While transiting at Singapore Changi airport terminal 3 during the trip where I tried four different Singapore Airlines business class seats, I visited the airline’s SilverKris Business Class Lounge.
Long story short, the lounge was quite underwhelming – especially compared to the excellent experience Singapore Airlines offers onboard.
Continue reading this review to see for yourself, though.
Location, Opening Hours & Access
Singapore airport terminal 3’s SilverKris lounges can be found one floor above the departure hall, at the center of the terminal.
The entrance is on the left side of the escalators, and is easy to spot as it’s marked with a large “SilverKris Lounge” sign.
Inside, there are three lounges – the SilverKris First Class Lounge which is accessible to all Star Alliance first class passengers, The Private Room which can only be accessed by Singapore Airlines’ own first class passengers, and the SilverKris Business Class Lounge which I’ll talk about below.
The SilverKris Business Class Lounge can be accessed by Star Alliance business class passengers and Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer Elite Gold and PPS Club members. It’s open 24 hours a day, although the food selection is limited between 2:30AM and 5:30AM.
On a side note, Star Alliance (other than those with Singapore Airlines’ statuses mentioned above) traveling in economy or premium economy class are not eligible for access into the lounge, and are invited into KrisFlyer Gold Lounge instead.
Lounge Tour
My first impressions of the SilverKris Business Class Lounge were not overly positive. In fact, they could be described by “stuffy,” “dull,” and “uninviting.”
Sofa chairs – of which there were dozens and dozens – seemed to have been arranged randomly to fill any empty space and maximize the seating capacity. Even with that, the lounge can get very crowded (to the point where it’s hard to find an empty seat) during the late night and early morning peak hours.
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Besides the sofa chairs, the lounge also featured a dining area with a couple of buffet counters (I’ll talk about the contents further down), as well as some communal tables, counters, and dining tables.
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Finally, in one of the lounge’s corners, there were long sofas that could be used for sleeping. Reportedly, during late night hours, passengers can request a pillow and a blanket from the lounge staff.
Originally, I was planning to spend my transit there, but seeing the island-shaped area with zero privacy, I was glad that I had booked a room at Aerotel Transit Hotel.
As for the lounge’s showers, they weren’t much better than the rest of the lounge.
Unlike many other lounges with individual shower rooms each featuring a shower, a toilet, and a sink, and so on, the ones in the SilverKris Business Class Lounge were just private booths with a shower and a sink located within a large bathroom.
While amenities were provided, there are also times when the staff fails to be restock them properly after someone’s use of the shower.
Speaking of the lounge staff, they were not on par with what one would expect after experiencing Singapore Airlines’ onboard service either.
Just as an example, when I tried to use the shower but all the booths were taken, I asked roughly how long I would have to wait before one of them opened. The answer I got was a plain “I don’t know” after which the staff disappeared.
Food and Drinks
While I appreciated the extensive selection of food available from the buffet, unfortunately, most of the dishes didn’t look too appetizing – mainly as they seemed to be too greasy.
I visited the lounge both at night, around 9PM, when the dinner selection was available, as well as in the morning when breakfast items were offered.
Let’s start with the dinner.
There were some salads, fruits, cheeses, as well as cakes.
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There were also about a dozen or so hot options including a “cream of curried sweet potato” soup, BBQ chicken, fettuccine pasta, a fish dish, Indian curry, ma po tofu, as well as braised beef, pork, chicken, and noodles (yes, there were many braised items).
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Aside from the items above which could be found in the main buffet area, there were also some lighter items as sandwiches and spring rolls that could be found in the lounge’s snack area.
The one item I liked out of all those that I tried during the lounge’s dinner hours was a local dessert – a cold bowl of sweet syrup with lotus seeds.
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Unlike the dinner, the breakfast selection was actually quite decent. That is, if you like local Singaporean food, since the buffet spread in the morning consisted mainly of Hawker (Singaporean street food) dishes.
Let’s start with the Western choices, though.
Besides fruits and cheese which were also available during dinner time, there were some yogurts, eggs Florentine, omelettes, sausages, pancakes, and French toasts.
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Now, let’s take a look at some of the more interesting choices such as seafood congee, mee siam, dau suan, seafood siu mai, and fried yam cake.
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Among other things, I tried the mee siam which was flavorful and the seafood congee which was simple and light – perfect for breakfast.
Finally, let’s take a look at the drinks in the lounge. Those were more or less the same during both breakfast and dinner.
There were two counters – one with a selection of liquor, wine, tea, and coffee. And, the other one with Tiger and Chang beers on tap, as well as a fridge with bottled water, canned soda, juices, and Heineken beer.
One thing I want to point out here is that I found it to be a nice touch that tea bags made by TWG – a premium Singaporean tea brand – were available in the lounge.
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SilverKris Lounge Singapore Changi Airport T3 Summary
Overall, the lounge can be quite uncomfortable as it tends to get crowded – especially so during the airport’s peak hours.
As such, unless you are looking to take advantage of the free food and drinks, and showers, I don’t recommend visiting it. Even more so given that Changi airport’s terminal is amazing with plenty of comfortable seating to rest and relax, as well as a wide selection of food stalls and other amenities.
All I can say is that I hope Singapore Airlines will invest more in the lounge in the future to match both the experience it provides onboard as well as the experience that can be found outside the lounge in the terminal’s public areas.
