When in the tub it is easy to hit the water stoppage and drain the water in error. Water splash at least 2 feet into the hardwood floor.

The revamped F lounge is a joke. I can't believe they took almost a year to produce this, which is seriously unimpressive as a flagship F lounge. I thought the J lounge renovation, on the other hand, was an impressive upgrade. The F renovation is totally and completely underwhelming.

The only nice thing to be said is the Haven looks like it has more seats. Good for breakfast time.

Specifics:

The library was so much better than than champagne bar, as far as wasted space goes.

The old design scheme looked far more elegant. Haven in all black and white feels horribly sterile. I don't know the proper design term, but it feels like CX chased a fleeting design fad, rather than gong for something that will still look current and nice in 5 years.

Didn't check the cabanas; but based on the pics they seem to be the nicest part of the new lounge. I think most HK-based pax don't care about lounging in a glorified bathroom for a few hours.

They are right now playing Muzak in the lounge. I don't recall that from before. What a terrible idea!

Food seemed about the same as before in terms of # of choices and food quality. The a la carte menu a nice addition. However, the staff are pretty clear in body and facial language that you may as well have asked them for their first born as asking for a menu. Strange. I wonder why.

Silly that there is 0 food throughout the rest of the lounge other than the Haven. Grab and go options are appreciated, like in the Pier or in the J lounges.

Signing off, to head over to the noodle bar in J...

Visited for the first time on Thursday :

Pros:

- service was proactive, offered drinks as soon as seated in the main line, escorted from the entrance to the haven and very attentive during dinner
-cabanas are amazing, bigger than my living room at home! The bath is huge for me at 6 foot ( is is usual they will allow two people in the same room? )
- direct entry from immigration exit is perfect for convenience
- tenderloin from al LA carte menu was amazing with delicate flavors
- seats very comfy in the lounge area
- interiors felt stylish and sufficiently luxe for F

Cons:

- one bathroom attendant tried to tell me the cabanas were full the other let me in five mins later
- a couple 'people' decided to take over the bar, strewing their coats and bags everywhere, gulping multiple drinks and being generally annoying difficult for CX to manage but did spoil the ambience I think
- no grab n go water bottles... Had to go back to j lounge

I agree the design isn't quite as wow as it could be but think they have had to balance this with space maximisation. I will still put the QF F syd lounge ahead for now given they will serve food anywhere to you, offer spa treatments and have a great design aesthetic.

Now...think how long that would take :D

Here's some pics from my visit - I have to say using QF F Lounge in SYD as the benchmark I think it stacks up well (and even comes out a little ahead with the cabanas)

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...0/IMG_0080.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g...0/IMG_0075.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-V...0/IMG_0064.JPG

nice pics

Re: the Water bottles, you are in the F lounge, so just ask the attendants for either evian or bonaqua water and it will arrive for you. For that matter any drink or food.

Everyone must remember that F is a cut above J, and therefore you may ask the attendants to assit you as you like E.g. If you wish to eat outside the Haven, just ask someone to bring your ordered meal for you to your seat.

Never been into the lounge, but looking at all these photos....something about the cabana bed still bothers me. Was it really that necessary to have the bed right next to the bath tub...so closed? Add in the sharp cutoff's of the bath tub design....an accident or two is bound to happen in the future.

I'm not an interior designer....but could they really not have positioned the day bed in a different part of the room??

They usually ask me first. "Sir, would you like some drinks?!" :D

I see what you mean but there is plenty of space between the bed and the bath tub - it isn't close at all and the edges were not sharp from memory.

Just curious - does the Haven only serve items off of the menu that corresponds to the time of day or can you go "off menu" for items they might serve during other times of day. For example, I'm arriving at about 5am from the U.S. but won't really feel like breakfast. Would they do lunch items or is this too much? Do they have an "anytime" menu of all day type items?

You're welcome to ask.....but generally, no. Breakfast is breakfast items. Lunch/dinner the same. No they don't have an "anytime" menu you're referring to.

No, CX kitchen is limited and food needs to be prep ahead of time to be even available to be ordered. This isn't your local 24-hour diner. But hey, it doesn't hurt to ask, and maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_0_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12A405 Safari/600.1.4)

I asked - they said no.

They should consider having some basic all day items available - many other first lounges have such things. I remember having a great steak sandwich and burger at the etihad first lounge (on different occasions).