Virgin Australia's new(ish) lounge in the South Australian capital of Adelaide has just turned one. It is one of just seven lounges operated by the airline and was the template for a new lounge look at Virgin Australia. A year after opening any kinks should be ironed out and the lounge running like clockwork. Simple Flying swung by recently to put the lounge through its paces.

Access to Virgin Australia's Adelaide lounge

After clearing security, passengers will find themselves on the airside concourse. Turn left and start walking. You'll find the lounge entrance near the always tempting Penfolds bar and roughly opposite gate 15. The lounge is clearly signposted and hard to miss.

Who gets access? Business class passengers, Velocity lounge members, and Velocity platinum and gold frequent flyers (in any class of travel) with same-day Virgin Australia travel. Platinum grade passengers can bring in three adult guests, and gold grade passengers can bring in one adult guest.

High-status frequent flyers with Virgin Australia’s partner airlines also make the cut. Those airlines include Delta, Etihad, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, and Virgin Atlantic. Reciprocal agreements allow access for one additional guest.

In the small entrance lobby, a Virgin Australia agent safely perched behind a perspex barrier will scan your boarding pass and wave you through. At the time of Simple Flying's visit, there were no vaccination checks or COVID-safe digital check-in requirements.

Impressions of the Virgin Australia Sydney lounge

This mid-sized lounge seats around 280 passengers and is a curious mix of on-point design and the more conventional lounge look. When first opened last February, Virgin Australia's CEO Jayne Hrdlicka called the lounge "a fun, relaxed, and a place that everyone will feel welcome and comfortable."

Either way, the lounge's look comes from Brisbane’s WMK Architecture and is a significant improvement on the clinical white look that characterized the previous generation of Virgin Australia lounges.

There is still a lot of white, but it is a softer white. Generous use of multiple shades of grey, wood, a wall of natural light that runs the lounge's length, greenery, and sprinkles of bold color makes the space relatively appealing.

There are parts of the lounge that are definitely eye-catching. The design of the food service area and bar zones is good. Banks of real greenery work well, adding color and contributing to Ms Hrdlicka's relaxed feel. Then there are corners of the lounge that are very standard airline lounge - not bad, not good, simply a functional and comfortable space to wait for a flight. It is a curious mix.

Overview of lounge amenities

The entrance vestibule where boarding passes get scanned is small and not particularly impressive. At this point, the lounge is still firmly out of sight. Down a short corridor to the agent's left and the lounge opens up. To the left are two service desks - unstaffed on this weekend mid-morning. To the right is a small seating area with comfortable chairs arranged in pairs.

Virgin Australia says the lounge is divided into zones and has taken the trouble to name different sections the library, the gallery lounge, the sunroom, and the long stay area. It sounds fairly flash, but honestly, on this quiet Sunday morning, there wasn't much sense of difference throughout the lounge. It's a nice space but feels like one space - roughly a U shape that wraps around a central service area.

That's not a criticism, simply one person's opinion. If there is a criticism, it's the number of hard surface composite and wood seats and stools. You'll see a few of them in the photo above. They are fine for a 20-minute visit but less ideal for a two-hour visit. Softer chairs and some padded bench seating can be found at either end of the lounge. But a few more soft seats would be a welcome addition.

Scattered throughout the lounge are some communal workspaces with ample power points and charging ports. Elsewhere, powerpoints are harder to find. A speed test of the lounge's WiFi revealed download speeds of 3.70 Mbps and upload speeds of 1.98 Mbps.

Behind the service desks near the lounge entry are the bathrooms. Adelaide's bathrooms have the same look as the Melbourne lounge, and it's a look this reviewer likes, especially the use of green paneling. The bathrooms were clean and well maintained. By the basins are large pumpacks of Zero hand wash - a point of difference from the Hunter branded hand wash in Virgin Australia's other lounges. There are shower facilities in this lounge, but they remain closed

Food & drink service in Virgin Australia's Adelaide lounge

One of the first things passengers will see on entering the lounge is the coffee bar under the wake-up signage. A barista is busy at work making everyone's morning caffeine hit on this visit. The ordered flat white comes in a real cup with a saucer. The coffee is reasonably strong and pleasantly creamy - not bad at all.

Next to the coffee bar (or technically, around the corner) is the wine bar which opens at midday and serves guests a selection of complimentary alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. The usual Virgin Australia Four Pines beers and Sommersby ciders are among the choices displayed in fridges.

It was also good to see this particular lounge giving the Tatachilla wines a rest. When the lounge opened, Virgin Australia said the Adelaide lounge would feature local wines, South Australia being a big wine-producing state. Visible on the shelves were various Hardy and Beaumont blends.

Virgin Australia continues to eschew the old self-service model in favor of a staff member plating up your requested food. Ostensibly for COVID-related health reasons, one is suspicious the self serve model is dead and buried in favor of food on request - a far cheaper option for airlines everywhere than lounge guests hammering the pre-pandemic self serve selection.

In the Adelaide lounge, a very pleasant young lady was offering a tasty sourdough toast with avocado, feta, and chili; pancakes with nutella; toast with the standard jams, honey, and vegemite options; fruit salads; good quality muesli, yogurt pots with mango puree; juices; and some finger-licking pastries. Notably, there were no hot egg options, which this reviewer heard more than one guest ask for.

But with a meal coming up on the flight, the sourdough with avocado hit the spot nicely. Virgin Australia's recently rejigged lounge menu is scoring a few hits and a few misses, but they were on the money this particular morning in Adelaide.

A solid template for future lounges

While passenger traffic through Australia's airports is noticeably improving, the Adelaide lounge was fairly quiet on this visit. From this reviewer's point of view, that is no bad thing. On a busy Friday afternoon, it may not be so serene. As always, Virgin Australia's lounge staff were good, quietly circulating to clear tables and keep the lounge looking tidy. Flights were announced and most Virgin Australia departures leave from this section of the terminal.

All in all, there's a lot to like about this lounge, and it offers a nice counterpoint to the far larger Qantas Club lounge elsewhere in the terminal. The lounge is a significant upgrade on previous generation Virgin Australia lounges and slots in nicely with that casual but vaguely upmarket feel Virgin Australia seems to be chasing these days. The biggest disappointment is that Virgin Australia doesn't have more lounges around the place. If they did, they could do worse than model them on the Adelaide lounge.