Review: the No1 Lounge at London Gatwick’s North terminal

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• Aston says:

  27 Jul27 July 10:23

  I visited a few days.
  Because on my previous visit a month ago they turned everyone away that didn’t have a reservation (despite not looking full) I paid to book in advance.
  Ironically, despite being the start of the school holidays, this time they reckoned they weren’t full and I could have just walked in with my lounge club card without booking.

  The food was bad. Such a limited selection. Think it was Korean chicken and vegetarian shepherd pie. Soft drinks were from a dispenser.
  A very underwhelming experience.

• Lady London says:

  27 Jul27 July 13:26

  I’m in this lounge a lot. Yes until around January they gave you a menu card on admission which you exchanged for 1 of about 8 choices on the menu. Some items were really nice like their squash lasagne. But the portions got smaller and smaller. In the end the serving size were not much bigger than a postage stamp. At 4x the size they were serving, it might have just about been acceptable as a snack but not as a meal.

  When they switched to buffet i asked the lounge dragon why and commented that the previous food was nice but too tiny portions.
  They said ‘the menu system got complaints from customers so we switched to buffet’.

  FWIW the buffet is dominated by poor quality starchy stuff. If you see any protein on there IT has a very suspect smell. Like the sort of chicken sold to industrizl canteens that reeks a bit of fish that can’t quite be disguised by putting it in a korma. Or beef mince ditto greasy and just about short of totally smelling ‘off’ and oversalted or possibly over mono sodium-glutamated.

  Breakfast has a bit of fresh fruit and OK yogurt but is otherwise rubbish quality starch again.

  However even saying the above, the buffet at No.1 North Gatwick is still considerably better than the buffet in BA’s Gold and Silver lounges at T5 Heathrow! And even more, better than the Aspire T5 Heathrow.

  The lounge is dirty due to overcrowding – staff can’t keep up with the clearing.

  Yes it is really annoying that anytime when there might be some space to sit at a comfortable height if table they block off the main table section. Like, at 4.30 or 5.00 in the morning. And mostly not because of reservations (they do a bit of the ‘block off 2 or 3 big tables for a party of 6-8 3 hours before that the Stansted lounge does, that is particularly infuriating early in the morning 3 hours ahead of the group’s arrival), but ‘just because’.

  As the best lounge in Gatwick North Terminal it’s really disappointing. I would have given Mylounge a try simply because of less crowding and hopefully tables cleaned promptly. But every time I walk past it now, the My lounge North Terminal is closed. I may give the Aspire a try next time as a couple of posters in here have said Aspire LHR T5 is just about OK for breakfast so perhaps Aspire LGW North will be the same.

  If I’m stuck flying out of LGW North next year then I don’t think Priority Pass has much value. Currently LGW South would be a different story, PP would have a value there even if just for No. 1 h but then there is the constant issue with access.

• Eugene says:

  27 Jul27 July 15:11

  Agreed with every word of the above. I wanted a glass of French fizz in BA Lounge South the other day and had to ask for one..it was brought out from the back like a guilty secret- just like they do when you ask for non dairy milk.

  When the No1 franchise dropped the pretty nice menu choice for the buffet scrum they must have gone for the Lidl cast off meat supplier… just vile. I gave up No1 South for the PP £15 at the Grain Store Cafe – far better

  • Lady London says:

    27 Jul27 July 15:53

    That GS thing will not last long though. As mentioned by Rob, Collinson who own PP are opening another of the (relatively downmarket) Aspire lounges in Gatwick South soon. (LGW North already has its own Aspire lounge which does not seem popular). So with PP you’ll be back to the cr*p served in No.1 South which seems a better lounge than No.1 North Terminal LGW reviewed here and Aspire will be the only other choice in LGW South Terminal.

    • Polly says:

      28 Jul28 July 07:28

      Still think they will keep Grain Store open. Had same experience as above in LGW S this month. Ghastly food on offer. And My Lounge then stated they dont take PP on the door. That surprised me.
      With GS tou can have a 2nd go of the card too, as 15 is insufficient to get a meal and couple of drinks.
      Door entry on lounge says £29, so we should really get the same equivalent at GS, by x 2 uses of the card.

  • Polly says:

    28 Jul28 July 07:29

    Last time we were there, they had the fizz out with the wine in the coolers. Very nice not to have to beg for a glass.

• Tom says:

  27 Jul27 July 15:17

  Let’s be honest – everything about Gatwick is crowded. The station booking hall can be a zoo with long lines. Security and immigration can take a long time. And of course just having one runway causes congestion in the air and on the ground. Hell is probably a lot like Gatwick on a summer week-end.

  It’s mostly just a holiday/leisure airport, I know, and it shows. The only really nice lounge there is the BA First lounge at the South terminal, and even that gets busy.

  Programmes like Priority Pass are great, but now that almost everyone has “free” access to these lounges via their credit cards, the quality inevitably declines.

  • Lady London says:

    27 Jul27 July 15:32

    Personally I think Luton and Stansted are much worse than LGW for ground experience. LGW does have some.quality facilities/food providers.

    LTN and STN have a couple of reasonable food providers (nice new Italian one at LTN has cheered me up it’s on the right soon after you get into the shopping area).

    STN is really in need of a further nicer lounge option than the single lounge that exists there as it’s quite a bit worse than No.1 Gatwick North.

