There are two Star Alliance business class lounges at Sydney Airport—Air New Zealand International Lounge and Singapore Airline SilverKris Lounge.
Last year, when we flew United Polaris business class from Sydney to Las Angeles for our move to the USA, we got the chance to check out both business class lounges.
Today, I want to talk about our experience and first impressions of the Air New Zealand International Lounge.
After visiting Singapore Airline SilverKris Lounge, we headed across to the Air New Zealand International Lounge.
Is it worth visiting?
A resounding yes.
This is the main lounge that the check-in counter staff will direct you to if you have access to a Star Alliance lounge. Probably because it’s a significantly larger lounge than the Singapore Airline SilverKris Lounge.
One aesthetic thing that I really like about this lounge is how it showcases a lot of New Zealand’s nature.
I absolutely loved my road trip around New Zealand back in my twenties. So seeing so many familiar images was a great reminder of what a beautiful country New Zealand is.
Lounge Layout and Seating
After checking in with the lounge counter staff, you walk down a wide corridor towards the center piece of the lounge—A beautiful modern long bar.
Just behind the bar you get a good view of the runway.
This lounge was much busier and bigger compared to the SilverKris Lounge that we visited earlier in the morning. According to my husband who’s flow this route for work before, most people use this lounge instead of the SilverKris Lounge.
While it was a busy lounge, we could still easily find seats. There were a lot of seat options: lounge seats, seats at the bar and bar table working areas. Further into the lounge, there are even quiet zones to cozy up in.
Food and Beverage in the Lounge
The light fixture around the long bar and self-serve drinks area was really impressive.
I like the modern and airy vibe that Air New Zealand went with for their lounge.
The dining area was also larger than the SilverKris Lounge, as you would expect. Loads of buffet style breakfast food options, from breakfast mueslis and juice concoctions, to baked goods and hot food.
Like most good airport lounges in Australia, they also had a barista corner to get your fix of Australia coffee.
You could place your coffee order by talking to the barista or using the self-order tablet at the bar.
From my previous experience of travelling the USA, I knew that good coffee like this will be hard to come by! So getting my last “Australian coffee” fix before we boarded.
Given it was early in the morning, we only sampled the coffee and stuck with water.
If we get a chance to visit the lounge again in the future, we’ll definitely want to try some of their cocktails.
Accessing the Air New Zealand International Lounge in Sydney
You can access the lounge if you’re flying in business class on Air New Zealand or Star Alliance Partners like United Airline. That’s how we accessed the lounge.
If you’re not flying in business class, you can also access the lounge if you have gold level status on Singapore Airlines, Star Alliance partners or Virgin Australia Velocity program.
Making Travel Planning Easier (Free Template in Notion)
One of our goals of moving to the US from Australia is to take the opportunity to travel and explore more of the US. That means being organised and intentional about locking in travel dates ahead of time so the trips actually happens.
There is a lot to juggling when travel planning—itinerary, accommodation, flight options, things to do, recommended food and drink places etc.
It’s just not possible to track all of that in my head!
I’m a big Notion fan and I use that to plan and track all our trips. I also use it for other things like meal planning, tracking my tasks and projects, and keeping track of my camera gear etc.
Notion is free to use, hyper customisable and saves you time by giving you the ability to templatise things you do often.
So you’re not reinventing the wheel each time you want to plan a new trip in Notion.
If you want to get started planning your travels in Notion, you can download my free Travel Hub Template System in Notion that’s been downloaded more than 824+ times below:
Final Thoughts on Air New Zealand International Lounge in Sydney
We didn’t get to spend a ton of time in this lounge, but enough time to sample some food and coffee, and relax in the lounge chairs.
The lounge was spacious and comfortable. Despite the how busy lounge was, the noise levels were kept to a reasonable level.
If we had a longer layover, I imagine this is somewhere we would be more than happy to chill out in for a few hours if we had it.
Until next time, happy travelling!
Janice.
Get the latest expat stories, travel insights and travel photo tips to upgrade your travels and life as a expat living in the USA by subscribing to the Travelling Lens Insider newsletter below.
Leave a Reply