Up next in the Terminal 2 lounge adventure in Taipei is the Oriental Club Lounge. This is a lounge that is available to Priority Pass holders and is super solid. Let’s get into the review!
Lounge Info
- Location: Terminal 2 Level 4
- Hours: 5:00 AM to 11:00 PM
- Eligibility: Passengers with Priority Pass membership and a same-day departing ticket. Full eligibility rules here.
Entrance
The Oriental Club Lounge is located amidst the cluster of lounges on level 4 of Terminal 2 near the C gates. This lounge occupies its own wing on one of the ends of level 4 and you really can’t miss it as it has giant LED Letters above the entrance.
The interesting thing was that after scanning my boarding pass and priority pass membership card, the front desk worker printed out a receipt and made me sign it. I didn’t have to pay anything but this usually never happens at Priority Pass lounges.
Layout and Atmosphere
The Oriental Club Lounge surprised me with how nice it was for a Priority Pass lounge. It’s well known that the Priority Pass lounges in the US pale in comparison to international Priority Pass lounges and this lounge definitely showcases that disparity.
The lounge is large and I liked how spacious it felt with everything being so spread out. There is also plentiful lighting in the majority of the lounge that makes the space feel warm and inviting. The left side of the lounge even has a long row of large windows that bring in natural light and let guests see the highway outside the airport.
There are also windows on the right side of the lounge but they don’t bring in as much natural light. This makes the right side of the lounge darker than the left side so I’d recommend sticking to the left half of the lounge.
In addition to that, the lounge stands out because of its modern aesthetic and unique design features. There are stylish lighting fixtures, ivory and granite countertops, and unique architectural wood structures that give the lounge its modern design.
On the lounge website, it states that the primary design of the lounge is “wood” and I can see why they said that. The whole lounge utilizes wood as a decoration in a variety of ways from the hardwood flooring to a bunch of wooden structures and finishes. I’m not artistic by any means but found the wooden apparatus in the ceiling creative and a cool design feature. I thought the lights built into the wooden support beams looked really neat too.
The layout of the lounge is just a hollowed-out rectangle. All of the seating is spread out along the perimeter of the lounge while the food and drinks are distributed across different stations in the middle of the lounge.
The far end of the left side of the lounge features a “rest area” where you can find a few curvy lounge chaises that you can lie down on. The far end of the right side of the lounge is where the bathrooms and showers are.
Seating
The Oriental Club Lounge has lots of seating which is great. However, I was surprised at how crowded it was already at 7:30 AM. I still managed to find a seat without much difficulty but I’m sure this lounge gets extremely busy later on in the day.
The lounge has quite a wide variety of seating options across the different sections. The largest seating area is found in the center of the lounge and features lots of 2 seater coffee tables, longer dining tables, and a leather bench. This area reminded me of a cafe with all of the coffee tables and decorations.
These 2 seater coffee tables are the most common seating option and are found in the other parts of the lounge beyond the main area too.
The left side of the lounge where the windows are features a series of work counters with bar-style chairs. There are around 5 of these work counters each separated by a wooden beam.
Right before these work counters is a section filled with single-seater cushion chairs. I liked the design and alternating colors of the chairs and how the sides of the chairs extended out and acted as privacy barriers. The cool thing is that there are rows of angled wooden flats that partition the space into different sections.
Lastly, there are multiple wooden communal tables with multiple charging ports found in different areas around the lounge. These looked really similar to study tables found in libraries.
Dining
This lounge might have the best food spread of any Priority Pass lounge I’ve been to. There were so many options like hot pot, pasta, hard-boiled eggs, and sausages.
There were even smaller bite foods like buns and glutinous rice balls in stacks of bamboo steamers. One of the stacks had peanuts which I thought was super random haha.
I was also impressed with how many side dishes there were. There were tons of cold foods, vegetables, and various fruits.
The lounge had guava which you don’t see very often!
Although there was a lot of food, none of the self-serve food really looked that appetizing, to be honest. I didn’t see anything that made me go “WOW I have to try that”.
