a large room with tables and chairs

Review: Emirates Lounge, Hong Kong Airport (HKG)

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This mini-trip report series will cover my experience traveling from Hong Kong to London Gatwick onboard an Emirates 777 and A380 in business class. I booked it as a one-way ticket for a hefty HK$22,960 – while I found a few throwaway tickets that could’ve halved the cost, I decided it wasn’t worth risking for my first flight to university. Sure enough, the insurance of a higher fare class paid off this time around, since we ended up changing our flights to avoid traveling to the airport during peak protest hours. My dad wasn’t so lucky – he had to pay a HK$16,000+ change fee to his ~HK$19,000 roundtrip ticket, bringing the total cost ticket in line with normal roundtrip business class fares seen on Cathay Pacific and British Airways between Hong Kong and London.

Emirates has a dedicated lounge in Hong Kong. Emirates business class passengers are also allowed into the amazing Qantas lounge, though unfortunately the Qantas lounge opens at 7:30 AM, which was too late for our 7 AM boarding time. So we made it into the Emirates lounge, and were pointed in by a friendly lounge attendant. The Emirates lounge is open from three hours before every Emirates flight, and accessible to Emirates business class passengers and Skywards silver, gold, and platinum members only.

a white building with gold text
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Entrance

A picture-laden hallway led into the main lounge.

a hallway with pictures on the wall
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Entrance Hallway

The main lounge was a big, rectangular-shaped open area, with a few seating options. It was open to the terminal, though was still quite quiet, given we were there at 5:30 AM.

a room with a large glass ceiling and a statue of a horse on a table a room with a television and chairs
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong

To the right featured a seating area with a bunch of armchairs, some of which faced a TV and others of which faced each other. The armchairs that faced each other were good for families.

a room with chairs and tables a room with chairs and tables a room with chairs and tables a room with a television and chairs
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Relax Area

By the far end of the lounge, there was some dining-style seating, for those who preferred eating on higher tables. It’s worth noting that while the tables here were a decent height, the tables throughout the rest of the lounge were coffee-style, and quite low.

a room with chairs and tables a large room with tables and chairs
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Dining Area

The lounge featured a food spread, which featured breakfast options such as dimsum and noodles, as well as continental breakfast options such as sausages and hash browns. While quite standard catering for an outstation lounge, the quality just wasn’t there – the hash browns were soggy, and the shrimp dumplings were “the most tasteless that I’ve ever had”, according to my dad.

a group of white cups and saucers on a black counter food in a buffet with a menu and bottles a row of food in containers food in a buffet line
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Breakfast Buffet Selection

There was also a drinks spread, which featured self-serve liquor, a coffee machine, as well as some tea, soft drinks and water. There was orange and grapefruit juice that appeared to be freshly squeezed, as well as a smoothie on offer, though there certainly wasn’t any barista-made coffee here!

a table with plates and food on it a table with bottles and glasses a refrigerator with drinks in it a table with drinks and beverages on it
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Drinks Spread

Tucked away in the corner was a little, more private cocoon, which I’d recommend for families if this space was empty.

a room with two chairs and a table
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Private Area

It’s worth noting that all the staff at the lounge were incredibly friendly, and welcomed my photos, even asking if I was a blogger. The lounge never filled up any more than 25% of its seating capacity, though at the same time we were only dealing with 42 Emirates passengers, as opposed to 74 prior to a full A380 flight.

The Emirates lounge featured a few a-la-carte dining options, which I was surprised by. At this time of day, the options included scrambled or fried eggs, as well as a blueberry pancake. I asked a lounge attendant for a blueberry pancake, and it was served around 10 minutes later. The pancakes tasted like they came as powdered pancake batter, though they came with maple syrup, and by all means they weren’t too bad. I don’t think this is superior to pancakes you’d normally get at a lounge buffet, though I appreciate the “premium”-like offering of a-la-carte dining.

a bottle of oil and a menu a plate of pancakes and fruit
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong A-La-Carte Menu

In addition to the spaces mentioned above, near the entrance hallway is a business center, which featured a few work cubicles with PCs as well as a printer.

a sign on a wall a room with chairs and desks
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Business Center

There are also a few shower rooms, all located within the male and female bathrooms. The shower rooms each featured a sink and toilet, as well as a walk-in shower. I wasn’t able to test the water pressure, though they featured Voya toiletries (the Voya toiletries were consistent with the toiletries I’ve seen in other Emirates lounges).

a bathroom with a sink and toilet a shower with a handrail and a hose a couple of bottles of shampoo and conditioner
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Shower Room

In addition, the lounge also featured a couple of prayer rooms.

a shower with a black seat
Emirates Lounge Hong Kong Prayer Room

The most impressive thing about this lounge was probably the WiFi, which clocked at 85.2 Mbps down and 84.5 Mbps up. This is well ahead of WiFi in most airport lounges, and more than enough for streaming videos.

So that’s what I did for a little bit (since it was too early to be productive). The lounge does feature views over the tarmac, since it’s above the main terminal floor. This meant that I was able to see the beautiful day outside during dawn, and a couple of Cathay Pacific/Cathay Dragon aircraft.

a window with many airplanes on the ground a large window with many windows and airplanes on the ground
Tarmac views during dawn

At around 6:50 AM I decided to head the gate early ahead of boarding at 7 AM.

Bottom Line: Emirates Lounge Hong Kong

It’s great that Emirates features their own lounge at Hong Kong, though it’s nothing worth getting to the airport early for. The lounge itself has all the basic amenities, with high-speed WiFi and an abundance of seating, and I also liked the variety of seating. I also appreciated that there were shower rooms on offer. That being said, the lounge was pretty no-frills, and the food on offer was below average.

The lounge is a nice, quiet place to work, though if I was traveling on one of Emirates’ other flights (at 7:10 PM, at 9:30 PM to Bangkok, and at 12:35 AM), I’d by all means prefer the Qantas lounge.

Read more from this trip:

Have you been to the Emirates Lounge Hong Kong?

1 comment

  1. I took an evening flight to Bangkok so was able to experience the lounge in the evening. I was very favouably impressed. The food options in the evening were really excellent. They were much better than what’s on offer at Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Lounges, which I found rather disappointing.

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