As I was heading back home from LAX my flight to Newark en-route to Tel-Aviv was initially delayed by 3 hours to 2:00am which, time-wise, gave me the opportunity to visit the Star Alliance Business lounge at the international terminal only to later learn that my flight was cancelled all together upon boarding due to a mechanical issue. It was 3:30am when I finally got rebooked on the 7:00am Air-Canada flight to Toronto, followed by a short connection to Tel-Aviv.
I got to the Maple Leaf lounge around 5:30am, after, with no better options, spending the 21$ meal vouchers I got from United buying 7 packaged Starbucks scones that my family likes (although, in retrospect I could have probably just used them to load my Starbucks card for future use).
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| Terminal 2 view from the lounge level |
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| Lounge entrance |
The buffet had the breakfast spread on it, which was interestingly divided between the gluten side and gluten-free side (even if not labeled as such). Although I would be surprised if that was intentional.
The gluten-free side consisted of: Cheese, yogurt, boiled eggs and fresh and canned fruits.
Naturally the lounge also served Maple Syrup, which I also considered to be gluten-free as it only consisted of... pure Maple Syrup, and gave my yogurt a nice twist.
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| Gluten side of the buffet |
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| Gluten-Free side of the buffet |
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| Maple Syrup |
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| The buffet |
As for drinks, there was a variety of soft drinks and a mediocre espresso machine and a Keurig capsules based coffee maker.
As for Alcohol, well, there was none... Although they did have a large number of empty wine glasses on display, right above a 2 weeks old liqueur license. Perhaps two weeks are not a long enough period to stock up?
The lounge's general seating area had a few P.C workstations for the use of the guests. Given that only one of these workstations had a mouse attached to it, I consider the rest of the workstations as not very useful, unless you carry your own mouse (without a laptop).
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| Seating area |
The seating area does offer nice tarmac views.
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| Tarmac views |
The lounge also features a private desk equipped with a phone, a fax machine, and a kids play area.
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| Private desk |
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| Fax machine |
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| Kids area |
Conclusion:
This Maple Leaf lounge is rather underwhelming compared to the other Maple Leaf lounges I got to visit (at time of writing, include: Toronto U.S transborder area, Toronto F gates, and Frankfurt airport). It is comparable with any United Club after the new United Club breakfast menu was introduced. Given enough spear time before departure, I would rather spend my time in the Star Alliance Business lounge at the international terminal.
