Part One: PHL Lounge Crawl

Since my cousin, my wife, and I were flying out at around the same time, we decide to do an airline lounge bar crawl before our respective flights that evening. Since we had the international flight, we decided to start at the Delta Sky Club in Terminal D and work our way towards Terminal A-West.

After clearing security at Terminal D we headed to the Delta Sky Club which my cousin guested us into. The decor was very modern and keeping to the Delta brand. Lots of frosted lucite glass and the Delta colors of Blue and Red were prevalent, though not distracting. This lounge was small, but very well appointed. We found some seats and my cousin got the first round of drinks (Gin and Tonics were our drink of choice this crawl).

The bar and food at this club were all self serve. They had typical domestic lounge fair including cheese and craters, fruit, and various snack mixes. The liquor that they had was all quality (we were drinking Tanqueray Gin but I don’t remember what the other options were for vodka, rum, etc.) The one thing that stood out at the club was how well Delta carried on their airlines branding (subtly) with the use of their royal blue and red colors throughout the club but without making it gaudy with Delta logos all over the place.

Once we finished out drinks we walked out into the terminal and down the concourse to the United Club, located between the C and D terminals at PHL. This club was on the smaller side, but look similar to other United Clubs I have been in the US. There was a small separate bar area where we ordered our drinks from a bartender, then found a table off by itself by a window which allowed us to look out onto the ram and watch the airplane activity. Lounge offerings were similar to those of the Delta Club with cheese/crackers, snack mix, etc. After the round we left and made our way down to the US Airways section of Philadelphia Airport.

Due to time constraints (and not wanting to get too liquefied up before our flight to Paris in Envoy Class) we skipped the US Airways Club located between B and C concourses and went to the former US Envoy Lounge (very recently made into an Envoy/US Airways Club lounge) located between Concourse A-East and A-West. To access the club we had to up up a long escalator as the club was located on top of the terminal. We checked in and said that we were flying Envoy to Paris that evening. We gave the event our boarding passes as she was going to try and get us two Envoy seats in the middle section next to each other. She also gave us 2 drink coupons because we were flying Envoy. (A side note, US Clubs charge for alcohol beyond the free house beer and wine.) We kindly asked if my cousin could have some drink coupons even though he was not flying Envoy that evening. We used an excuse that we were celebrating my wife’s 30th birthday that evening before our respective flights. The woman who was checking us in smiled and gave us an extra 2 tickets. Score!

We made our way into the lounge which was much nicer than the lounge at B/C concourses and had an amazing view of the ramp and runways. This would be a great lounge to plane-spot at during the day. It had a nice subtle mood lighting and a very tall ceiling, though there was not a lot of noise being reflected around. We went to the far end of the club and found some seats. While my cousin was getting us our round of drinks I scoped out the food offerings. The spread was similar to the other lounges plus there was an addition of a warming crock that held soup, something I heard that US has started offering in the clubs during the afternoon and evening hours. As we would have a nice dinner on the flight, I didn’t partake, but look forward to the next time I’m in a US lounge to give it a try. We enjoyed our cocktails and the company before it was time to head down to the gate area and board our flight to Paris.