GOT/OSL/ARN/CDG lounge construction in 2015
Aug 7, 2015, 2:52 am
#61
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: CPH, Denmark
Programs: EBD
Posts: 443
The voucher is probably around 10 EUR. And yes, there is a general Star Alliance lounge. It's situated on the top floor of terminal 1 in the central non-Schengen area, so you'll have to go through passport control twice. Usually, this is no problem, just allow 10 more minutes each way.
Aug 10, 2015, 5:58 am
#63
Join Date: Oct 2011
Programs: EuroBonus Diamond, Delta Skymiles 360, BAEC LTG, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 2,827
Just at ARN, the old business lounge area that was under renovation has now reopened. I can't tell from the signs if this is the new business or the new gold lounge. It has the same food and beverage offering as the old gold lounge that is now closed and under renovation.
A few observations:
- The new space is considerable larger and more spacious.
- The lounge now has an outside view on both sides, one side into the gate 1 tarmac area. This is a great improvement that I specifically value.
- The restroom situation has drastically improved, there is now a real wash area that has a lot more space and is much cleaner.
- They seemed to have adopted the same new WIFI standards as they did in CPH (I reported them here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sas-e...unge-wifi.html). The WIFI no longer sucks, isn't congested 24/7 and is actually usable for work.
- In addition to uncomfortable chairs there are now also uncomfortable couches.
- There are a few lounge chairs in the back at the window, these do are very comfortable and nice to use while in the lounge. Unfortunately there are only 4 of them and they are very popular.
- The food is still terrible and there is still no warm food offering.
- There is no active airconditioning and it is way to warm in here. Fortunately some of the roof tiles are still open and there does appear to be an airconditioning installation even though it is not turned on. Fingers crossed this is being addressed shortly as this used to be a major issue in the old lounge during the summer months.
My preliminary conclusion is positive and exceeding my initial expectations. If they where to improve on the food (really, throw a plate of grilled cheese in there or some hotdogs and you triple the quality and food accessibility) and add more seats that are designed for comfort instead of looks, this would make for an excellent pre-departure experience.
I took some pictures which I will upload if I find the time.
A few observations:
- The new space is considerable larger and more spacious.
- The lounge now has an outside view on both sides, one side into the gate 1 tarmac area. This is a great improvement that I specifically value.
- The restroom situation has drastically improved, there is now a real wash area that has a lot more space and is much cleaner.
- They seemed to have adopted the same new WIFI standards as they did in CPH (I reported them here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sas-e...unge-wifi.html). The WIFI no longer sucks, isn't congested 24/7 and is actually usable for work.
- In addition to uncomfortable chairs there are now also uncomfortable couches.
- There are a few lounge chairs in the back at the window, these do are very comfortable and nice to use while in the lounge. Unfortunately there are only 4 of them and they are very popular.
- The food is still terrible and there is still no warm food offering.
- There is no active airconditioning and it is way to warm in here. Fortunately some of the roof tiles are still open and there does appear to be an airconditioning installation even though it is not turned on. Fingers crossed this is being addressed shortly as this used to be a major issue in the old lounge during the summer months.
My preliminary conclusion is positive and exceeding my initial expectations. If they where to improve on the food (really, throw a plate of grilled cheese in there or some hotdogs and you triple the quality and food accessibility) and add more seats that are designed for comfort instead of looks, this would make for an excellent pre-departure experience.
I took some pictures which I will upload if I find the time.
Last edited by FlyingMoose; Aug 10, 2015 at 6:19 am
Aug 10, 2015, 7:05 am
#64
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Houston
Programs: UA GS 2.6MM & Lifetime UC, Qantas Platinum, Hilton Lifetime Diamond, Bonvoy Platinum, HawaiianMiles
Posts: 8,695
Aug 12, 2015, 5:25 am
#65
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: OSL
Programs: SK Diamond, LH SEN, KL Ivory, AY Basic, OZ silver
Posts: 1,103
Been at the OSL lounge a few times now. Here's my experiences in comparison to FlyingMoose's in ARN.
Fully agree, same in OSL.
Give them credit! At lest they're consistent at something now!
I didn't found the seats in OSL so uncomfortable, though...
Norway used to have tasty hot dogs in the afternoon (or soup) and some putty-like substance sold as 'havregrøt' in the morning. Fortunately, SAS keeps very inconsistent with their lounge food offerings when comparing between the different lounges. Not too much consistency at once, please. Baby steps, baby steps...
Same goes for OSL gold and my experience.
Just at ARN, the old business lounge area that was under renovation has now reopened. I can't tell from the signs if this is the new business or the new gold lounge. It has the same food and beverage offering as the old gold lounge that is now closed and under renovation.
