A clean but crowded lounge that has a dedicated children’s room but the food, particularly at lunch, leaves a lot to be desired.

Location

While Air Canada operates several lounges out of YYZ (Toronto), this is the only Maple Leaf Lounge accessible to those crossing into the US. The lounge is located just after clearing security and immigration. And yes, for avoidance of doubt, even if you are transiting from another domestic Canadian flight, you will need to re-clear security.

After clearing immigration, you’ll come across a small bank of elevators on the right, and escalators on the left. You’ll want to take the elevator up a floor to level 4 to reach the lounge. The Maple Leaf Lounge is the only thing on the fourth floor.

Access

There are several ways to gain access to this Maple Leaf Lounge.

• Business class customers — How we entered for this visit. Guests can also enter for $59CA each.
• Premium Rouge customers — No guests allowed.
• Air Canada elite members — Air Canada 35K elites can use their two complimentary guest passes to access this lounge. Air Canada 50K elites and higher get access with a complimentary guest.
• Star Alliance Gold status — The traveling passenger must be on a Star Alliance flight. One guest is allowed at no additional charge. Unlike other Star Alliance lounges, more than one guest is allowed if you are fine with paying a nominal fee ($59CA).
• Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders and authorized users (guests cost $59CA each)
• Cardholders of certain cards issued in Canada
• Purchased access when flying on a Latitude, Comfort, or Flex Fare (between $49CA and $79CA)

Seating

The lounge has two large seating areas once entering, either to the left or to the right of the entrance. I found that both sides were fairly crowded during my visit. Guests seemed to trickle in all throughout the morning and afternoon. There was a decent amount of natural light in this lounge, which is always a positive.

Tucked away in a corner was a business center, which had the looks of a regular office building. While the room advertised no alcohol was allowed, I did see some customers blatantly ignore the request.

There was also a family room that looked decorated with a heavy presence of Disney. Since the kids were not with me, I did not enter, but I feel this is where I would have spent most of my time if they were with me. The main downside is its size. The room only fits one family comfortably and likely two families max. If you happen to be traveling at the same time as another family, there may be some competition for the room.

Next to the family room, there was also an entertainment room with more comfortable seating, but it seemed overly packed with people, so I wasn’t able to get a good picture of the setup.

Food

During my visit, the lounge served both breakfast and lunch. The breakfast offerings seemed more satisfying than lunch. At breakfast, they served breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, oatmeal, and waffles with overly-sweet cream. Since there is no McDonald’s in the transborder terminal, this breakfast is probably the next best thing.

For lunch, the lounge served wraps, vegetables, and soup. The wraps could have used more dressing as they were rather dry. At the other extreme, the vegetables had too much dressing on them and were a bit soggy for my taste. I’d actually prefer it if they just served the breakfast sandwiches here all day long instead of what they had on offer for lunch.

Thankfully they do have a wide variety of drinks available starting with lunch service. The lounge appeared to be dry in the morning while breakfast was being served. There are a variety of beers on tap and plenty of hard liquor that you can pour yourself. For the non-alcoholic drinkers, there is a decent assortment of drinks to survive a visit here.

Recommendation: Yes, but only if free

In my case, I had complimentary access to the Maple Leaf lounge on account of my Star Alliance Gold status and I didn’t have any regrets about spending my time in this lounge. In some cases, you may have the option to buy access, and I wouldn’t consider that here. Lounge options are indeed limited here at the US transborder terminal, but given the crowds and the poor quality of food at lunch, I feel that money is better used for a proper meal at a restaurant.