Must-read Earlier Installments:
- Singapore, Cathay, and Qantas First Class.. Some of the Best Meals of My Life, and a Tour of Hyatts in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sydney
- Inside the New Oneworld Lounge at LAX’s Tom Bradley International Terminal
- Cathay Pacific First Class, Los Angeles – Hong Kong
On arrival in Hong Kong you head to the nearest transit point where you show your connecting boarding pass and proceed through security. Laptop out, shoes stay on, there’s rarely much of a line. Once past the checkpoint you head up the escalator (or elevator, as you wish) to the departures level and on to your gate or lounge.
Cathay Pacific’s flagship lounge is ‘The Wing’. For departing passengers originating in Hong Kong it’s just past immigration (turn left). It’s near the lowest numbered gates one through four.
Hong Kong’s airport is a huge sprawling complex with a ton of walking, so if I had arrived at a far gate, and especially if I was departing from one, I’d have used a different lounge like The Pier. But since I both arrived and would connect onward from close-in gates I used the Wing for a quick shower and to catch up on e-mail before my onward connection to Bangkok.
I’ve been to the Wing several times, including this report and this one since its renovation.
The open lounge’s refresh is most apparent in the restaurant space which is larger and brighter, more aesthetically interesting, and now with better food including options cooked-to-order rather than jsut a buffet and also in the cabanas which are enlarged and made more modern. The cabanas are the best airport showers anywhere.
On this visit, though, for the first time I wasn’t able to get a cabana and had to settle for one of the shower rooms… also nice, just smaller.
After a quick refresh I went into the lounge. I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t pop into the restaurant this visit, I just found myself a seat to get some work done.
It’s worth noting, since I’ve given other lounges criticism for this, the Wing has only local-style electric outlets. It’s apparently an airport regulation, although The Bridge lounge has USB power ports as well.
No bar time for me, no champers either. It was early, and I had to head to my next flight.
- You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
When I was in the Emirates Lounge in Singapore they very nicely provided guests with power adaptors if required to convert the sockets to my Australian plug.
Dale.
Next time, if you have spare time, have them take your info and they will hand you a gadget to tell you when your cabana is ready
my last visit to the wing, i had an eight hour layover and requested a cabana. i was simply told “no cabana” by a staff member. when i asked if i could be put on a waiting list, they simply repeated “no cabana”. quite puzzling. regardless, i found the shower rooms adequate and actually preferred using one of the computer work stations as you could still order drinks and you have a great view of plane-watching from there.
Even if it takes a few extra minutes, if find the view from The Wing makes it worth a visit. 😉
“Must”-read? Really?
i prefer the previous version of the cabanas, especially if you want to take a nap.
denied? How about unable to get a cabana as they were full.
Do you have access to The Wing’s first class area if you are arriving in First and departing in Business?
Do you have to point it out to the lounge dragon that you arrived in First and thus are eligible?
@Deo – you do have access, just show your arriving boarding pass stub
“Denied” is overly dramatic. They were full.
Denied is misleading. You make sound like you weren’t eligible
The front desk or the bar attendant at The Wing will happily furnish a power adapter.
Super clickbait headline dude. Enough. Please.
@Gary Sorry, I gotta agree w/ some of the previous posters about the clickbait headline. It’s misleading! I was expecting a story about how CX staff mishandled a situation.
Just flew the same flight last week and thankfully the cabanas were not full. If your still in Bangkok would love to buy you a beer or grab a bite at a thai restaurant where the food is amazing but they don’t speak english (I can speak Thai). Otherwise, enjoy your time in Bangkok, it’s an amazing city.
Actually denied or didn’t want to wait? We were there this past Friday evening; the wait was about an hour (good thing our layover was three hours).
The shower is great, but alas the bathtub is more gimmick than useful. It fills very slowly, and the emergency drain is about halfway up, so you can’t really soak.
I was “denied” an upgrade from j to f. All f seats were full. Outrageous.
Wait, I’m confused here…. were you denied entry? or where they just full?
If it was simply full, i’d ask you to consider using titles that are more accurate and less click bait-y.
Gonna have to agree that at least some clarification is in order. If a staff member snapped “no cabana” like post #3 “pavel” above experienced, then yes I’d say denied. But if you just chose not to wait your turn I would not call that being denied.
Anyhow, I’ll be there later today and maybe I will take a shot at being denied myself! 😉
I was half expecting some entitlement rant where you would moan and groan about not getting what you wanted. This is a common theme with some bloggers.
Instead, I found a rational review of the lounge and no tantrum about the cabana. It was kind of refreshing. I don’t know if it was intentional but it did feel like a commentary on the current state of entitlement that exists within our hobby.
As far as clickbait, it’s your blog dude… you can dress it up how you want. Doesn’t bother me. The content and material are still there.
Just an FYI – they have adapters you can borrow from them if you need one, just ask a server or at the front desk.
I’m confused – where’s the story about them denying you a cabana? It just sounds like they were full so offered you a shower instead, which seems like an excellent solution. Can you expand on quite what the issue was??
@Gary – It looks like US style outlets are probably not the norm anymore around the world. Just spent some time at the new LAN/TAM lounge in GRU and same thing as in EZE. Best thing to do is to spend $10 and buy a universal adapter from Amazon 🙂
Was “denied” a cabana in the same manner you were just now. Sat for about 15 minutes, checked email, and asked again. “Please, right this way…”
Sounds like the staff just aren’t being proactive about making any sort of waiting list.
Generally speaking, Wing F seems like a lot more of a zoo right now then it did last time I was here. Lots of kids running around everywhere, and people passed out, shoeless, taking up entire couches.
Lucky – I’m flying to the Maldives via HKG, obviously first on LAX-HKG, but business HKG-MLE. Any chance the Wing will let me use the lounge, or am I relegated to the other lounges since my departing flight is in Business?
@Travelling Rabbit – I am Gary, not Lucky, but in my experience Cathay lounges will give you access based on your arriving boarding pass. Show that to gain entrance to the first class side of the Wing.
On a waiting list for Cabana now. Wing not even half full. The last 3 times I was given one immediately upon request, with the Wing at full capacity. Either more ppl know about it now or the staff isn’t cleaning on time.
traveling to Hong Kong for the first time soon as an Executive Platinum. Can I access this lounge or others?
@Danray yes, if you are flying a oneworld airline out of Hong Kong
So, shall I assume one may not reserve a cabana, in advance, similar to BA’s cabanas in CCR?
Nope