A few observations:
- The restroom situation has drastically improved, there is now a real wash area that has a lot more space and is much cleaner.
A few observations:
- The restroom situation has drastically improved, there is now a real wash area that has a lot more space and is much cleaner.
- In addition to uncomfortable chairs there are now also uncomfortable couches.
I didn't found the seats in OSL so uncomfortable, though...
- The food is still terrible and there is still no warm food offering.
My preliminary conclusion is positive and exceeding my initial expectations. If they where to improve on the food (really, throw a plate of grilled cheese in there or some hotdogs and you triple the quality and food accessibility) and add more seats that are designed for comfort instead of looks, this would make for an excellent pre-departure experience.
Aug 21, 2015, 5:02 am
#66
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: AGH
Posts: 5,977
So, just saw the OSL lounge for the first time. In general a great improvement regarding space but still too small for busy hours.
Anyway, food was horrible and parts of it inedible - literately. The 'pulled chicken' or what it should be was actually life-threading. They seem to just have hacked a whole chicken to pieces, the meat parts were infused (hoping its good for taste?) with bone and cartilage fragments. That made for a crunchy sound but is absolute disgusting!
Wifi is again very very poor. I guess in total 30 people in the Gold lounge, the SAS hotpsot won't even let me authenticate. After entering todays password and enter nothing happens until the conneciton times out. Fortunately the Telia homerun works fine with 10Mbit/s down, 8Mbit/s up and 17ms latency to my Citrix gateway in Sweden.
Anyway, food was horrible and parts of it inedible - literately. The 'pulled chicken' or what it should be was actually life-threading. They seem to just have hacked a whole chicken to pieces, the meat parts were infused (hoping its good for taste?) with bone and cartilage fragments. That made for a crunchy sound but is absolute disgusting!
Wifi is again very very poor. I guess in total 30 people in the Gold lounge, the SAS hotpsot won't even let me authenticate. After entering todays password and enter nothing happens until the conneciton times out. Fortunately the Telia homerun works fine with 10Mbit/s down, 8Mbit/s up and 17ms latency to my Citrix gateway in Sweden.
Aug 21, 2015, 6:29 am
#67
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: OSL
Programs: SK Diamond, LH SEN, KL Ivory, AY Basic, OZ silver
Posts: 1,103
So, just saw the OSL lounge for the first time. In general a great improvement regarding space but still too small for busy hours.
Anyway, food was horrible and parts of it inedible - literately. The 'pulled chicken' or what it should be was actually life-threading. They seem to just have hacked a whole chicken to pieces, the meat parts were infused (hoping its good for taste?) with bone and cartilage fragments. That made for a crunchy sound but is absolute disgusting!
Wifi is again very very poor. I guess in total 30 people in the Gold lounge, the SAS hotpsot won't even let me authenticate. After entering todays password and enter nothing happens until the conneciton times out. Fortunately the Telia homerun works fine with 10Mbit/s down, 8Mbit/s up and 17ms latency to my Citrix gateway in Sweden.
Anyway, food was horrible and parts of it inedible - literately. The 'pulled chicken' or what it should be was actually life-threading. They seem to just have hacked a whole chicken to pieces, the meat parts were infused (hoping its good for taste?) with bone and cartilage fragments. That made for a crunchy sound but is absolute disgusting!
Wifi is again very very poor. I guess in total 30 people in the Gold lounge, the SAS hotpsot won't even let me authenticate. After entering todays password and enter nothing happens until the conneciton times out. Fortunately the Telia homerun works fine with 10Mbit/s down, 8Mbit/s up and 17ms latency to my Citrix gateway in Sweden.
Aug 21, 2015, 12:05 pm
#69
Join Date: Jul 2012
Programs: BA Gold (OWE), SAS Diamond (*G)
Posts: 584
So, just saw the OSL lounge for the first time. In general a great improvement regarding space but still too small for busy hours.
Anyway, food was horrible and parts of it inedible - literately. The 'pulled chicken' or what it should be was actually life-threading. They seem to just have hacked a whole chicken to pieces, the meat parts were infused (hoping its good for taste?) with bone and cartilage fragments. That made for a crunchy sound but is absolute disgusting!
Wifi is again very very poor. I guess in total 30 people in the Gold lounge, the SAS hotpsot won't even let me authenticate. After entering todays password and enter nothing happens until the conneciton times out. Fortunately the Telia homerun works fine with 10Mbit/s down, 8Mbit/s up and 17ms latency to my Citrix gateway in Sweden.
Anyway, food was horrible and parts of it inedible - literately. The 'pulled chicken' or what it should be was actually life-threading. They seem to just have hacked a whole chicken to pieces, the meat parts were infused (hoping its good for taste?) with bone and cartilage fragments. That made for a crunchy sound but is absolute disgusting!
