SAS Star Alliance Gold Oslo Lounge
The Oslo SAS Gold Lounge has just one large open room, with a smaller side section at the end with a snooze area, and smaller 'work rooms' at the end.
The food is just slightly uprated from the food on the business side, and the bar has a somewhat better selection too.
At the far end there is a pleasant snooze area, and private offices.
Oslo SAS Star Alliance Gold lounge review
The Oslo SAS Star Alliance Gold Lounge is the large 'inner enclave' past the Business Class lounge: just go straight past the business section if you have a gold card. It is rare there is anyone on the gate to stop you from going on in.
You enter however into the dining area, with dining chairs opposite the main food fridges and the bar counter. This is the starkly lit, most uncomfortable part of the lounge.
Further in there is island seating in the middle, with a work bench on the left, under the 'star gazers' lamps, and one of the most uncomfortable hard wooden long benches on the right. Oddly, however, many people sit here as it is right by the door.
Carry further on however, and some of the eclectic furniture of the lounge dominates.
Here there is everything from a deck chair that wouldn't be out of place on a liner, to an artictic recliner, all under odd types of standard lamps.
The most comfortable part of the lounge is by the windows, overlooking duty free. Here on the right are several recliners. They are useless for snoozing as the light is too bright, however it is great to be able to relax here.
At the far end are some private rooms, designed as offices, which you can borrow to sit in and take phone calls.
The lounge is in effect one big room: past reception there are three big banks of seats, and then in the main part of the lounge half a dozen seats for small groups.
This place is well-lit, and cleaned continuously with lots of power outlets everywhere you can see.
However, instead of comfy chairs along one wall there is a long straight line of fairly hard benches, with pretty coloured cushions.
Food
Food selection is much better in the Oslo SAS Gold lounge. In particular the salads are superb, particularly the pasta salad. They are in the large fridge to the front of the bar, with about 10 different trays laid out with a buffet.Beside the salad there are cold cuts of ham and cheese, and sometimes small fish cakes.
If you want something hot, there is 'soup of the day' available, but it is always the same as in the Business section.
Bar
The bar is again done up in SAS's usual style with the large wall saying 'Relax' and 'Refresh' decorated with some really good bottles of wine.
The Oslo SAS Gold Lounge bar selection is always a cut above that available in Business.
There is Carlsberg beer on draft, and bottles of Munkholm beer, which is a very popular non-alcoholic beer brand in Norway.
However, unlike in Business, in Gold you get real bottles of wine, with one red, one white and one rose. They are in the fridge troughs.
There are also three bottles of spirits in the cupboard above the fridge.
Bathrooms
In lounge in the Business section, to the right as you exit gold.
Pretty basic. No showers.
Business Facilities
At the back of the 'worktable' is a small corridor leading back to a computer room and bar.This small computer room has four iMacs, which are bizarrely in what seems to be a wine cellar, thanks to the bar decoration extending into the Business Centre.
Many of the small tables between the seats have power sockets in them, and indeed the lounge seems to operate more as a 'recharging station' than somewhere pleasant to wait before a flight.
There is a large newspaper rack with UK papers including the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the FT (European version) as you enter the lounge, opposite the food section.
If you can't get a newspaper here, there is also a newspaper rack in the Business section, before you get to gold.
Wifi is either the SAS version, with just a code, or you can use the airport's own supply.
Reception can be a bit hit or miss, and you need a Nordic or UK mobile to get an SMS with the code if you using the airport version.
However, you can get a card from reception if you plead that you don't have a Norwegian mobile
Access
To find the lounge, go through customs and duty free, and half way along the terminal before passport control, take the stairs on the left hand side up, and go across the bridge.
The lounge staff are pretty on the ball when it comes to frequent flyer cards.
If you're a gold you will be waved through to the gold section, however the doors to this 'inner sanctum' are rarely closed or indeed you card even checked.
However, there is no way to buy a day-pass to the SAS Gold Lounge in Oslo.
Instead, you should buy a daypass to the Oslo SAS Business Class lounge. Access to the Business Class lounge costs €22/US$30 if you pay when you check in online or DKK 219/NOK 279/SEK 289/EUR 30/USD 46 per person if you pay at the reception desk in the lounge.
Video: SAS Star Alliance Gold Lounge
Small private offices
Smaller than you would expect
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