However, the thing that saved the lounge’s food selection was the a la carte food line where dishes are made to order. These live cooking counters seem to be a common offering in the Taiwanese lounges as all of the lounges I visited at Taoyuan International Airport had one.
If this is open, this should be your first stop for food as it’s miles better than whatever self-serve food is offered. My recommendation is to mainly eat the a la carte food and have the self-serve food be supplementary.
I liked this area because it was great being able to see so much of the kitchen and how the workers prepared the food. The whole operation was extremely efficient as each order took at most 2 minutes to prepare.
There were 6 options to choose from which is more than the 4 options offered in the Plaza Premium Zone A lounge. Since I had just eaten beef noodle soup in the China Airlines lounge, I decided to order the braised pork over rice with shrimp roll.
The braised pork over rice was solid but nothing amazing. However, I really enjoyed the shrimp roll because it was crispy and super flavorful. I would recommend ordering this dish for the shrimp roll alone.
This area also had pans full of Western-style breakfast foods like hash browns, eggs, and bacon. Placing these foods here at the food counter serving Chinese-style food seemed super random and I’m not sure why they did it that way.
It was nice having condiments like radishes and green onions available too.
Drinks
I found the drink selection in the lounge to be pretty lackluster. There was your typical soda machine and hot water dispenser with tea packets but no non-alcoholic Taiwanese drinks like in the other lounges.
This fridge had milk, orange juice, some wine, and a few desserts but it looked pretty sad.
However, the one saving grace was the self-pour Taiwan beer machine! This is the kind of local offering that I like seeing whenever I visit international lounges. It was unfortunate that this was the only local drink but hey something is better than nothing.
Amenities
The Oriental Club Lounge does offer quite a few amenities. Starting with your standard ones, there are several TVs displaying flight information throughout the lounge.
Free Wifi is also available for guests to connect to. I liked how every table and seating area had a wifi sticker with a QR code to help you get online. I found the speed to be good and had no issues browsing and texting.
As mentioned earlier, this lounge has a rest area on the far left side of the lounge. The cool thing is that there are 2 massage chairs here that guests can use. I’ve never seen massage chairs offered in a lounge before so that was pretty neat.
Besides the massage chairs and chaises, there are also some chairs facing the windows looking out of the airport. I liked this area of the lounge because of how quiet and secluded it is. It’s away from the main foot traffic areas of the lounge and barely anyone comes to this area.
Now for the more unique amenities. The Oriental Club lounge has a meeting room that guests can reserve in advance via email or phone. Meeting rooms are not uncommon in lounges but what I found strange about this particular one was its location. It’s situated right in the center of the lounge in the main seating area. I actually sat in it for a little bit without knowing that it was the meeting room. I guess that they open it up to guests for additional seating if no one has it reserved.
The meeting room has foldable doors that can close to add some privacy but I am skeptical of how well the room blocks out noise. This area is the busiest part of the lounge so I’d be concerned about noise levels if I was actually trying to hold a meeting in there.
Besides that, this lounge also offers 2 VIP rooms you can reserve for 2 hours for 1,000 TWD (~$30 USD). I’m not sure where these rooms are in the lounge but $30 seems pretty reasonable.
Lastly, there is an “exercise room” which is an insult to exercise rooms as there’s no workout equipment there except for a single stationary bike. I didn’t see it when I was in the lounge but I didn’t miss out on much.
Bathroom and Showers
The bathrooms in the lounge were very standard. I did appreciate how they still kept the modern theme with embedded lights in the mirrors and used neutral colors throughout.
This lounge does offer free showers that guests can use. However, you must make a reservation with a worker to gain access. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to go inside and take a look.
Conclusion
The Oriental Club Lounge in Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2 is solid. It’s a modern lounge that has many positive aspects like being big, plentiful seating, free showers, and a live cooking counter. The downsides are the mediocre self-serve food options and a disappointing drink selection. This lounge was already crowded at 7:30 AM so I’d expect it to be extremely packed during peak times. Overall, it’s still a very good lounge for Priority Pass standards and I’d say that it is probably the best Priority Pass lounge at Taoyuan International Airport.
What are your thoughts on the Oriental Club Lounge?