    And let’s hope No.1 Clubrooms ups their game at LTN following the largely not-very-good-in-execution reports we had so far

    • Yuff says:

      28 Jul28 July 09:49

      The LTN clubrooms was ok when I was there 9 days ago, service was a bit glitchy but it was quiet and the food offerings were ok. It’s much better than No1 lounge at Gatwick which isn’t pleasant these days. Isn’t there a lounge on the left, instead of turning right , which was very good but that was a couple of years ago I visited that and they served food via a menu.
      I have never had any problems with the escape lounge at STN

  • Lady London says:

    27 Jul27 July 16:07

    Dont get me started on that station booking hall in LGW!!! Even if you buy a rail ticket online, in Britain IT seems you still have to queue up to collect your ticket from the machine in the booking hall because there doesnt seem to ne any website that can well you a train ticket that you can juste use on jour mobile in the UK!! You have to get a paper ticket.

    For past year or so there are loudspeaker announcements that you can use your Oyster IR crédit card on thé entry gates. But that doesnt work for a lot of journeys and can’t deal with every discount card so when i triés IT i was massively overcharged.

    If anyone knows of a website that can sell train tickets you can just use on your mobile in the UK and that would avoid still having to collect a papier ticket at the station even though I’ve already booked and paid online then I’d be all over it

    • Lady London says:

      27 Jul27 July 16:47

      Thanks @Ali I will give loco2 a go. IIRC loco2 has been recommended in the past as a good alternative to the former raileurope.co.uk ,(sncf-voyages) site for booking European rail tickets also.

      • Shoestring says:

        27 Jul27 July 20:03

        always introductory codes around eg LOCO2FIVE

      • Lyn says:

        28 Jul28 July 07:00

        Lady London – Loco2 are indeed very good for booking trains both in France and elsewhere in Europe. They seem very reliable and well run, starting as a small team in the UK, which they probably still are, despite being actually acquired by SNCF a year or so ago.

      • Lyn says:

        28 Jul28 July 10:36

        P.S. re using Loco2 for booking trains in France – their euro prices always match the ones on the official SNCF web-site.

        They also offer the ability to pay in pounds. Their exchange rate may be better than paying foreign transaction fees on a UK credit card.

      • Lady London says:

        29 Jul29 July 12:05

        Tx Lyn

    • Imbruce says:

      27 Jul27 July 22:11

      You can get an E ticket on your mobile phone on Virgin Trains and also Heathrow Express

    • Trevor says:

      30 Jul30 July 20:47

      The secret with buying a ticket, or extracting your pre-booked ticket, at Gatwick is to avoid the main ticket hall altogether. There is a single ticket machine in the “other “entrance to the station which is closer to the BA check-in area and provides direct access to platforms one and two as well as lifts to all the other platforms. That if you people seem to know of this machines existence – ordered until now!

    • Trevor says:

      30 Jul30 July 20:49

      The secret with buying a ticket, or extracting your pre-booked ticket, at Gatwick is to avoid the main ticket hall altogether. There is a single ticket machine in the “other “entrance to the station which is closer to the BA check-in area and provides direct access to platforms one and two as well as lifts to all the other platforms. Few people seem to know of this machines existence – or did until now!

  • M says:

    28 Jul28 July 10:33

    When did you last go to Gatwick?? I have not found any other airport in the world (and I have been to many) where the security and immigration is as efficient!

• Ros says:

  27 Jul27 July 16:39

  I went through Gatwick N on Wed 24 July with my daughter and her baby son, visiting No1 lounge for preflight relaxing. All was very similar to the above report, pretty crowded but we found suitable and good seats available, hot buffet food exactly the same as reported .. mac n cheese, chicken something, lentil something and roast potatoes. Salad selection was good, fresh and regularly topped up. Cakes and biscuits looked ok but not exciting and but didn’t try. Fresh fruit bowl offered mandarins, apples and pears. Cocktail snacks were ok.
  The bar only had one girl on duty, working her socks off, particularly to the half dozen or so sitting on bar stools propping up the bar and seeming to get regular top ups in preference to the others of us who came up less often for occasional drinks!
  Toilets were good, clean and available.
  Newspapers available were Times and something else not noted.
  In all busy but ok, served its purpose for us.

• Ed says:

  27 Jul27 July 17:25

  Used the North Terminal lounge this week. It has gone downhill massively, like a zoo at feeding time. Breakfast ‘buffet’ was worse than a school canteen and the queues longer.
  Packed to the rafters with people trying to consume their not inconsiderable weight in alcohol. Many were being turned away at the door, they had a lucky escape. You’d have more fun taking your Pret to an empty departure gate…

  • Imbruce says:

    27 Jul27 July 22:16

    We were in No 1 lounge in April for breakfast they don’t serve eggs at breakfast which I thought was odd.
    We are going to Gatwick tomorrow morning but we won’t be going to a lounge as it’s not worth it during school holidays

• Toppcat says:

  27 Jul27 July 19:12

  I was in No1 Gatwick North on Friday. It was like a zoo. Absolutely rammed, food empty, male loos were disgusting. Oddly they closed the MyLounge while I was in No1, which would have taken some of load off No1. Really not worth paying for – okay if you have a PP. Which is a shame, as a number of their other lounges are much nicer.

• Shoestring says:

  27 Jul27 July 19:15

  Rhys – you got pregnant? – how is that even possible?

  • Lady London says:

    27 Jul27 July 19:48

    Calm down @Shoestring. It’s Anika wot wrote this.

    • Shoestring says:

      27 Jul27 July 19:50

      Congrats due to Anika then, nappies not shirt hanging space

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