Clubroom No1 Lounge Review - London Gatwick Airport LGW

In this trip report, I'll be sharing my experience at the Club Room No1 Lounge at London Gatwick Airport. I was flying from Montreal to Mauritius with a layover in London and I received complimentary access to this lounge with Air Mauritius's business class boarding pass.

All of the Lounges at Gatwick are located in the same area and spread over four floors. Once you are past security,  follow the signs marked “Lounges” and take the elevator downstairs to the first floor. If you are travelling internationally, you can now purchase an eSIM ahead of time on the Airalo App and install it so you're connected as soon as you land and can call an Uber and use Google Maps without searching for WiFi. If you sign up with my referral code C0887, you’ll get $3 off your first eSIM purchase!

The lounge has a trendy contemporary look with lots of sofas for seating.  The lounge itself looks more like a cozy bar than an airport lounge. There are no tables to sit at and absolutely no plugs available to charge your devices.

The main lounge area

Food and Drinks

Food can be ordered from a menu with à la carte service.

Clubroom No1 Lounge Menu

 I decided to try the butterfly chicken breast burger and it was small and tasty. The fries were not my favourite. Drinks are must also be ordered and the wine pours are measured. The menu listed Champagne and the lounge attendant clarified that those cost extra.

Showers and Amenities

There are no showers available and the bathrooms are tiny. I usually like to shower during my layover but in this case that wasn’t an option. There was one tiny sink (tiny even by European standards) in the bathroom that could barely fit my hands. It was not only difficult to wash my hands, but trying to brush my teeth resulted in water just splashing everywhere on the floor. No towels were available.

The impossibly small sink

The service was pretty good with all the attendants frequently checking up on guests to ask if we would like to eat or drink anything. After spending an hour or so here, I noticed that my flight was boarding so I headed down to the Gate. This lounge was a quiet place to spend a layover but the lack of showers is a glaring omission for an airport lounge.

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge Review - YUL International Airport (Montreal)

In this post, I'll be reviewing the  international Maple leaf lounge  at Montréal-Trudeau Airport.  access to this lounge is complementary for Air Canada passengers flying  internationally in business class.  There are separate maple leaf lounges for passengers flying domestically or to the US.  The lounge is clearly marked with banners and Located next to gate A52.   Note that This lounge is located in the international zone and not accessible to passengers flying domestically ( similar to the Air France, Desjardins and the National Bank Lounge).  After scanning your boarding pass, you’ll need to head upstairs.  The elevator opens right into the lounge.

If you are travelling outside of Canada, you can purchase your esim ahead of time on the Airalo App and install it so you're connected as soon as you land and can call an Uber and use Google Maps without searching for WiFi. If you sign up with my referral code C0887, you’ll get $3 USD off your first esim purchase!

Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge lobby

There are lots of seating areas followed by a big bar in the centre of the lounge.  The seating areas are separated by  geometric separators to create some privacy.  The seats next to the window offered some nice views of the airplanes on the tarmac. Note that there are no  working plugs available to charge your devices  near the seats. The ones that were present did not work at all  so this was very disappointing for an airline like Air Canada and  definitely a lack of basic amenities for business travellers  who might need to charge their laptops as regular passengers who need to charge their devices before the flight.  thankfully there were dedicated plugs on the plane, but I expected there to be some in the lounge

The main bar

Seating areas with a view

Food and Dining

The main bar is a full service bar tended by a friendly and hard-working bartender who served some very stiff drinks. My bloody Caesar was well mixed and tasty.

Across the bar, you will find the main buffet that offers a Variety of food  options.  I decided to get some fried fish fillets,  bean salad and a Classic Montreal smoked meat sandwich.  I wasn't too sure about the smoked meat sandwich because I previously had one at the domestic Maple Leaf Lounge and it was the worst  Smoked meat sandwich I've ever had.  Here however, the standards were much higher and an attendant heated up my sandwich in the oven and topped it with a slice of juicy pickle.  The sandwich was delicious and the slices of smoked meat were tender. 

Cocktails made to order from the friendly bartender

The main buffet

Great dinner tonight: Fried fish fillet, Montreal smoked meat sandwich and a bloody Caesar.

There are showers available at this lounge although I did not get to try them.  After about  an hour and a half, it was time to board my flight so I headed downstairs. This lounge was a decent place to kill some time before boarding and a massive step up from the domestic Maple Leaf lounge. The food was a welcome improvement over the domestic lounge. I think this is one of the better Air Canada lounges and I’d say about similar to the nearby Air France Lounge and National Bank Lounge.

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Emirates Business Class Lounge Review - DXB Terminal 3 Concourse C

Emirates Business Class passengers departing from Dubai International Airport receive complimentary access to any of Emirates’ Business Class lounge. These lounges are a quiet place to sit and relax, maybe grab a snack or meal or even take a shower. In thi post, I’ll be reviewing my experience of the Emirates Business Class Lounge located in Concourse C. After landing at Dubai International Airport from Mauritius, I cleared security and took the shuttle bus to Concourse C where my flight to Montreal was departing. The lounge is located upstairs and across from the Gates. It is a medium sized lounge that did not offer direct boarding to the airport. Having read that Emirates offers boarding directly from the Lounge, I was pretty disappointed that this option was not available. It seems that Concourse B features the best services like direct lounge boarding, biometric entry and the Moët and Champagne Bar (more on that below).

The main area

The lounge had a decent amount of seats with large windows, but since it was nighttime, I'm not sure if there was much of a view but I could see Air Canada’s parking spot from the lounge seats. I could imagine the lounge becoming very crowded if there were several flights departing back to back, however since it was around midnight on Christmas Eve it was very calm when I visited. Screens throughout the lounge showed the departure time as well as some soccer games highlights Match scores.

If you are travelling internationally, you can purchase your esim ahead of time on the Airalo App and install it so you're connected as soon as you land and can call an Uber and use Google Maps without searching for WiFi. If you sign up with my referral code C0887, you’ll get $3 USD off your first esim purchase!

Food

There was a decent selection of food and drinks. Some main courses included beef stew, roasted potatoes and seafood pie as well as salads and desserts. There was an unattended ice cream cart which looked enticing, but I was pretty full already so can't comment on the quality.

The main buffet

Ice cream for dessert

Drinks

To the left of the main buffet was a self serve bar with spirits, wines, and beers as well as some Moët champagne. Having read about the Emirates Moët & Chandon Champagne Lounge and anticipating a unique new experience, I was sorely disappointed to find just a couple of opened bottles in a bucket of ice at the bar with no canapés to pair it with as per the press release by Emirates. As I mentioned above, it seems Concourse B is the one that receives the finest services and amenities while Concourse C is just an afterthought so your Emirates experience will highly vary depending on which terminal your flight is departing from.

The Moët & Chandon Champagne “Lounge”

Showers

To the left of the main entrance were the bathrooms. The lounge had several showers and there wasn't just one but two attendants for the showers. We simply had to notify them if we wanted to take a shower and they provided us with fresh towels and an amenity kit that included a toothbrush and toothpaste. The bathrooms were sparkling clean and just perfect to freshen up in between flights.

The Emirates lounge main bathroom

The shower was sparkling clean

After a quick shower, I noticed that my flight had already started boarding very early (which was actually not the case) so I left the lounge and headed to the boarding gate. This lounge was a decent place to kill some time on a layover and provided decent food, drinks and a hot shower to freshen up. However, it's worth keeping in mind that the best of what Emirates has to offer is not here, but rather in Concourse B.

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