All Nippon Airways runs premium passenger lounges worldwide in just four cities: Narita (Tokyo), Haneda (Tokyo), Osaka and Honolulu. Their International Lounges are typically nice places to spend some time in, and come with the unique opportunity to enjoy some noodles at their noodle bar if you happen to hit the right location.

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Before we knew it, our time in Tokyo came to a close. We asked for a late check out and The Westin Tokyo gave us a complimentary 4 PM check out courtesy of the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program, without any negotiation. 

We debated whether to take the airport limousine bus or the tried and tested JR Yanamote Line back to the Narita Express. We thought that the bus might be prone to traffic delays and so we opted for the Narita Express.

We took the JR Yanamote line to Shibuya and got temporarily stuck. We couldn’t find a ticket office to purchase the tickets by credit card like we did on the inbound and the automated kiosks that allowed to book a seat reservation would not accept foreign credit cards (only accepting funds loaded from a JR Suica Card). I only had enough ¥ cash to purchase one ticket. MrsWT73 would not have been happy about being left behind here while I was on the way to the airport in comfort so I opted to locate an ATM or a JR ticket office. 

In hindsight, we should have probably just ridden the train without a seat reservation (all Narita Express tickets seats are reserved) and paid for it at the other end. I eventually found a Shinkansen ticket office before I was able to find an ATM. This whole process made us lose our planned train connection and any time advantage over the bus. We vowed to take the airport bus next time for the simple convenience. 

Review: All Nippon Airways (ANA) Lounge, Narita Terminal One, Tokyo, Japan

“One of the Few Business Class Lounges in the World where you can get delicious & fresh Udon Noodles before a flight”

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We arrived at the airport at about 2 hours before our flight. We checked in without anyone at the Business Class Counters. Narita has all Star Alliance Carriers checking in at the “B” desks. The boarding passes for our Asiana Business Class flight from Narita to Seoul Incheon were issued and bags were tagged to Incheon. The counter agents gave us a useful map was given to the ANA / UA lounges which was helpful since Narita doesn’t have a very intuitive layout. 

Locating the ANA Lounge:

Narita was pretty quiet at this time of night and there were no waits at security or at immigration. There were two lounges available to us today. Leaving security, we headed to the right. We bypassed the familiar United Club Narita and headed straight over to the ANA Lounge which was closer to Gate 41, which happened to be where our flight was departing from.

The ANA Lounge is located down one level at the escalators. The ANA Suite Lounge for First Class Passengers is at the same location but up one level.

Accessing The ANA Lounge:

The ANA Lounge is designed as the departure lounge for all All Nippon Airways passengers in addition to Star Alliance Business Class travellers.

Persons with an ANA boarding card in Premium Economy and Business Class are permitted to access the lounge with no guests permitted. It’s a unique class leading feature to to have lounge access as Premium Economy passenger as this feature isn’t offered on every carrier. If you’re traveling in First class, you’re also entitled to visit with one additional guest.

If you are a frequent flier in the ANA Mileage Club at the Diamond (50,000 status miles per year), Platinum (100,000 status miles per year) or Super Flyers Club levels, you are also permitted to access the lounge with one guest. Star Alliance Gold travelers and Star Alliance Gold Lounge Memberships are also permitted to access the lounge with one additional guest. The lounge operates from 7:00 AM – to the last operating flight.

Today’s access was granted courtesy of an ANA Business Class ticket.

Inside The ANA Lounge:

The ANA Lounge is one of my favorite Star Alliance Business Lounges. It has a contemporary décor, a good food selection of food and wine (including sushi), a beer machine. Hey – it even has a noodle bar and sake / sochu wine bar (unattended). Two types of sake and two types of souchu; you can’t go wrong with that as far as I’m concerned. Although there have been a few complaints about how dark it is, it seems that it doesn’t bother me whenever I visit. Perhaps it’s because on my usual visits, I’m in transit so my clock is so screwed up, I never even notice. 

The most elegant part of the lounge is the contemporary dark seating. The loungers are dark coloured. As a result, the lounge wears well and doesn’t show as much wear as you’d expect. The seating is a bit compact. But of my three visits here, I’ve never actually seen the place completely full. 

The ANA Lounge had a unique display that displayed the ANA Million Miler luggage tags. These were sample luggage tags – not actually assigned to any actual fliers (yet).

Food and Beverage:

The food on offer today were the usual small sandwiches, salads, some simple sushi (kappa rolls and inari) and the Noodle Bar. The ANA Noodle Bar is my favourite food feature of the Star Alliance Lounges. The Noodles here are better than the Noodles even in the Cathay Pacific First Class Lounge at London Heathrow in my humble opinion. Perhaps it’s the style of Japanese noodles that I find more appealing but warming up to Tempura Udon Noodles before a flight is an excellent experience that I’ve grown to enjoy.

We had some quick snacks as we had missed lunch. I was a bit gluttonous and had two servings of Udon; Kistune udon and Katsune udon. Of course, it had to be topped off with our last servings of Sake and Souchu. 

Another interesting feature of the ANA Lounge was wine / sake / sochu bar which was amply stocked. It was much better catering than the ANA Arrivals Lounge in the same airport.

We spent some time enjoying the ANA Lounge before our Asiana Business Class flight from Narita to Seoul.

The Bottom Line: The ANA Lounge

Overall, the ANA Lounge remains my favorite lounge at Narita. The sake / souchu wine bar and the Noodle Bar are my favorite features and make a unique way to fill up before a flight. The fact that you can try a whole slew of different wines that you normally wouldn’t get at home is a bonus. Make sure you stop by here the next time you are through Narita.

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