My Lounge — Attraction in Crawley

We visited the mylounge at Gatwick’s south terminal having decided that we didn’t want the queues and rush of the restaurants. However, we may have had a better meal if we had opted for that

There was not as much food on offer as the promotional video shows, although there were bowls of fruit around the lounge.

For me personally I found the options hugely limiting. There were no dairy free alternatives for the yogurt bowls/cereal; even though I asked a member of staff I was told a flat no without them checking/asking the kitchen. This meant I had dry granola with fruit and no yoghurt. There were also no alternative milks available to have with the hot drinks.

We were also disappointed that the pancake station was out of order as this would have been my preferred breakfast choice…berries don’t really go with nachos. Also the ‘English muffins’ for the hot breakfast weren’t on offer; rather there were just white rolls

The website does say that dietary alternatives may be catered for but your staff did not seem interested

But issues with the food aside I was impressed with how tidy, quiet and spacious the lounge was and our empty plates and used cups were cleared away very quickly. Most of the lounge looked great with a nice variety of seating choices though there were a few seats showing wear and tear…a big plus was that the toilets are all individual and clean.

We visited early in the morning and it really made a difference to our trip. As someone who doesn’t enjoy the noise and clamour of the terminal fitness a really calm oasis.

One finally thing; It would have been nice to have a warmer room as it was a...

Awful experience just now. Shocking from start to finish. The atmosphere is comparable to a morgue and the food barely edible but both better than the service of the staff.

Staff were rude and extremely unprofessional. There seemed to be some kind of power outage to the computer which meant bookings and QR codes couldn’t be scanned and we had to queue and wait for it to be fixed. I could see the lady at reception was visibly stressed (understandably so) but she failed to handle in the situation in the right way. Members were clearly non-plussed about why they were allowed in with some giving suggestions. She didn’t address the situation calmly and became combative, snappy and just plain rude with customers. No one was getting angry of aggressive with her so there was no need for her

We then had two young ladies working at the lounge who offered to help, providing assistance to customers by suggesting alternative lounges during the outage. However, there offer of support was let down by their unprofessional demeanour. They were complaining about their manager right in front of the queue and discussing non-customer facing matters. Very unprofessional.

Think they could benefit from some further training. Particularly the lady in charge at reception. She was clearly the team/shift manager. How can you expect younger staff to act professionally when your shift managers don’t role model those behaviours themselves.

And when I finally got in…well less said about that the better…but it’s my fault. The behaviour of the staff should of been the red flag that made...

This lounge is on the opposite side of the terminal to the more traditional options, which might explain why it was totally empty on my arrival late Friday afternoon. However it did fill up later into the evening but you can see how busy it is before entering. The staff throughout are all friendly and helpful and it was a great space to relax before a flight.

One of the unique aspects is the outdoor terrace, which although encased in a cage means it isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing, is great to be able to get some fresh air and the views are pretty good for some plane spotting. There’s also an area with football table which is a good touch.

There’s a large dining area with big tables and the rest of the lounge has a number of more relaxing options, although the provision of electric sockets throughout isn’t the greatest, so if you’re looking to do some work you may struggle when busy. The food options were okay, with two choices of hot dishes and a number of snacks, with the pancake machine and warm nacho cheese sauce machine being favourites of everyone present! Drink selection is also adequate, although wine bottles weren’t kept proactively replenished and when asking for more they hadn’t been kept in a fridge.

There were lots of staff present throughout my stay and the lounge was fairly relaxing still once busier, so I’d consider use again...