The Star Alliance Lounge is very pleasant indeed 
.
I was there a couple of days ago, and managed to nicely fill in a good deal of my 7-hour layover between my US domestic flight and VA24. The lounge is very spacious, with a variety of seating areas including the much-promoted outside terrace which looks over the airport towards the Hollywood Hills. It was very nice but no one was using it due to the rather chilly evening conditions in the US at the moment!
There's also a large balcony area outside the main part of the lounge overlooking the new shopping area in TBIT. There's also a media room with a (very) large screen TV showing mainly basketball by the looks of it.
There's also a luggage storage area as well. I don't drink alcohol, so can't help much with comments in that regard, but looked like there was a good range of drinks available (non-alcoholic as well of course). Two large tea/coffee stations, and two food stations, one with a selection of noodles and accompaniments and the other with chicken and pasta dishes, salads, fruit, a small range of desserts etc. Food was well presented and very tasty. A wide variety of reading material, but very little of it in English. Shower suites are quite pleasant - you need to ring a bell for an attendant to come and open one up for you - usual shower/toilet facilities, hairdryer etc. Water-saving showerheads, so not a lot of water pressure but at least the water was nice and warm (which is more than I can say for the experience in The Lounge at MEL domestic when I got back!), hairdryer available. Plays easy-listening "elevator music" in the shower room and bathrooms all the time, which tends to drive you up the wall a bit.
Excellent wifi signal, full strength inside the lounge, although had difficulty keeping a connection when sitting out on the balcony (then again, that might just be because of my coughpy old laptop). There are large screens displaying flight departures and staff regularly walk around with signs indicating flights which have started boarding (they also verbally announce the flight as well). The lounge started to fill up rapidly later in the evening with the advent of what looked like the entire St Kilda club, so at about 9.45pm I decided to take a walk around the duty free shops and then head down to the gate to stretch my legs before the flight (which now departs at 11.20pm).
The departure from TBIT wasn't as pleasant as the lounge stay though, I have to say. Didn't find anything of interest in the shops, to headed to the gate. Obviously a lot of the terminal is still under construction/renovation as there are a lot of boarded-up areas. We were at one of the furthest gates, so quite a walk, then a few minutes after I arrived, announcements were being made for VA24 passengers to make their way to security and to the gate ASAP as boarding would soon commence (this was just after 10pm, flight departure time scheduled for 11.20pm).
Then I found out why - priority boarding passengers were called up and we were then packed like sardines on to a bus and driven quite some distance to a far-flung part of LAX (have no idea where we actually were when we boarded), then had to walk up a huge concrete ramp on to the airbridge where we waited ... and waited ... and waited. Further busloads arrived so the airbridge was getting pretty crowded - and still we waited. Finally after about 15 minutes or so, we started to board. Took some time to get everyone on, then we taxiied back the way we'd come (and beyond) - about 6km in all according to the "point of origin" info and then into a queue where there was quite a wait again before it was our turn to take off. I know the departures from TBIT are only a recent development, but it seemed to be a rather "cobbled together" arrangement and quite a few passengers were not at all pleased with the process judging by overheard comments. I wasn't exactly thrilled myself, especially as I'd already had a long day's travelling and then waiting at LAX (and then had still yet another flight to PER after arriving in MEL), so it certainly wasn't an ideal experience - however being able to turn left when I got on the plane made up for it.
Actually, regarding the much coveted Row 5, I glanced at the boarding pass of the woman standing next to me (not much else to do during that long wait on the airbridge) and she was in 5A, but no status of any kind indicated on the boarding pass and she certainly wasn't a celeb (we'd been chatting and she was an Aussie office worker from Melbourne) so would be interested to know how she scored a seat in that row - which was actually half empty, as was most of J - unless she asked for it at check-in and it was granted as the load in J was so light?
. I was there a couple of days ago, and managed to nicely fill in a good deal of my 7-hour layover between my US domestic flight and VA24. The lounge is very spacious, with a variety of seating areas including the much-promoted outside terrace which looks over the airport towards the Hollywood Hills. It was very nice but no one was using it due to the rather chilly evening conditions in the US at the moment!
There's also a large balcony area outside the main part of the lounge overlooking the new shopping area in TBIT. There's also a media room with a (very) large screen TV showing mainly basketball by the looks of it.
There's also a luggage storage area as well. I don't drink alcohol, so can't help much with comments in that regard, but looked like there was a good range of drinks available (non-alcoholic as well of course). Two large tea/coffee stations, and two food stations, one with a selection of noodles and accompaniments and the other with chicken and pasta dishes, salads, fruit, a small range of desserts etc. Food was well presented and very tasty. A wide variety of reading material, but very little of it in English. Shower suites are quite pleasant - you need to ring a bell for an attendant to come and open one up for you - usual shower/toilet facilities, hairdryer etc. Water-saving showerheads, so not a lot of water pressure but at least the water was nice and warm (which is more than I can say for the experience in The Lounge at MEL domestic when I got back!), hairdryer available. Plays easy-listening "elevator music" in the shower room and bathrooms all the time, which tends to drive you up the wall a bit.
Excellent wifi signal, full strength inside the lounge, although had difficulty keeping a connection when sitting out on the balcony (then again, that might just be because of my coughpy old laptop). There are large screens displaying flight departures and staff regularly walk around with signs indicating flights which have started boarding (they also verbally announce the flight as well). The lounge started to fill up rapidly later in the evening with the advent of what looked like the entire St Kilda club, so at about 9.45pm I decided to take a walk around the duty free shops and then head down to the gate to stretch my legs before the flight (which now departs at 11.20pm).
The departure from TBIT wasn't as pleasant as the lounge stay though, I have to say. Didn't find anything of interest in the shops, to headed to the gate. Obviously a lot of the terminal is still under construction/renovation as there are a lot of boarded-up areas. We were at one of the furthest gates, so quite a walk, then a few minutes after I arrived, announcements were being made for VA24 passengers to make their way to security and to the gate ASAP as boarding would soon commence (this was just after 10pm, flight departure time scheduled for 11.20pm).
Then I found out why - priority boarding passengers were called up and we were then packed like sardines on to a bus and driven quite some distance to a far-flung part of LAX (have no idea where we actually were when we boarded), then had to walk up a huge concrete ramp on to the airbridge where we waited ... and waited ... and waited. Further busloads arrived so the airbridge was getting pretty crowded - and still we waited. Finally after about 15 minutes or so, we started to board. Took some time to get everyone on, then we taxiied back the way we'd come (and beyond) - about 6km in all according to the "point of origin" info and then into a queue where there was quite a wait again before it was our turn to take off. I know the departures from TBIT are only a recent development, but it seemed to be a rather "cobbled together" arrangement and quite a few passengers were not at all pleased with the process judging by overheard comments. I wasn't exactly thrilled myself, especially as I'd already had a long day's travelling and then waiting at LAX (and then had still yet another flight to PER after arriving in MEL), so it certainly wasn't an ideal experience - however being able to turn left when I got on the plane made up for it
.Actually, regarding the much coveted Row 5, I glanced at the boarding pass of the woman standing next to me (not much else to do during that long wait on the airbridge) and she was in 5A, but no status of any kind indicated on the boarding pass and she certainly wasn't a celeb (we'd been chatting and she was an Aussie office worker from Melbourne) so would be interested to know how she scored a seat in that row - which was actually half empty, as was most of J - unless she asked for it at check-in and it was granted as the load in J was so light?
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