Thursday, December 29, 2005

Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse -- JFK

Imagine you had to spend a whole day at an airport. Where would you least like to be? If you had asked me a week ago, I think I might have said New York's John F Kennedy (JFK). My recent experience was completely different.

I went to London via a rather interesting route. On the first day I took a flight from Dulles Airport (IAD) to JFK, where I arrived at about noon. My next flight was on Singapore Airlines to Frankfurt at 9:30 (FRA). My third flight left JFK at about nine in the evening and arrived in Frankfurt the next morning at about 10:30. The last flight was on Lufthansa from FRA to London (LHR). My return journey was from LHR to Munich (MUC) on Lufthansa, and then I flew back from MUC to IAD. The whole experience allowed me to try five airline lounges, three airlines, and five different planes.

My experience at the Virgin Lounge in New York was so incredibly pleasant that I thought it was worth a posting. When I go to the lounges in the United States, I find I am underwhelmed. I go to United's Red Carpet Clubs quite often because they allow people with Gold Status (Premier Executives) to go if you are traveling internationally, but quite honestly they don't offer a lot.

Here are a few pictures of the Virgin Clubhouse at JFK:






At the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse the staff are wonderful -- they are so friendly and go out of their way to make sure that you have a good time.
















Getting work done is easy at the Clubhouse. They have wireless connections to the Internet for customers with their own laptops, and they also have a a Macs, printers, and a fax machine for people who want to work.









The nicest thing is the way they organize food. Some of the best lounges that I have ever been to put out extensive buffets, but in my opinion, it is so much nicer to sit down and have a restaurant style meal. I really like the way there was a menu on the table, and everything was presented beautifully. I ordered the crab quesadillas. The champagne was Mosaique from Jacquart.















For dessert, I had an assortment of cheese and crackers with a glass of port.












I will put more pictures of the lounge up in another posting. Comments are invited -- what is the best airport lounge you have ever been in?

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