Wifi is again very very poor. I guess in total 30 people in the Gold lounge, the SAS hotpsot won't even let me authenticate. After entering todays password and enter nothing happens until the conneciton times out. Fortunately the Telia homerun works fine with 10Mbit/s down, 8Mbit/s up and 17ms latency to my Citrix gateway in Sweden.
The gents' toilets are going to have a queue forming outside unless they install some urinals somewhere.
Aug 22, 2015, 2:51 am
#70
Join Date: Oct 2011
Programs: EuroBonus Diamond, Delta Skymiles 360, BAEC LTG, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 2,827
Being 2m+ I can't sit comfortable in a 90degree angled seat or a seat that only supports the bottom 15% of your back. As such the new lounge chairs where perfect but all the other seats not so much. This is also an obstacle with the angle of the (Plus) seats on SK's intra-Europe planes, for some reason they insists on a back breaking position for the default pitch.
While not a major fan of the airline otherwise, this is something KL does quite well because Dutch people suffer from the same problem. I involuntarily ended up on a AMS-OSL flight a while back in coach because that is what SK rebooks Plus tickets to and even in the back the seat pitch on the 737's was better than what SK offers in the front.
For an impression of the new ARN Gold lounge, these pictures are much better than the ones I took: http://www.businessclass.se/sas-har-...kholm-arlanda/
While not a major fan of the airline otherwise, this is something KL does quite well because Dutch people suffer from the same problem. I involuntarily ended up on a AMS-OSL flight a while back in coach because that is what SK rebooks Plus tickets to and even in the back the seat pitch on the 737's was better than what SK offers in the front.
For an impression of the new ARN Gold lounge, these pictures are much better than the ones I took: http://www.businessclass.se/sas-har-...kholm-arlanda/
Last edited by FlyingMoose; Aug 22, 2015 at 3:02 am
Aug 24, 2015, 1:42 am
#71
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: OSL
Programs: SK Diamond, LH SEN, KL Ivory, AY Basic, OZ silver
Posts: 1,103
Ai, didn't know SK also rebooked on KL! I usually get to fly via CPH if OSL-AMS is cancelled. If you confirm, I'll try to point this out to the service desk next time.
Being Dutch, I know about this problem of being tall. In many ways Dutch society has adapted to this already. I think the average Dutch man is just over 1.90 meters, which makes me smaller than average. The average Dutch woman is about 1,80m...
Anyway, when constructing new houses, the ceiling is nowadays set at 2.6 meters (used to be 2.4), doors are slightly taller, kitchens have their sinks 10 cm higher than before... but I didn't know KL also gave better seat pitch compared to other airlines. I actually remember having a 28" seat pitch on an old KL 736 some years ago (yes, it's worse than FR), it was the worst seat I've ever been on. Fortunately, that bird has retired now. The new interior looks good, I've been on some B738, but didn't find the seats extraordinarily spacious... 30", like on the SAS B738, I think...
Being Dutch, I know about this problem of being tall. In many ways Dutch society has adapted to this already. I think the average Dutch man is just over 1.90 meters, which makes me smaller than average. The average Dutch woman is about 1,80m...
Anyway, when constructing new houses, the ceiling is nowadays set at 2.6 meters (used to be 2.4), doors are slightly taller, kitchens have their sinks 10 cm higher than before... but I didn't know KL also gave better seat pitch compared to other airlines. I actually remember having a 28" seat pitch on an old KL 736 some years ago (yes, it's worse than FR), it was the worst seat I've ever been on. Fortunately, that bird has retired now. The new interior looks good, I've been on some B738, but didn't find the seats extraordinarily spacious... 30", like on the SAS B738, I think...
Aug 24, 2015, 6:48 am
#72
Join Date: Oct 2011
Programs: EuroBonus Diamond, Delta Skymiles 360, BAEC LTG, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 2,827
Yep they rebook on KL, have done for years. My previous experience was while SK still had intra-Europe business and there was no harm done. Was able to credit the flight to Flying Blue and retroclaim the SK miles on EB, in addition the flight left earlier than the SK flight so a double win really.
The recent experience was considerably worse since Plus is classified as Economy-Extra so you get rebooked in coach and being rebooked an hour before departure you end up in the back.
The recent experience was considerably worse since Plus is classified as Economy-Extra so you get rebooked in coach and being rebooked an hour before departure you end up in the back.
Aug 31, 2015, 7:18 am
#75
Join Date: May 2014
Programs: UA 1K, AA Gold, DL Silver
Posts: 410
I have no status, but am flying in Plus this Friday, after connecting from USA. Would I still be to use these showers, if it's the only lounge that's open at ARN?