Originally Posted by GBman

Sorry for a long post. Hope it's informational for some.

I'm at the LHR T2 UA club now. Not crowded, with only five flights to go today with light loads. As stated, vastly superior to UA U.S. domestic clubs.

It's as pictured in previous photos, but essentially a large horizontal box with a few dividers. The best feature is the window onto gate areas which runs the whole way along one wall with the bar in the middle.

The design is sort of 1950s' modernist (think Lever House in New York), with much more in common with BA's T5 clubs or Virgin's than other UA clubs. Much of the space resembles modern libraries with long tables with powerpoints (U.S., UK, and USB - not sure if Apple or generic nor amps), and rows of armchairs facing each other. There are some couches in the middle, some small round tables, and a pod at either end, at the entrance with food, and at the opposite end with a TV and some periodicals.

Remarkably, the mens rooms are half a dozen private cabins/rooms with their own settees, for changing I guess. No urinals. There are also half a dozen private telephone cabins. The showers look inviting.

The food is incomparable to U.S. UA clubs, though more limited than international competitors' - similar to a subset of BA's T5 offerings and a bit less than the LHR T1 Star Alliance lounge. Right now there is Thai green chicken curry (with just a bit of a bite), shepherd's pie, mint pea soup or butternut squash soup, good range of bread rolls. There are small fridges with mini cans/bottles of soda and water. Coffee machines are scattered about, as are Twinings tea bags. Alcohol is strictly bar service. There are some apples and oranges, no bananas. Very good fresh cookies at the back of the club.

The periodical selection is sadly more like other UA clubs than T1 *A. I found FT, International NYT, the Independent, and part of a USA Today. No other international or UK papers. The magazines are similar to U.S. club selection of odds and sods. No T1 lounge Economist, Time, Spectator, etc.

Wifi is working at about 1.3mb download speed.

Lots of smiling faces on Day One, which is very welcome.

The serious problem is that this is an astoundingly long way from the new T2 check-in desks. There has been some warning of this, but I am still amazed. The remote B satellite where UA's gates and the club are is the longest walk I know in Heathrow (or maybe any other airport), and down and up epic escalators (tip for the future: hunt out the lifts/elevators). the gates are the same UA used during T1 occupation, just connected to a different front-end as it were. But who would have thought the journey to those gates from the main terminal would be *longer* than in the T1 configuration? longer than the walk from the IAD train to the "temporary" Dulles satellite? At least as long as the underground walkways connecting Heathrow terminals 1 and 3, for example? And with the escalators and a long walk through the gargantuan core of the new T2 before descending to the satellite B connectors.

I was greatly looking forward to the new T2 (obviously an improvement on its original 1960s predecessor) but other than being shiny and sparkly it really disappoints me. One flyer in a Guardian article on today's opening called it cavernous and a little creepy. I'm afraid the inhuman scale of T5 has been strongly carried over to T2, with heights to the different levels perhaps meant to be cathedral-like but actually seeming (personal opinion) anti-human in scale, unnecessarily wasteful and far too much of a hurdle.

The new UA club is a plus, but it would have been better (for customers if not UA) to combine it with still-better *A peers, and the new T2 instead of cementing my ties to UA and *A is going to make me think about LHR alternatives (probably T3's AA or Virgin).

Still glad for the smiles!