At 6pm, this lounge was far more crowded than the gate area. Then again, the gate area does not have a nice selection of complimentary food and drink. So choose your poison.
I was flying from Milan Malpensa (MXP) to Frankfurt (FRA) and arrived about 90 minutes before flight departure. The check-in agent directed me to the lounge, where I was asked to present my boarding pass and Star Alliance Gold card.
Business class passengers are not permitted any guests. Star Alliance Gold passengers are permitted one guest. Since John was with me, I had to scan my electronic United Premier Gold card in order for him to gain access.
When I said the lounge was crowded, I meant it. It was packed. At first, the only seat I could find was at the bar…so I ordered an Aperol Spritz.
Every other table, couch, and chair was occupied. Later, I was able to move over to table and at least spread out a bit.
The lounge buffet contains several hot dishes including pasta, fish, and meat plus a large salad bar. While the pictures do not exactly make it look appetizing, you should have seen the vultures swoop down on the food the moment a tray was refilled. The lounge staff was truly hustling just refilling the quickly-depleted buffet food.
I skipped eating and instead ordered a cappuccino (I know it was 5pm and I didn’t care…it had been a long day).
You can imagine the bathrooms were packed as well. No pictures there. The lounge does not offer showers.
A selection of newspaper and magazines were available along with lockers:
As you can imagine, with so many people in the lounge the internet was very slow.
CONCLUSION
Despite the overcrowding, I do not regret stopping by this lounge…the beverages were excellent. It is open daily from 5:00am to 8:30pm. But if you are looking for a quiet place to work or eat, this is not the place…at least not on a weekday evening.
I wish more lounges offered lockers. I typically don’t have an issue setting up and leaving my bag to go get a drink or use the restroom, but it’s not the greatest feeling. Funny story one time I was at an airport at an Air France lounge (in the USA), and my flight was delayed over an hour. When I checked into the lounge I recognized the agent (and he recognized me) from a…dating (not dating) site/app where we had been chatting. I really didn’t want to take my bag with me, so I asked if he could watch my things while I stepped back out to the curb. He agreed, which I’m sure breaks all kinds of rules, and now I get to tell that little story here. Never did see him outside the airport, but did see him a couple more times at the lounge.
Did you swipe left or right? 😉 That’s a great story.
on Grindr you don’t swipe
Did you end up getting hot and heavy? lol
This must be a new lounge. I was there in September and it was a small lounge in a back corner. Fortunately wasn’t crowded on a Saturday morning.
Reminds me of the Senators Lounge in Heathrow. It’s always packed as well, especially for the evening flights. It’s hard to get a seat anywhere sometimes and the “vultures” do go through the food quite quickly. I’m flying out of Heathrow on Sunday back to Munich in the morning, so hopefully it won’t be as busy then.
I’m flying on UA MXP – EWR -LAX in Polaris. Do you know if its easy for United fliers to access this lounge at MXP?
It’s actually not all that easy. You can do it, but it will require an extra security checkpoint.