Shall we just take a little break from Cathay? I am afraid that people are getting sick of hearing Cathay and Cathay! This is the other awesome Oneworld lounge that you can visit in HKIA. Frankly speaking, HKIA is full of awesome lounge, besides what I am going to cover in this trip series, you also have the Plaza Premium First which I have heard much good things about. Furthermore there is also the AMEX Centurion Lounge as well. Hopefully, one day I will have a chance to visit them. Frankly speaking, I have not idea why Qantas would want to operate their own lounge here given that Cathay already have such great facilities. The Qantas Business Class Lounge is located right after security on the opposite side of The Wing. Do pay attention to which security side to use if you are visiting any of them in particular. It was open from 7.30am to 11pm. You are able to access with any OneWorld premium ticket or with Oneworld Sapphire status.
I was there right at 11am and it was completely empty, literally empty. I only see like 1 other customer throughout the time that I was there. Immediately after entering you there are two host table where they will verify your access and they should be able to help you with any ticketing issue as well. They were pretty polite. The lounge is literally long in shape and takes up the whole space of level 7. It opens up to the terminal and have views over the tarmac nearby. Something that I really love about HKIA is the way they design the windows, it allows the plane to be seen. Something Changi T3 fails miserable. Ahem! First of all, let me just say that the area, the space and what Qantas have done with it is absolutely gorgeous, it is so classy and chill. I love the style of what they have done. Furthermore it is extremely airy and spacious. I can see myself staying here for so long, in addition, it is so much more quieter than the Cathay ones which seems like a zoo in comparison.
After entering, you can find lots of seating area. Including some couches that look extremely comfortable. After that, it is the main showcase of the lounge, which is the bar! It is amazing. The display is gorgeous. There is a very impressive drinks menu that you can order from and they even have an order to made dish. I love this bar.
You can also get coffee made from that espresso machine. The one and only Flat White that I got here was so good. It was perfect, you really have to give it to Australians and their coffee. However the bartender was a piece of work, he is super rude and it is a if that he ignore and despise my existence. He did not speak a single word to me at all and had no expression or nod his head or anything. He just went to make the coffee, left it on the bar. It felt like I was a burden, disturbing his work. There are so many different seatings, so many areas. They even had such huge common tables that I actually wonder if there are really such huge groups of travelling passengers in business class or it is just for show. That table must be able to fit the whole A380 First class pax. Here are some pictures of the seatings.
I had so much fun taking pictures especially since it is so quiet in the lounge. You could sit by the bar, by the space that faces the terminal enjoying some Avgeeking! The lounge is super huge, till they actually barricade off a portion of the lounge since there is literally no one at all.
Refreshments wise, I find it to be rather limited, there is a small buffet corner and it was located to the wall side of the lounge. They were still serving breakfast when I was there. The food was decent and normal, nothing much to speak about. You can find eggs, hashbrown, sausage, curry and soup. There were also some salads and cold cuts on offer. It is pretty normal, but the salads look pretty interesting though. . As I mentioned, there is also a daily dish that you order and when I was there it is Braised Beef Brisket Egg Noodle Soup.
Drink wise, besides the awesome bar, you can also find some juices, water, drinks in the fridge along the buffet line. They even have Yakult on offer, how cute is that.there are also some self serve wine on offer. I really love that they focus a lot on Australian produce which is a nice flair.
While I was there, I also had the chance to visit the showers. It was clean and huge. Of course, there is no wait at all. This is almost on the same caliber as the Cathay First ones. They were well maintained and in good condition. I also love the Aspar products on offer, again, a nice touch from home.
Conclusion, The Qantas lounge is a perfect alternative to the busy cathay ones. Although, even if you are coming at a timing when lots of Qantas or Emirates Flights are departing. It is hard to see this lounge filling up given how huge it is. I love how it is done up where they balance both the amount of privacy using partitions and keeping it open and spacious. I suppose the offerings for lunch and dinner would be awesome. I will come back anytime! Hopefully they do some staff retraining though!
Seeing The World In Steps 