No.1 Gatwick Lounge

Tried at access this lounge on Dec 27, 2015 and was told that they were understaffed and were only allowing people with reservations. I pointed to several open tables and chairs (at least 6 to 10) and the young lady at the front said, sorry we are holding those for people with reservations. This place has poor management! This young lady didn’t ask how long we were going to stay. We just wanted to sit in the lounge for 45 min before our flight. We’ve been to lounges at major airports and have never had this poor quality of customer service. See TripAdvisor for others that have been disappointed by this lounge.

This lounge is no longer available for those with Aer Lingus status. Go down to Clubrooms, which is between JD and Dixon’s. The menu is exactly the same, but they don’t have a barman.
They are stingy with the free booze in Clubrooms.

The interior of the lounge is very clean and modern and there is a friendly atmosphere about the lounge. Complimentary food and drinks at the bar were a definite positive. I couldn’t help myself so at 9am I enjoyed a cold glass of Estrella while my sister had a Mali by and lemonade (well we are off on holiday).
4 pan au chocolats down my bacon roll arrived and went down a treat! Fruit juices and cheese on crackers were plentiful.
So why not 5 stars? Why only a below par review score? The receptionist.
I never like to be critical or blame staff, but the only chink in the armour was the girl at reception who let down my experience despite everybody else’s effort. I arrived about 8:30 and explained that my sister has a loyalty card and is going to get me in as a guest and I think she is inside. She would not allow me to walk in to find her but looked through receipts to see if she was in. She said no. Confused, I spent the next 15 minutes enquiring in the 3 other lounges to no avail. I went back to this lounge to see my sister at reception. I explained that this was my sister and she didn’t seem bothered. No apology, no further conversation, just said I can go in and moved onto the next customer.
The server and bar staff were really professional though so I got the impression the negative attitude isn’t across all staff.

As a huge fan of the No1 Lounge at Heathrow, I was quite keen to get in to this lounge, even though we weren’t flying out internationally and having to be at the airport really early. It’s the same price as the Heathrow lounge, but right now at least, they’re running a special to also allow for the Priority Security line. A bit more hunting and I found that Times+ members had a buy one get one free deal, so I signed up to a 1 month trial, booked the lounge, and off we went.
The priority security line was nice — no queue, and no hassle. We got through all the metal detectors without trouble and headed straight for the lounge.
You go to the Lounge by, essentially, going to Frankie & Benny’s. Unfortunately the lift was out so we had to drag our carry ons up quite a few stairs to the lounge.
We checked in to the Lounge without trouble but noticed it was quite small, so we headed upstairs. It’s also pretty small up there, and is open to the main terminal. It was warm and while not noisy, not as quiet as the Heathrow lounge. But we found a little room with a TV and a table with just two chairs so we went there and shut the door. It wasn’t soundproof though, so when a member of staff sat outside the door and yelled at and argued with a junior employee — who was clearly getting formally written up (she read out the infractions and he had to sign it), we had to hear the whole thing. The TV didn’t appear to be able to be changed, and the news channel it was on wasn’t tuned in well. The chairs were desk chair types and perfectly fine. There aren’t any power points in this little glass meeting room-​type-​place.
The free hot food was good. Not a lot of choice on the salady selection. Soda was available in a fountain dispenser, along with some juice and water. A full bar selection was available too. With the exception of mean manager, the staff were nice and helpful.
I’d come back, but only with an offer — it wasn’t worth £25 a person (£30 at the door!)

I’ve used a few No 1 lounges now — it makes it so much more relaxing at the airport. This was the first time I’d been to the south terminal one at Gatwick and was pleased.
It is a little smaller than the one I adore at Heathrow, but had a nice range of food on offer and I had a very pleasant lamb kofta dish. We got a little room on the first floor for just us and some decent aircon. Free soft drinks as well — perfect.
It lost a star simply because on this occasion, a manager decided to give a staff member a dressing down for about ten minutes outside the room. Another passenger even asked for the free wifi password at one point, and afterwards she went back to doing it. Totally unprofessional.

I’ve never really airport lounged before so maybe I’m a sucker for sort of free food and drink. After a nice little London stay we had some time before our flight and had heard this was the spot to check out. We paid 30pounds, or I guess $ 45 to get in but in my opinion it was totally worth it. Pretty much open bar, obviously the selection was somewhat limited but for all that we drank we easily would have spent $ 200 in the various bars in the airport. They also have a menu you can order some snacks from, I got veggie lasagna and it was perfectly good. They also had a snack bar to pick from, olives, various noodly things, and brownies etc. I think it was worth it and I’d def do it again, beats sitting at your gate staring at people.

Upstairs and the downstairs were both fairly empty, tried using Priority Pass and they stated they were at capacity. They allowed someone who paid with a normal ticket entry a couple times. Sent people to the Aspire Lounge which was fairly packed already. Service people were rude and quote curt.

The No 1 lounges are in a class of their own when it comes to the non-​airline lounges in Europe. They offer a nice and relaxing spot to work in (free wifi), good food (quality is far superior to the Menzies, Avia, Novia etc lounges) where one can even order some food to be prepared for you. Breakfast is good with yogurt, fresh fruit salad, croissants, bread, juice, cereal, milk, coffees and teas. There is of course also some snacks etc and alcoholic beverages (irrespective of the time of the day).
Later in the day they offer soups, cheese, tasty salads, cous cous etc as well as the a la carte menu (poached pot, soup, sausage and bacon rolls etc) as well as a menu that costs something (bigger dishes). Good selection of different wines also offered free of charge (and even larger selection for the one who wish to pay something).
In general just one of the better lounges around so always enjoy spending time here.