Lounge Review: Japan Airlines (JAL) First Class Lounge Tokyo Narita (NRT)
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the JAL First Class Lounge at Narita is the most underrated lounge I’ve ever been to. No one ever talks about JAL generally, and this lounge never makes it onto people’s top 10 lists, but I LOVED this lounge.
Now, this lounge doesn’t have private cars to your airplane or an hour-long massage (although they do have spa services that book up hours in advance), but what it does have is RIDICULOUSLY DELICIOUS food. Like delicious enough for me to want to pay for it. I can think of very, very few instances where I’d actually be willing to pay money in my everyday life for food provided in an airport lounge or on an airplane, which alone makes this lounge great to me.
This lounge is large, spacious, and tastefully decorated. It feels significantly larger than the ANA Suite Lounge, so it’s not overcrowded. There are large windows that look out on the apron, and they have massage chairs, which I love. They also have free ten-minute massages, but they book up very, very quickly (when I asked, they said it would be a wait of over 3 hours).
Now, I don’t really know anything about alcoholic drinks, but I did notice that they serve Hokkaido milk. I don’t really drink milk (being Asian and all), but I’ve had foods made with Hokkaido milk and they’re ridiculously delicious, so I imagine that Hokkaido milk by itself is pretty great. They also have Skytime, which is JAL’s signature drink (kinda like ANA and kabosu juice).
Now, onto the food, which I won’t do justice. I only tried a couple of things, but what I did try was delicious. I had some of the original beef curry, inari with quail egg and roe on top, Japanese sweets, and a weird-sounding thing called tofu refuse. It was all great. They also serve things like Maison Kayser breads, which I appreciate.
This lounge isn’t as exclusive or crazy as other first class lounges like the Lufthansa First Class Terminal or the Emirates First Class Lounge at Dubai, but honestly, this is one of my favorites. The food is delicious, and good food is the way to my heart. Granted, I was only there for half an hour, but I have a trip through Narita in the coming months, so I’ll definitely stop by again and report back if my feelings change.
Ha – I haven’t flown JAL for a long time but just read this review:
http://travel-summary.com/jal-first-class-lounge-nrt-review-sakura-lounge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jal-first-class-lounge-nrt-review-sakura-lounge
Haha, I saw that review too, even though I had scheduled my post a couple of days ago and thought, what are the odds? And of course, he thinks the lounge is mediocre and the food isn’t good…
I guess he was put off by being told not to take photos. If this was the case, it reflects very poor customer relations – especially if the lounge was empty. ANA seems to take pride in having photos taken, and if its not of other passengers, (and it everything looks great) what better PR could they ask for!
I was there last November and found the food to be limited and underwhelming. Nowhere near the standard set by the top F lounges out there.
Yep, that’s the general consensus–I know I’m in the minority here.
One of the sushi makers there was very rude to me, as he shouted at me when I was about to take a plate of sushi he made, but apparently this was for someone else but there was no clear signs or order on whose sushi it is to be collected at the sushi bar. Very disorderly and not very first class, first you had to line up to order sushi, and you have to wait for it and pick it up yourself. Second, there was no system, unlike Cathay Pacific which provides you with a buzzer for their noodle bar for instance. Finally, the biggest insult of all is the sushi wasn’t that great, it was very ordinary and I had better sushi that morning at the Tsukiji fish market.