We’re heading eastbound tomorrow and the EK lounge doen’t even factor into it. Far to much hotel lobby like with buffet for my liking.
Well, unless our departure gate is nearby and we decide to decamp closer to departure.
LOL, I agree that the EK lounge has all the ambience of a 1990s Marriot Executive Club lounge. It's visually drab and the basement level setting means the views aren't up to much (though sometimes quite interesting, at ground level) - there's no doubt the Flounge beats it hands down for views and ambience and a general sense of occasion, and is objectively a better lounge overall.
But there are things the EK lounge is better for, leaving aside for a moment which set of gates you're departing from. Given it's an outstation lounge which every business and Gold-tier passenger has access to, up against Qantas' flagship First Class lounge in its primary hub, that really shouldn't be the case - QF's offering should totally outclass it.
The wine is the obvious one. It's a slightly smaller selection than QF's but vastly higher quality. There's a choice of 2 very respectable brands of champagne, and for the still wines they're spending 2-3x more per bottle (and, more importantly, they're also much higher quality) than QF, and you can self-serve. This was the EK wine selection on a recent visit for example:
I also find the EK food spread to be remarkably high quality, and the fact that it's buffet style and/or has lots of pre-made plates is very efficient if you're short on time. Here's a recent spread:
If you only have ~20mins before a flight and just want some high quality food and drink without the stress of waiting to be served, wondering whether the QF servers are having an off day, and (in my case at least) being irritated all over again by the cheap-cough wines, the EK lounge fits the bill remarkably well.
Don't get me wrong, the QF F Lounge is beautiful, and particularly if you have 45+ minutes to luxuriate in it pre-flight it's a wonderful place to be. But it really, REALLY annoys me how cheap and sh*tty the wine is now - for me, that's an important part of the experience - and it also mystifies me that QF doesn't have at least some small buffet section for people who are very short on time, as most other lounges with seated a la carte dining areas do. It's not unusual for me only to have about 20mins lounge time before a trans-Tasman flight in Y, so does that mean I have to go to the (truly embarrassingly awful) QF J lounge instead, if EK isn't open? That doesn't seem like a good system.
OK, I'll stop ranting now...
