it would have been great to have different sections for east and west time zones. Instead of the silly room where light cycles between green and purple, why not one zone with daylight and one with nightlight?

intuition

And seriously, one (1) WC and two urinals to serve a lounge with ≈100 seats?!

Flythe96flag

It is quite ridiculous indeed, and the facility is very cramped as well.

Overall I like the lounge though, the seating on the upper level is my favourite location along with the relaxation area which is invariably fairly empty IME.

WilcoRoger

+1 I just was there this morning and it was a really sad scene - light grey fabric with stains of different size and colour.

intuition

Oh, I need to back paddle a bit on that one. Today, for the first time I realised that there is a dining area. Not that it prevent people from eating everywhere though. But there is a proper area designed for sitting down and eat, so that is good. ^
The point of generating unnecessary foot traffic still holds, I think they should have put the food and the dining area together.



I'd like to echo what others said about lack of cleaning the showers - Been though the showers twice this week, and while the surfaces that first meets the eyes were all clean, there were some nasty grit too. Mould in the wet areas, thick layer of dust on top of everything above 2 metres height and below 30 cm height (take a look under the rolling table or above the door closer if you can stomach it)

On both occasions the toilet had skid marks from a previous visitor.

Not that I'm dying or anything from this , but I think these are things you need to get right with if you want to be perceived as premium.

SPBanker

Yep. I was there yesterday morning, some of those chairs looked really bad. Funnily enough, originally I thought the white leather (or faux-leather) chairs would be the first to show signs of wear and tear, but they still look fine.

jktraveler

Lounge opens July 1.
Access granted for OW Sapphire and Emerald FFs.

cblaisd

Per http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-how-post.html will send to the appropriate airline forum

cblaisd
Moderator, Travel News

Courmisch

It opened a year ago... look at the date of the video you posted...