Lounge Review: Renfe Salas Club – Seville St. Justa

I didn’t have the time to visit the Renfe Business Class Lounge on my way out from Madrid. And I quite frankly didn’t know they existed until I arrived at the train station since Renfe doesn’t advertise this benefit on their site too well.

Introduction: Spring break in Spain
British Airways Club World DFW-LHR
British Airways T5 Galleries South Lounge @ Heathrow
The Westin Palace Madrid
Renfe Preferred Class Madrid-Seville
Renfe Preferred Class Lounge – Seville St. Justa
Hotel Alfonso XII Seville
Strolling in Seville
Sights and Sounds of Majestic Madrid
Iberia Business Class Lounge Madrid Barajas
Iberia Business Class Madrid-Barcelona
The W Barcelona
Exploring Gaudi’s Barcelona
The Hilton London Heathrow Airport T5
American Airlines Business Class LHR-DFW

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The Salas Club at Seville St. Justa is located at the far end of the terminal, to the right of the main entrance to the station. The entrance is marked by a glass door, which is operated from the inside of the lounge. As soon as we presented our boarding cards, we were welcomed into the lounge and given a wifi code.

My first impression of the lounge: extremely warm despite it not being the summer. This was perhaps due to the abundant recessed lighting or lack of air conditioning vents. Anyway moving on, the lounge featured plenty of red, orange, and olive coloured sofas for seating. The arrangement of the seating areas into small sections does allow for a decent amount of privacy, but it makes the lounge seem crowded and narrow.

I settled down in a quiet seating area to get some work done, but the WiFi was either shaky or terribly slow. This was one of the few occasions I couldn’t tell the difference. I do hope they have better WiFi connection than this normally.

The seating areas featured a tv and a few power outlets along the corners. Don’t expect to find ports that fit 120 V plugs by the way.

The lounge featured a couple of packaged self serve food options, which included: muffins, crackers, cookies, and some pastry I can’t allocate into any category. There were also some soft drinks, beers, and cheap alcoholic drinks on offer in the fridge. I completely took advantage of the Coke Light because I was getting sweaty from being in the lounge!

Arranged opposite to the food and beverage area were some dining/work tables featuring numerous power ports and lamps for reading.

And then at another station there was a magazine rack and a coffee machine.

As you walk back to the end of the lounge, there is yet another corridor leading up to another seating corner.

This wall of the lounge also featured a large magazine and newspaper rack. However, I can’t remember seeing anything in English 🙂

After taking a quick tour of the lounge and figuring out that the Wi-Fi wasn’t going to work no matter what, I headed out of the lounge sweating. I walked around for a bit just people watching before it was time for my train back to Madrid.

After going through a brief security check near the platform, we once again walked on board and made ourselves comfortable.

Bottom Line:

The Salas Club at Seville St. Justa is a nice lounge to relax if you ever accidentally show up at the Seville train station early. Since there isn’t much seating, dining, or shopping at this station  you may find it nice to see all those couches arranged tightly inside that corner. It’s nice that they had a few soft drinks, and snacks, but Wi-Fi was so terrible that I was considering going out to buy them a dial up modem as a gift. Lesson Learned: don’t show up at the Sevilla St. Justa super early. Overall, this lounge should not serve as inspiration for buying a Renfe Preferred Class ticket. Here’s to hoping that I the Madrid Renfe lounges have better facilities, most of all being high speed internet.