Plaza Premium Lounge - Taipei

There are 2 Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal 2, one is a smaller version, less crowded but also offer fewer amenities. I went into the main lounge, by getting a nice much needed shower after a long sweaty day in Taipei.

After my shower, I had a quick walk through the nearly packed lounge, there are private rooms and something that is called VIP rooms but I am assuming they incur additional charges. I do know in other countries they rent it out as a hotel room (you can read about my stay in Kuala Lumpur Plaza Premium Lounge in my separate blog post).

Since my time in the lounge is not long, I quickly try out as much food as I possibly could. Firstly I went to the chef bar area where I ordered a beef noodle soup, however I didn’t realise the base is spicy so I managed to eat the noodles but not the rest. The other 2 options are chicken rice or vegan Udon.

Then I went to the normal buffet / self serving area to see what are the offerings. The bread section is not huge, there are cranberry bread and croissant. I got a cranberry bread but it seems to be more like raisins bread. I also tried out their salad bar, hot soup (Bak Kut Tea; a herbal Chinese soup), unfortunately I was late to the chicken nugget as they were all taken and got replaced by some sort of chips (wedges is also available next to it).

The food offering is not massive in this lounge, the most impressive is probably the so called freshly made hot food by the chef, again only 2 choices. The lounge itself is too crowded and some people are loud and disrespectful, which is rather typical for Asian vulture. The space is supposed to allow passengers to relax, unwind and get filled up before a flight (especially long ones). The usual drinks are available, although champagne has an additional charge I believe.

There are 4 shower rooms in this lounge, although it seems very busy and often all occupied. This lounge is probably leaning towards restaurant style than a lounge, although if you can get into one of the private room, I would say it may be the best option since you will be away from all the crowd and you can also get a good rest before your flight (assuming they will have a bed in there). Is it worth paying to go into this lounge? I would say yes if you are going to be using their shower and have some food before your flight, it’s a much more comfortable journey when you are refreshed and also you wouldn’t want to be sitting with people who haven’t had a shower for a day or 2, which can be especially for people travelling half way across the world.