johan rebel

Right, so I bit the bullet, took a deep breath, and had a look around.

- really confusing layout and a split-level nightmare. Great for the elderly and those with reduced mobility.

- that fancy staircase and the surrounding area were closed off. Workers were piling up stacks of construction materials everywhere.

- tried a self-service machine, which just returned an error message when I attempted to book a shower.

- shower area really busy. Nap cabin corridor dead quiet, presumably because the cabins were all packed with pax sleeping away €75 each.

- lots of pax sleeping on the loungers and sofas in that room at the far dead-end of Sea. Presumably due to an acute shortage of nap cabins.

- no opinion on the catering, I wasn't brave enough.

- it was pretty busy, but far from full. About 50% of seating capacity just before 8 a.m., by my estimate.

- seven guests in Blue, and one in the bar. The latter had presumably come to the conclusion that a single drink, if nurtured long enough, was a price worth paying for some peace and quiet. Smart guy.

Conclusion : for the price of a dozen or so Blue rutabagas I get a year of Privium. A no-brainer.

Johan

worldclubber

Well, empty restaurants/bars usually disappear, so let’s hope Blue stays empty and makes room for „normal“ lounge guests.

Is it still possible to get to the balcony without frequenting the upstairs bar?

Fabo.sk

Yes, you can take a seat in the bar area and nobody will bother you. As long as you don't fancy anything to drink, you'll be fine IME

mikem004

Yes. Does the place meet regulations for disabled access, I wonder?
And have any drunks fallen down the stairs, yet? It looks like a potential death trap if you have had a few drinks of hard liquor.

NickB

This is pretty good going for Blue and mornings are bound to be their busiest time. At most times, there are fewer signs of life in Blue than on the Mary Celeste.

Tiger_lily

I was looking forward to visiting 52 as a welcome change from BA’s LHR offerings. Now I might be crushingly disappointed.

I might have to obtain another Amex card so I can go to the Aspire lounge instead

worldclubber

You won’t be disappointed if you just follow this thread and keep your expectations low.

Fabo.sk

In whichever case, it's not worse than Aspire lounge... if you can even get in with PriorityPass/Amex. As often as not, I've seen a note on the non-Schengen Aspire that they don't accept card-carrying clients at this time, only airline clients.

Tiger_lily

I’m used to BA’s paltry offerings, expectations are always on the low side 😉

Ahh, thanks for the heads up

caliform

It's a fine lounge. This forum is just full of drama queens. If you'd go by the threads here you would think that flying in La Premiere on the A380 is some cruel and unusual form of torture.

worldclubber

La Premiere is fine, but the lounge is a disappointment after such a long renovation. And charging your own premium customers hotel prices for a nap room in a lounge is just absurd. You don’t have to agree to this, but there is nothing drama queenish about calling KL out for bad decisions.

Lawrious

It's not the worst lounge in existence, but, you are heavily shortchanged when it comes to the competition offeringsimilar experiences for either free or a reasonable price.

Don't forget, there are still people that will buy theit access to the lounge and I find that incredibly unfair

atflyer

I agree with some others here that we should not overdo in KLM-bashing. Sure, some choices seem plain mistakes - charging to your elite customers the same as a hotel for a nap facility. Yes, this new KLM lounge is not matching the absolute top peers, like the Turkish lounge at Istanbul (I visited the one at the old airport). But compared to the dozens and dozens of lounges I have seen, I don't feel it is worse as the bottom half. Indeed, still in the top 25% of the probably 70-100 or so that I have seen. On my AMS-BHX return last week the KLM lounge did beat the Aspire lounge in BXH by a wide margin.

Mozart0815

Taking nearly any Aspire lounge as a benchmark is like saying, look, my new car is so cool, it’s way better than a Lada or Dacia.

I don’t think KLM wouldn’t get that much negative comments here if it weren’t for their ridiculous PR around the launch of the facility.

And indeed, the rip-off factor all over the place.

worldclubber

Well put!

KL misunderstood the concept of a lounge.

There are plenty of paid restaurants in the terminal, the lounge is for grabbing a quick drink and a snack when there is not enough time for a proper meal, or for something a bit more substantial that I can take with me to a table while working.

Same applies to the nap rooms. There are hotels that offer day rooms for a fee already, for longer layovers. I often use lounge nap rooms for just half an hour or an hour.

No need to take up space in a frequently overcrowded lounge to provide more of what the terminal already has.