A dual pair of lounges with different entrance criteria but generally offering similar experiences in Taipei’s Taoyuan airport.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Springing for Sakura
• Review: oneworld Qantas Business Lounge LAX
• Review: Starlux A350-900 Business Class LAX-TPE
• Review: Starlux Galactic Lounge TPE Terminal 1
• Review: Starlux A330neo Business Class TPE-NRT
• The Airport Limousine Bus is Indeed Friendly
• Quite a Grand Stay: The Tokyo Disneyland Hotel
• Thoughts on Tokyo Disneyland
• Thoughts on Tokyo DisneySea
• Japan Pro Tip: Luggage Delivery Services
• Review: Park Hyatt Tokyo
• teamLab Planets: I Don’t Understand The Hype
• Cuteness Overload: A Review of the Pokémon Cafe Tokyo
• You Fished Your Wish: Zauo Fishing Restaurant
• Tokyo with Kids: Perhaps The Largest Playground on Earth
• Japan Pro Tip: IKEA Has Cheap Eats
• Review: Starlux A350-900 Premium Economy NRT-TPE
• Review: EVA The Infinity & The Star Lounges (this post)
• Review: EVA Air 777-300ER Royal Laurel TPE-LAX

Access Rules

We were flying in EVA’s Royal Laurel business class on our way back to LAX and that gained us access to The Infinity. Other ways to access The Infinity lounge include:

• Royal Laurel, Premium Laurel, and business class passengers flying EVA Air
• First and business class passengers on any other Star Alliance flight

Notably, Star Alliance Gold members do not have access to The Infinity lounge. As you may see on the directory below, Star Alliance Gold members are instead directed to either The Star or The Club lounges.

Somewhat confusingly, The Infinity and The Star lounges occupy the same space but are separated by the welcome desk.

Arrival and First Impressions

We landed at TPE Terminal 1 off our Starlux flight from Tokyo Narita. We needed to take the passenger train airside over to Terminal 2. On the way over, we noticed that none of the transit desks were open for carriers operating in Terminal 1, but thankfully, EVA had quite a few agents working their transit desk. We provided our bag tags from the Starlux flight and they confirmed the bags would be loaded. After a short wait for transit security, we were off to explore the terminal.

Naturally, Char needed to make a pit stop at the Hello Kitty store before we did anything else. It’s also a decent place to entertain the kids if you don’t have lounge access or you need a change of pace as there are some games. There used to be a playground by the Hello Kitty store, which is a bit of a disappointment to see it’s now gone.

Once we made our way over to the entrance, where agents were checking access right as passengers entered. Since we had a party of five, lounge staff actually directed us to sit in The Star (to the left of the welcome desk) as the seating there is easier for larger parties and families. An agent even escorted us to a quieter section of the lounge where there was enough seating for us. We freely could go between both lounges and no one seemed to mind.

Seating – The Star

The lounge has a different vibe between The Star side and The Infinity side. On The Star side, I’d say the theme was a bit more muted. It felt a bit like we were in a generic business center. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s also nothing all that memorable. There is plenty of seating here and it would seem like they anticipate a larger crowd. We were here for a total of six hours or so in the evening and we never noticed it packed.

Don’t expect much of a view from the lounge, as you just face the check in counters.

Seating – The Infinity

On the other side of the lounge space, The Infinity feels a bit more modern. There are a lot of curved lines and most of the seating is meant for parties of one or two. Upon entering this space, I could see why lounge staff directed us to the other side as it would have been uncomfortable to find seating near each other and have a conversation. Seating in The Infinity also seemed a bit more crowded–it would seem that they get more business class passengers than Star Alliance Gold members and it’s also a much smaller space.

Food – The Star

A good amount of the options are the same between the two lounges, so let’s start with The Star. I wouldn’t say one side had the superior options and it really just comes down to preferences.

The room was arranged with a large semi-circular table that housed most of the food. You could choose from a noodle bar, soup, a rice bowl, and some stir fry. They have some buns that remind me of dim sum, but it just made me want real dim sum as I found it a bit dry.

Don’t feel like Asian food? Well your options over here are spaghetti and meatballs and some Doritos. What a combination.

You can also choose to make a salad or eat bread.

Desserts are roll cake, yogurt, or Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Not a surprise that the kids were a fan of the ice cream here.

There is a self-serve refrigerator for drinks, a mini bar, and juice/coffee stations.

Food – The Infinity

Many of the Asian items found in The Star can be found at The Infinity. Rather than re-post the same food items with a different background, I’m just going to emphasize the unique items on this side.

The dining area of this side was a small U-shaped area.

You’ll find a noodle bar over here, but the option here comes with some braised beef.

There are also some local favorites like glutinous rice and braised pork.

Don’t want Asian food on this side? You can choose between hot dogs or pizza. Am I the only one who sees the hot dog machine and think of 7-11? It certainly seems out of place here.

And the pizza is pepperoni and corn. Not a very common combination of ingredients to most places in the world. I do find it very strange they put this offering on top of the trash can.

The one difference for drinks was the boba bar. Grabbing some milk tea was reason enough to come to this side.

Overall, from a quality perspective, I think the food is just all right. The food you find out in the food court in the terminal is going to taste better than the food in here. This was our first visit to the lounge since 2018 and I can’t help but feel the quality of the food here hasn’t kept up with the competition.

Showers

Halfway through our stay, I went to the front desk to inquire about a shower. There were two options available to me: shower rooms with toilets and shower rooms without toilets. Staff advised the faster wait would be to get a room without a toilet and that’s what I chose. It ultimately took less than 10 minutes to get in.

Staff took my boarding pass and gave me a pager that would buzz when it was my turn.

When I returned, one of the lounge attendants escorted me to the shower area and left me in one of the rooms. The area was big enough as it was. It would have been convenient if all shower rooms had a toilet, but I’m guessing it was a space issue.

Two hair dryers are provided, because why not?

The house rules are posted here. The notable items are that you’re only given 20 minutes and children need to be accompanied by an adult.

It’s nice that toiletries are provided for each guest. Even more impressive is the use of L’Occitane lotion and soaps.

The shower was intuitive to use, though I wish the controls weren’t right under the faucet.

One negative about the showers here is the vent that clearly hasn’t been cleaned in many months.

Odds and Ends

There is a dedicated baby room here. As a parent, I would have enjoyed the fact that diapers are provided in case you don’t have any. Since our kids are now older, we didn’t use the facilities here but they looked nice.

There is a small business center in case you need to use a computer or print something.

Comparing Against Starlux

Naturally, since I visited both the EVA Air lounges and the Starlux Galactic Lounge recently, I think it’s fair to compare the two. For me, the Starlux lounge offers a marginally better food product (only because they offer a small menu of freshly-prepared meals) but otherwise the EVA lounges at least had greater variety. But every other aspect between the lounges went in EVA’s favor. The biggest differentiator is Starlux lacking toilets.

Recommendation: It’s Fine

I remember liking the lounge here a bit more in the past. I think my hesitancy to say it’s as great as it was before might be more driven to the average business class lounge improving somewhat over the past six years. It’s still a comfortable experience here and you wouldn’t go wrong spending some time here. If you’re connecting and you don’t have enough time to go into the city, it’s fine spending time here. If you’re originating, I wouldn’t go out of my way to spend extra time here.

Have you been to either The Star or The Infinity lounges?