Lounge Review – Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge (Changi Airport Terminal 4): Best Of Both Lounge Worlds

Changi Airport Terminal 4, which looks like it’s been designed to mainly handle point-to-point carriers, only has 2 lounges in the terminal, namely the Cathay Pacific Lounge available to CX’s First and Business Class passengers, selected members of The Marco Polo Club and oneworld partner programme members, and the Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge for everything else including Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines First and Business Class passengers, SkyTeam Elite Plus members, Priority Pass membership, access through certain credit cards, or if you’d just like to pay to enter.

Since I’m obviously not flying First or Business Class, neither do I possess any premium level of airline membership, I fall into the last category.

The Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge is finally available on the ReadyLounge menu on the Ready To Travel app, and being a cheapo, I booked my visit during the NATAS promotion with a 50% discount (S$45 / 2 + 7% GST = S$24.08). And after my visit, the Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge seems to be the best among all the ReadyLounges available.

*This post is not an advertorial though it might be going to sound like it.

Head up the escalator to Level 2M where the International Food Hall is located, the two lounges are at the far end of the floor.

The Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge is on the left.

After a quick sign-in at the counter when showing my Ready To Travel invoice, I was cleared through. My boarding pass was stamped with the WiFi ID and password – guess this kills two birds with one stone for them to check my boarding pass.

The first thing that greets you as you walk into the Blossom Lounge is the dining area.

Some newspapers and tidbits to start the day.

A small drinks bar of wine, spirits, juices and fruit-infused water comes next.

The main buffet area is split into 3 parts – the cold salad bar, the noodle station and the self-service hot food counter.

The main drinks bar lies opposite the food counter, with a selection of beers, soft drinks (fountain or canned), coffee and tea. Instant noodles, bread, cold sandwiches and fruits are also available.

For breakfast, the main hot food selection were scrambled eggs, chicken sausages and baked beans – the holy trinity of breakfast buffets. However, instead of offering potatoes, the buffet at the Blossom Lounge offers roasted pumpkin instead.

Here’s my first round of breakfast – scrambled eggs, chicken sausages,  green olives, cheese, a sweet pastry which I forgot the filling of and an egg mayo sandwich.

Over at the noodle station, instead of the self-service blanching at SATS Premier Lounges, there is a staff behind the counter to prepare your meal, reminiscent of the classic Plaza Premium Lounge.

The Laksa was plated like how it would have been done in a Plaza Premium Lounge, however, the taste was distinctively SATS, which is a good thing. (Also available at the noodle station was a vegetarian noodle in a clear broth, but meh, who wants that?)

The dining area has space for all group sizes ranging from solo travellers to the group of 16 whom you would really wish they aren’t at the lounge or sitting behind you on your flight.

At the lounging area, the Blossom Lounge is filled mainly with pod-style seats, an improvement over the seat-table-seat Plaza Premium Lounge design. Each pod comes with a little side table and a universal & USB charging port.

The pod-style seats offers excellent privacy, so much so that if you want to find an empty seat, you can’t actually see the user’s face but only his or her legs.

Here’s the view from the pod-style seats when seated in one. There is a reading light as well but I couldn’t figure out how to switch it on.

There’s also a secret stairway that leads downstairs, for Korean Air First Class passengers only.

At the end of the lounge, there is a communal style coffee table seating arrangement, as well as what I call Circle Seats for the Peranakan Love Story musical.

These individual seats face towards the shophouse screen of the Peranakan Love Story musical, and come with a side table with power sockets as well as legrests for you to stretch out and lounge on.

Pour yourself a red wine from the bar to complete your theatrical experience.

The Blossom Lounge has a second part on a separate little island with typical lounge seats, a little bit more pod-style seats and a bar with Tiger Beer on draught and freshly brewed coffee, however, the entire section was closed during my visit in the morning.

Over in the washroom, it looks sufficiently spacious and is pretty clean.

The shower rooms, however, are located separately. There are only 2 shower rooms available, which you need to book the use of them at the front desk.

As my visit was in the morning without much people (yet), it was a simple signing of a “guest list” for the shower room, and off I went with the shower room key. However, if you are travelling during peak periods especially if you’re flying on a full-service carrier and not on AirAsia like me, you should make a booking at the front desk as soon as you arrive at the Blossom Lounge.

Inside the shower room, the amenities were laid out for you nicely for your arrival – vastly different from both SATS and Plaza Premium Lounges where towels and amenities are found on a tray, trolley or in a side drawer.

A bath towel, face towel, shower cap, toothbrush kit and comb is provided, laid out nicely for you.

There’s also a complimentary bottle of mineral water, probably for those who purchased the shower a la carte as they were abundantly available inside the chiller over at the drinks bar.

Well, this bottle was useful for my AirAsia flight. Thank you!

The shower room features a Japanese-style toilet bowl which opens up automatically after gently touching it. You can adjust the heat of the toilet seat, the water temperature and pressure of the washes and blow-dry yourself up once everything is done on the little control panel on the left.

But if you can’t figure out how to use it or are a staunch toilet traditionalist, the standard issue of toilet paper and cold water hose are available for your use as well.

Over at the shower, the water pressure was fantastic, with some pretty nice smelling soap provided. The soap is stored in a squeeze-type bottle, which took me about 8 seconds to figure out.

This shower was appreciated, since I would be spending the rest of my time on trains after the flight.

Once back out of the shower, I returned the key and the dining area has become a full-fledged crowded buffet restaurant.

I grabbed a light lunch since I was still full from breakfast and sat myself in a little pod seat again.

Kimchi fried rice, chicken meatballs, teriyaki chicken, mango sago and New York cheesecake was on my plate for lunch.

Once done with my lunch, it was time to board the plane, so I went down from the nearest escalator to the Blossom Lounge to board my flight at Gate G14.

If you are heading to Gates G11-G21 and Bus Gates H1-H8, you should take this escalator down.

If you are heading to Gates G1-G10, you should backtrack to the initial escalator beside the International Food Hall where you came up from and descend from there.

Overall, in my humble opinion, the Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge at Changi Airport Terminal 4 was the best lounge I’ve ever used so far. Pretty much everything about this lounge is a hybrid, from the management of Plaza Premium and SATS to the actual hard product which does somehow feel like a cross between both products, but mixing-up in the Blossoms Lounge seems to increase the quality of the overall experience with a distinct image instead of being just a strange out-of-place mix.

However, that being said, I do not usually hang out in airport lounges considering that I do not have a deck of credit cards or thousands of miles in my bottom-tier frequent flier accounts, so that could partially play a part in my perceived lounge experience. Also, the only brands of airport lounges that I have ever used in my life so far are exactly these two – SATS in Singapore and Plaza Premium in Malaysia – so while I can vouch for the Blossoms Lounge experience as compared with their standalone lounges, I cannot say the same for other contract or airline lounges.

But at just S$24.08 (with the ReadyLounge 50% discount during promotions) or if you’re using your Priority Pass membership? The Blossom – SATS & Plaza Premium Lounge at Terminal 4 should be what you are spending your time and money on – if you are flying from Terminal 4.