I realized that not all airport lounges are created equal. I won’t say there are “bad” lounges, but there are some lounges that I think aren’t worth the price of admission.
Korean Air Lounge in Seoul
I had such an experience on a trip from Seoul to Hong Kong. With the Priority Pass membership, I decided to rest up at the Korean Air Lounge in Seoul.
Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with the lounge. The lounge is bright and spacious with plenty of seating. However, the food is my real benchmark and the food selections were lacking (quite literally). The food wasn’t getting refilled quickly, if at all, as I come across a number of empty dishes when I opened the food coverings.
To be fair, there were a lot of cup noodles available at the lounge. While I have no aversion to cup noodles, the fact that cup noodle is the most appealing food choice at the lounge leaves a little something to be desired.
Korean Air Lounge in Seoul
Cathay Pacific lounge in Seoul
Disappointed by the KAL lounge in Seoul, I decided to “lounge hop” and check out the Cathay Pacific lounge in Seoul. I was flying business for this segment and had access to the lounge. Cathay Pacific had some of the best lounges in Hong Kong, so I went in with some high expectations.
Cathay Pacific lounge in Seoul
Inside the Cathay Lounge. Advice: bring your international travel adapter with you
The first thing I did was check out the food selections once I put my things down. I didn’t think it was possible, but the spread was actually even worse than the selections at the KAL lounge. In one instance, there was a lonely half piece of what looks like a hardened dumpling stuck to a dish. It really looked like it had been sitting there for quite some time; it’s no wonder that there was no taker. If I had any appetite, I lost most of it at these two lounges. I grabbed a soda and soon left to board my flight.
Airplane Food to the Rescue!
Once on-board, I was so thrilled when a flight attendant handed me a menu. I completely forgot that lunch would be served onboard even though it was a short flight (3 hours and 40 minutes)!
CX lunch menu
The menu looked great. I didn’t have much expectations and ordered my appetizer and entrees. They came out beautifully.
Appetizer
Entree
There we have it. It’s not something that most people say, but the airplane food had never looked so good!
#loungefoodfail
Have you visited any lounges that ended up being not as good as you hoped or expected? On the flip side, have you visited one where you didn’t have high expectations and it ended up being a fantastic lounge?
sad about the lounges going down hill happening everywhere
You can always rely on Cathay Pacific to put on a decent spread on board! It’s a shame their lounge food wasn’t any good. The Hong Kong lounge food is spectacular and I’ve heard good things even about the food in their Paris lounge. I thought all would be on just as high a level. Great post!
Indeed! The Hong Kong lounge food is spectacular; this visit just reminded me to tone down my down my expectations of food at CX lounges “everywhere”. 🙂