#68 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings.
384 reviews
I had a good friend's wedding just north of Milan on Labor Day weekend. While I would have normally extended this trip to take a full week in Italy, my work situation made it impossible. I was pretty happy to be able to go at all.
Of course, despite having a easy IAD-BRU-MXP flight set up originally, Brussels Airlines would cancel its flight on me for the second year in a row. What are the odds this happens for the exact same flight and more or less in the same season? By the time the flight was cancelled, business class available on UA's IAD-BRU was full; the EWR-MXP flight was also full. Eventually I ended up with this very unfortunate DCA-EWR-BRU-MXP routing that also had me spend a miserably long layover at BRU. Luckily, I was able to score a very-sought-after last-minute reservation at The Jane in nearby Antwerp, which I proceeded to enjoy on my layover.
The Newark Polaris Lounge can be found after taking a left past security in Terminal C.
Just looking at the check-in situation, I could tell the lounge was going to be packed.
Even though I arrived fairly early and it was only around 2:30pm, the prime seats were mostly taken. The seats closer to the entrance and by the concierge desk were still open, but by roughly 4pm, all of these would fill up as well.
I didn't check out the showers, but here's a look at the unisex bathrooms. There are plenty of these–I've never had a wait at EWR.
First order of business was to get a meal in the dining area. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and was starving. I was promptly welcomed and seated at a table. Because I had a table in the middle of the dining area, the host asked me to set my carry-on in a separate area for bags.
Here's the menu:
As usual in the Polaris lounges, I went with champagne and United is still serving the Lanson Black Label.
I had the "Barcelona" tapas plate. I'm not sure what made this Barcelona or Catalan, but it was a pleasant enough appetizer to start.
For the main, I had branzino, which was reasonably tasty.
Those who have followed my previous Polaris reports know that I always get the chocolate chip skillet cookie with ice cream on top.
Coffee/beverage area:
After lunch, I went to the area by the concierge desk; it hadn't filled up yet and I was able to snag one of the computer/phone rooms to get some sort work.
This isn't exactly the most comfortable chair, but the desk was nice and large with easy-to-access outlets and sound-proofing was reasonably good.
I got a good bit of work done thanks to the relatively fast Wifi in the lounge.
By the time I left the booth, the lounge was absolutely packed and it took me two trips circling the lounge before I found a place to sit. I snagged a quick snack from the buffet, but it was too crowded for me to take pictures of all the offerings (I didn't wait to hold up people waiting to grab food).
My flight to Brussels was on N2639U, a 6-years old 777-300ER. The gate area was absolutely packed when I got there and plenty of people were confused about where to line up. I've found that because United includes 1Ks in its preboarding, there's always a sizeable number gathered around a different part of the gate which then leads Group 1 passengers to get confused.
Pre-boarding began at 5:42, but took forever as people were slowly scanned through. The pace of boarding meant there was no chance of an on-time departure. I've never really thought about this, but why is the US so bad at this? It seems like we are the slowest to board regardless of airline and plane. I was in the back cabin of United's massive 777-300ER business cabin, which is divided into two parts and arranged in a 1-2-1 layout.
I was seated in 17L, the last remaining "true" window seat.
As before, United's bedding, amenity kit, and menu were waiting for me on my seat.
United ended its Away amenity kits. It's now a Therabody fanny pack, which is actually fairly useful if you wear fanny packs.
I won't dwell too much on the seat features–I've reviewed it several times in the past.
The tray table is large and looked freshly wiped–good sign for cleaning.
Usually I sit more forward in the cabin, but being in 17L allowed me a perfect view of the beautiful GE90.
I just opted for a glass of water for my PDB and also asked the FA if I could get a pair of slippers.
I also had to get a new pair of headphones as my pair had jacks that were damaged. That was brought over promptly, but despite asking several times, I never did get a pair of slippers.
Doors closed at 6:40pm and the Captain came on to tell us that they were going to try to slim down the flight time to 6:12–this is going to be a rough flight for getting sleep. We pushed back 3 minutes later and took off at 7:14pm, almost 30 minutes behind schedule.
Taking off from EWR towards the end of the day did provide for an absolutely gorgeous view of NYC though.
The GE90 with Manhattan in the background–one of the best takeoff views out there.
Service began 14 minutes after takeoff with a hot towel.
Here is the menu:
For this flight, I was able to use United's new preordering system and opted for . . you guessed it, my usual short rib in Polaris.
I had a glass of the Albert Bichot Pinot Noir from Burgundy to go with my meal; it was not good and I didn't even finish the glass.
The appetizer and entree were served at once on a tray–which some might gripe about, but for these transatlantic redeyes I really appreciate. Apologies for the miss, but I somehow forgot to take pictures of dessert on this trip. I had the usual ice cream sundae. Overall, it was decently good meal by United's standards.
After dinner, I checked out the lavatory–you can see the Therabody amenities have replaced Sunday Riley.
Then I promptly went to sleep and set my seat to do not disturb (onboard breakfast is not worth waking up early on such a short flight). I woke up around 30 minutes before landing right as the captain announced our descent.
The purser came around before landing to thank me for my loyalty as a 1K and ask if there was anything she could get me before landing. I asked for a bottle of water. They were out of the standard bottles, so she brought me a large 1L bottle–I won't be thirsty at BRU certainly.
It was an uneventful descent and we landed at 7:27am.
We were at our gate a mere 4 minutes later.
Lounge: I still think United's Polaris Lounges are some of the best business class lounges out there. The East Coast hubs do tend to get very crowded in the afternoons right before the rush of transatlantic departures.
Cabin & Seat: The 777-300 is United's largest plane and a relatively comfortable ride. The Polaris cabins to be relatively consistent throughout the fleet. While it's less comfortable than the 787s, you still have reasonably private seats and United's top-notch bedding. The "true" window seats provide plenty of privacy.
Service: Service was warm and well-intentioned (as I usually find on United's Polaris flights), but the lack of slippers was kind of annoying.
Meal & Catering: While very slowly improving, United's catering still lags behind other airlines. The pre-ordering and dessert carts are a nice touch.
Bottom Line: Changing flights to this compared to my previous direct flight was unfortunate, but overall it proceeded smoothly.
4 Comments
The pic of NYC with the engine is beautiful, you should make it a poster
Have nice flights
Who would have thought, even 6-7 years ago that we'd be saying this today. And it's true--they're good lounges by even international standards, where US lounges were always soooo far behind historically. The dining room service is something that you usually only have in First class lounges. In comparison, my usual stomping grounds, the BA Galleries First lounge is not as nice--so Polaris lounges can even surpass some mediocre First lounges!
I don't mind that on short eastbound flights from the East coast, but it's never acceptable on day flights or West Coast flights that are 3h+ longer. If I flew UA, I'd probably pre-order the exact same thing haha
Thanks for sharing!
I agree with everything you say. What I'm glad about is that aside from all of their other cuts, United has avoided any serious cuts to the Polaris Lounges and kept them at the top of their game.
Eastbound transatlantic is pretty much the only time where I want this--sleep is so hard on in direction, regardless of cabin, because it's so short and often turbulent.
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