My husband and I have never been in an airport lounge. I have a friend who travels a lot that uses them frequently, which makes sense. I have also read lots about lounges on the blogs I follow, but for us we never flew enough to mess with it. Recently we joined Priority Pass as a benefit of a new credit card. We get 10 passes per year to use. Lounge access is going to be kind of a treat for us.
We literally just got the membership and I secretly set the app up on my Husband’s phone. I wanted it to be a surprise for him. We have a lot of air travel coming up in the next few months which means plenty of opportunities to check it out. I am really looking forward to using it at HNL on our way back from Hawaii next month.
Last Friday we were due to fly out of DTW at 5:20. Right around the time we were leaving for the airport, we got a text message from the airline saying our flight had been delayed. Bummer. We still headed out since we would need to pass through Ann Arbor to get to the airport and the traffic can be messy if you hit at the wrong time. Once we arrived and got through the TSA checkpoint we checked with the gate agent to confirm the status of our delayed flight. It had moved back up a bit, but we still had some time to kill. I wasn’t really planning a lounge visit on this trip, but it seemed like a good plan due to the delays. Sadly, our gate was on the opposite end of the concourse from the lounge. It was quite the hike with my husband who was confused and wondering what I was up to. Finally we arrived at the Lufthansa Senator Lounge.
I pulled up the app on his phone and they scanned us in using the QR code. This was awesome, because we still hadn’t gotten the card in the mail from Priority Pass. Once inside, we found our way to some comfy seats. Since we were lounge newbies, and weren’t too sure of how it all worked we decided to do a bit of people watching before we approached the food and drink area. We saw that they had a small fridge filled with bottled beers, several open bottles of wine, and some glass shelves full of liquor bottles, but no Bartender. It took us a minute to realize that we could just pour our own…got it! There was also a buffet of nibbles and a few heartier entrees in chaffing dishes. Just what we needed.
I made a small plate of appetizers and poured a glass of wine. Mark grabbed a beer from the fridge and we settled in. About this time we got another text notifying us of further delays for our flight. Ugh. But we decided this was as good a place as any to wait it out.
Although it was a comfortable lounge with plenty of seating and snacks, there were a few things that I saw could use a bit of improvement. There was one lady there servicing the entire lounge who seemed to be struggling to keep up. Her duties were to clear and wipe tables, restock glasses and such and keep the food filled. There was only 1 or no glasses at all for most of the time that we were in the lounge, a lot of the foods had run empty and a several empty tables needed to be cleared. The lounge was really filling up so this was becoming an issue fast.
About this time, I made my way to the restroom inside the lounge. That was when I saw the Lufthansa Airplane model just outside the restrooms in the “work space area.” Can you see what caught my eye as odd with it?
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before a fresh crew of ladies joined the first one and began to get things under control in the lounge. The toilet paper on the airplane wing was still there when I left. Although it made me giggle (because I am a kid in an adult body), I wonder if Lufthansa would have seen the humor.
Anyway, it was a great place to spend two hours of our flight delay and learn all about “Lounge Life”. After a couple drinks and some snacks, Mark left the lounge smiling instead of being grumpy while waiting all that time at the gate! That was the real win!
The World According to Dev 