Lounges.... Qantas Club in AKL and MEL

In AKL, the Qantas Club is located airside on the upper level, next to ANZ's club. Somewhat off the beaten path, but it's also quite busy, given that QF is the second largest carrier at AKL and probably the largest at MEL. In MEL, the club was a little more difficult to find -- it was on the jetway level of the airport, which is one level below the general hold rooms and shopping arcade.

My first impression was that it was very much like an Admirals club, but without all the dark furniture. Nice features included a self-serve bar (including hard liquor), and a cold table with various fruit juices, fruit salad, and yogurt. Pretty good selection of breakfast breads and jams as well. During the lunch hours, they had soup and some cold cuts.

Vegemite was proudly displayed, but I can't say that barley paste looks all too inviting. Still, I had to try it just because it was there... I only took a taste, and it was almost like spreadable soy sauce... I can't imagine why it hasn't caught on elsewhere, but don't expect me to ever buy it or try it again.

Boarding announcements were made in AKL, but were just a little too lengthy and frequent, almost to the point of being a distraction. MEL seemed to be a little more brief.

Free wifi was available, but in AKL, they had it locked down too tightly for my Gmail to be able to download to Thunderbird, and it also blocked VPN connections. Thankfully, both Gmail and my work email have web clients, but it was a bit of a nuisciance as I wanted to upload some photos to the web server and couldn't... At MEL, ports weren't a problem, but the connection was horribly slow. Painfully. Slow.

Overall, a very nice place to wait, which is just about all I really look for in a club.

Interestingly, Emirates also had a club in MEL. They operate three or four flights a day into AKL (one each to MEL, SYD, and BNE, all of which wind up in DXB).