The Cathay Pacific First & Business Class Lounge is located to the left side upon clearing security at SFO’s international terminal 1. Though the lounge is a bit of a walk from the gate (~10 min walk), it can be might be worth it to visit if you have time since there is tons of seating, some food, and showers.
Introduction: Christmas in Hong Kong, and New Year in New Zealand
Cathay Pacific First & Business Class Lounge San Francisco
Cathay Pacific Business Class (Reverse Herringbone) SFO-HKG
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Upon arriving at the lounge, I was promptly checked in by the agents at the front desk upon presenting my boarding pass. Though the agent initially hesitated that I didn’t carry a lounge invitation with me, she quickly realized that the check in agent, had goofed welcomed me in anyway.
Since it had almost been an entire day roaming the city, my sister and I requested the use of one of their showers to get refreshed before the flight. The wait was around an hour, putting it at the time right before we had to leave the lounge. This was completely fine with me since I usually like to shower and just hit the sack anyway.
Cathay Pacific operates two flights to Hong Kong on a Boeing 777 everyday along with 3 more flights spread out on certain weekdays. Considering this the lounge felt surprisingly large for a U.S outstation. Heck the Admiral’s Clubs and United Clubs at certain airports were smaller than this place.
Upon entering there was a large seating area straight ahead accompanied with numerous electric outlets for charging devices.
Behind the check in desk was a small seating area with a TV. The lounge itself seemed fairly empty despite it being 1 hour before boarding.
And to the left of that down the corridor was a largely empty business area with 6 Computers (3 iMacs), and a printer.
Moving further along the corridor to the left of the entryway was a small dining area with 8 tables right across from the salad bar.
The salad bar featured some cold cut meats, fruits, and cheeses. There was an attendant at the bar to mix and match the items for you, which was a nice touch I suppose because buffets tend to get messy.
There were also some mini brownie desserts, bread, and sandwiches next to the cheese and salad bowls.
In the main buffet area, to the right of the entryway, was some Asian food, which included noodles, rice, and stir fry.
There was some soup offered right next to the main part of the buffet.
Further along there was a smaller version of Cathay’s famous noodle bar with various kinds of non-vegetarian noodles.
Though it was nice to see a good variety of food available, the selection was very poor with regard to vegetarian food. Even the so called “vegetarian” noodles contained a soup base which contained pork. Needless to say how disappointing that can be if you are vegetarian like me.
Right across from the bar was some Apple store like seating and windows looking out onto the tarmac.
At the far end of the lounge there was some more seating with some more great views of the tarmac. I’m sure it would be a nice place to sit and watch the planes go by if it was before the morning flight out.
After the quick walk through of the lounge, I sat down and surfed the web for a bit on the rather slow internet. This was especially puzzling considering the lounge was mostly empty. I proceeded to surfing on my phone for 20 minutes at which point I was paged over the loud speaker to use the shower. Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of the shower suite, but it really wasn’t anything to write home about. In fact the soap dispenser was broken and the water was luke warm at best.
As soon as I left the shower, boarding was called. It was now time to check out Cathay’s popular reverse herringbone seating.
Bottom Line: Cathay deserves a pat on the back for opening such a big lounge at one of its outstations. And it really covers the everything: shower, refreshments, and tons of seating. With that said, I wouldn’t really go out of my way to spend time here just for fun. And it is certainly not the place to go looking for dinner especially as a vegetarian. Since security is mostly manageable after 9:30pm, I would just spend more time in the city before I made my way to the airport.
