A Sad Place to Be: The Club at SEA

~ cswada

A lounge in SeaTac airport that seems stuck in the yesteryear with limited food, drinks, and seating on offer. Do yourself a favor and spend time elsewhere.

Welcome signage

This lounge visit occurred in July 2023.

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Access Rules

We accessed this lounge using Priority Pass (obtained via the Chase Ritz Carlton credit card). Note that while you can’t directly apply for the Ritz Carlton credit card directly, you can currently change any Chase Marriott consumer credit card into the Ritz Carlton credit card by calling the number on the back of the card. The Priority Pass offered by the Ritz Carlton credit card allows unlimited guests for both lounge access and dining in participating restaurants.

Note this lounge is also used by some airlines to send their business class customers (such as EVA Air). Quite honestly, you have my condolences if you access the lounge in this way. And you could also access this lounge for $50, if you so desire, but it feels like throwing money away.

Food

We came here in the morning before our flight, spending about half an hour in the lounge. On offer at that time was their breakfast options. Perhaps it’s a fitting start, but the first food item we saw was a canister of corn flakes listed as Cheerios.

All cereal is pretty much the same anyways, right?

Just around the corner, there are hard boiled eggs, bowls of fruit, and mango/coconut smoothies. Honestly, I don’t know why they manhandle the hard boiled eggs by cutting them in half with what appears to be a dull knife. They should have left the eggs uncut.

Cold options available
This feels a bit depressing to me

Just next to this area is a small table with some whole fruits and small, sugary muffins.

Whole fruit and packaged muffins

And then there is oatmeal and very cheesy omelets. These would be your only warm dishes in the lounge. The kids liked the omelets in part because of all the (American) cheese, but I found them a tad rubbery.

And that’s it for all the food in the lounge. The spread was a bit uninspired to say the least.

Oatmeal and omelets

Drink options include soda, alcohol, water, orange juice, and a coffee machine that was the biggest hit early in the morning as many people needed their caffeine injection (I can’t relate as I don’t drink coffee). The orange juice was most definitely not freshly squeezed. I stuck to the water.

Plenty of sodas
The bar

Recommendation: Just Say No

Tell me if you’ve heard this before: you arrive at the airport and have 45 minutes to spare. You have a Priority Pass card and want to try out a place. So you walk a good 5-10 minutes to get to the lounge to find a crowded place that serves mediocre pre-packaged goods. Was it worth my time? Considering that I am struggling to find any feature here that I would recommend, I can confidently say I didn’t feel it was worth the walk. In fact, the place felt dirtier than the regular seats out in the boarding area.

Admittedly, it has been a while since I’ve been to any of The Club lounges. I didn’t expect much coming in, and still the place found a way to disappoint. However, the lounge did feel worse than what I recalled in my memory. I don’t know if that is just a faulty memory or if quality has gone down simply because so many people have access via Priority Pass and they know people will come in regardless. In retrospect, if you have a credit card that allows Priority Pass use at a restaurant, there are options available at SeaTac, so please spend your time there.

Have you gone to The Club? Have you experienced a similar experience?

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