Re: New QF Business lounge in Perth
Hi everyone,
I'm in the PER dom J lounge for the first time tonight and just wanted to share my impressions.
First, I like the décor. Lighting is a little soft, but classily so. Everything looks nice and calm and comfortable. It's a pleasant place to be at the moment, although looking at all of the empty seats and knowing how the QC gets on a Wednesday night, I expect my impression will be very different in a couple of hours. In fact, while I've been writing this a group of four has just sat down near by and are having a loud conversation that would not usually be considered fit for polite company. Oh well.
The Accor lounge staff have all been very polite, very professional, and very pleasant; much like the staff at the QC upstairs, and in the BNE J lounge, where I spend most of the rest of my lounging time. However, while the QF dragon at the entry podium was very professional, she was neither very polite nor very friendly. I haven't seen her at the QC before, so I'm hoping she is a new hire and will mellow a bit with time.
Onto the space: there is a large dining area -- no a la carte provided in the evenings, according to the lovely wine /coffee bar attendant -- as well as the famed pizza bar and a self-serve food area akin to the QC. The pizza tonight is a choice of pepperoni (deliciously spicy) and four cheese (deliciously cheesy). I've had two pieces of each pizza already and feel decadent.
The toilets are, as mentioned by someone else, not enough. They are lovely and new and shiny, but there are only three cubicles in the men's toilets -- as in the BNE J lounge -- even though this lounge is about three times the size. Given the queue at BNE sometimes, I cringe to think of how this will be in a couple of hours, or in the morning rush.
The wine choice is also surprising, this being the first lounge I've visited in at least a couple of years that doesn't offer a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. I realise that this is PER, after all, where Margaret River is held in very high esteem, and I've heard that the reds from this area are actually quite nice. But I don't drink red, and Margaret River SBs and SSBs are really not very good; a Marlborough SB is a staple of any lounge these days and is sorely missed!
To his credit, the friendly bartender did offer to go upstairs and bring down an Angel Cove from the QC, but overall I feel this is a small oversight. Let's hope it is corrected in due course.
Oh, and in case anyone else likes cider, the lounge has 5 Seeds Crisp Apple Cider on tap, which I believe is the same as is available in the QC.
Overall, it's quite pleasant, and I think Qantas has done a good job. I really don't know what they'll do about the number of toilets, though. I suspect there will be people going between here and the QC just to use the QC toilets during busy periods!
Edit: I missed the showers on my first walk around. There are four plus one (baby change / disabled) showers, each with a toilet in it as well. The toiletries are very nice.
mrpooky.
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