Review: 10 hours in the Singapore Airlines Private Room and T2 first class lounge

Early morning on a Thursday, we arrived in Changi airport on Singapore Airlines Suites from Melbourne and had a separate flight to Bali in Singapore Airlines business class in the afternoon.

After landing, we went straight to the Terminal 3 SilverKris lounge for breakfast. A very friendly lounge agent escorted us all the way past the business and first class sections of the lounge to the Private Room. While the other parts were busy and had music playing in the background, the Private Room was a serene sanctuary of quietness.

With only a handful of other guests, we took a seat in the dining area for breakfast. After ordering eggs benedict and fried eggs with mushrooms, another lounge agent approached to ask us, if we would like to standby for the 9 am flight to Bali. Happily we accepted the offer. I booked a StarHub sim card for easy roaming data, so I went to pick it up. Upon my exit from the lounge, I overheard the Private Room agent to call the front desk, describing my outfit, to let me in later.

Unfortunately the earlier flight was fully booked and all passengers showed up at the end. So we had 10 hours to kill in Changi airport. Initially we planned to go on the free city tour, but were a bit hungover. So we stayed in the Private Room for a while and then went to roam around the airport. We visited the butterfly garden, checked out the shops, got some very humid fresh air in the cactus gardens and eventually made our way to Terminal 2. Just to take the Skytrain back to the Private Room. Nothing beats the serenity and 2009 Dom Perignon on demand. I went for a nap to one of their “phone rooms”, while my wife made her own bedding arrangements… We managed to get a nap, but the lounge is clearly not made for long stays.

As the Skytrain was closed for repairs that afternoon and our flight departed from Terminal 2, the lounge attendant became a bit worried, when we ordered another glass of champagne one hour before departure. After assuring her, that we already made the way to Terminal 2 earlier, she relaxed a bit and we left the lounge shortly after.

In Terminal 2 we checked out the first class lounge, but after the Private Room everything feels like a downgrade. The food offerings are the same, but as a buffet instead of table service. The champagne is ordinary Piper-Heidsieck, instead of Dom Perignon. I guess you can get spoiled pretty quickly…

Our boarding gate F31 was only a short stroll away. Gate security took only a few minutes, but being quite tired we were missing a premium queue. The flight had a last minute equipment change from an Airbus A330 to the new regional 787–10 Dreamliner. While I was excited about the new plane, I was not about their middle seat assignment. You just feel a bit trapped in these privacy maximizing configurations. But the flight was fully booked and we would survive for 2 hours.

Boarding started one minute after we cleared security and once seated the crew came around with champagne and orange juice on a tray. Upon reaching cruising altitude, I quickly received my Book the Cook soya beef on a tray. I skipped all wine offerings and just ordered some sparkling water. Service seemed a bit stressed, but I happily watched my movie Ready Player One, which finished 10 minutes before our gate arrival in Denpasar.

Conclusion

While the Private Room is a fantastic lounge for dining and short lounging, it is clearly not made for long stays. Also most of the seats are quite far apart, apparently with a focus on solo business travellers. The space is huge with heaps of space in between the seats and they could easily offer truly private rooms. But I guess it’s not their goal to keep guests in the lounge for long. They didn’t bother us though, when we made our own bedding arrangements.

We were really impressed by the proactive service regarding the standby flight, even if it didn’t work out in the end.

The business class flight fell short behind the competition we experienced before, like Qatar Airways or Oman Air. This was probably to some part due to the short regional flight, a last minute aircraft change and a fully booked flight though.

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