The Private Room, review of Singapore Airlines' most exclusive lounge

The first-class experience with Singapore Airlines, if you depart from the best airport in the world, starts from the area reserved for checking in First Class passengers.

It doesn't matter if you arrive by cab or Uber/Grab or the like, the destination to be set is First Class Check-in. Of course you can also walk there directly from the main terminal, even arriving by foot from the Jewel, but by car is a different matter.

Singapore Airlines First Class Check-in

As soon as the car popped up in the dedicated driveway, we saw an attendant clicking away at lightning speed, and seconds later our luggage was on the cart.

Here we were escorted into the terminal, the ambiance looking like that of a hotel lobby, not where to do airport check-in. It's just too bad that no one decided to pull a second chair closer so I was left standing. Needless to say, if you were curious about our yellow trunk you can use TFC10 to order it from the Level8 site.

From here received our boarding passes and the "golden ticket" to enter the private room, we went through immigration control through the dedicated portal.

Location

You come out exactly in front of thearea that houses the Sivlerkris lounges, both the business and the Gold and of course the first class ones and precisely The Private Room.

La Private Room is "hidden" right behind the bronze sign visible from the store floor

Access

This is the exclusive area for Singapore Airlines first class passengers.

The adjacent First Class Lounge is open to all guests who fly, in first class, aboard the Star Alliance carriers that fly to this airport (Lufthansa, Swiss, ANA, Thai) as well as members of the highest tier of the PPS club, i.e., customers who in addition to being "loyal" spend the most on SQ tickets.

The hall

The environment is refined, designed as if it were somewhere between a lobby and a hotel restaurant.

In the center, welcoming guests, is a beautiful chandelier, and from here you can admire the whole room, which is not large, in fact it is definitely small, partly because there are not many First Class seats that SQ provides every day.

There is no overlook on the runway, That one is only in the business loounge, here there is a window overlooking the "shopping" street, but certainly not a bright environment.

There is a relaxation area in the first part, but unlike other first-class lounges, there is no real separate room. It is an open space, with sofas and other seating.

Until you get to the area reserved for the restaurant, although then you can eat anywhere.

There is a small room where one can isolate oneself behind a door so as not to disturb other guests and a micro kids room, but in terms of amenities we are definitely far from the lounge of Air France's La Premiere or Doha's immense Al Safwa.

There are bathrooms and showers, which of course we used.

The nap rooms

Available to guests there are four private rooms, even though the door has a small window that cannot be darkened and thus remains open to the corridor.

In the room a single bed and a massage chair, as well as a small desk. All guests have the opportunity to use, without reservation, one of the rooms for two hours.

In our case, having decided to spend the night in the lounge we were able to occupy one for 6 hours, but only because there were no other "bums" in line.

It is not comparable to other situations such as the rooms offered for free in Doha, Hong Kong, or British Airways Cabanas, not to mention the (paid) apartments at La Premiere

Food & Beverage

Our plan was simple; we arrived in the afternoon from Bangkok, we spent a few hours inside the Jewel, and after the light show we moved to the lounge.

Here we arrived in time for dinner. Impeccable service, but the variety of proposals is really a step below what Air France, Cathay, Qatar and (perhaps) even BA are proposing.

From the menu we fished both Asian dishes and more Western flavors, but I must admit that I expected something better. On the other hand, the offerings at the level of wine and champagne labels are very good, from this point of view I would say that SQ excels over the competition.

Of course, we didn't forget to have breakfast before embarking

The surprise at 00:00

At the stroke of midnight, just shortly after ordering dessert, they arrived with a special thought: birthday cake.

No candles, but was really a beautiful thought, and for that I thank the whole lounge team.

In conclusion

Expectations were really high, but I must say I was a little bit disappointed. Elegant environment, but also here as in other SQ lounges. there is no room for imagination and there is nothing memorable.

What makes the difference, however, when you fly SQ, is the service. It doesn't matter if you're the last of the peons in economy or you're the sultan of First Class, you'll always be treated like the best passenger in the world.

• first class