After frolicking among the flowering fields of the ‘Bollenstreek’ region in the Netherlands, my husband and I started on the return portion of our trip. This included flying to Frankfurt on KLM where we spent the night, and then departing Europe in Singapore Airlines Business Class – probably the most exciting part of the trip in terms of flight experiences!

Before our flight from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, we had the chance to visit the Aspire Lounge No. 26 within the Shengen part of Schiphol Airport. Note that there are two Aspire lounges, with the second one (Aspire Lounge No. 41) being in the non-Shengen part of the terminal. While I previously reviewed the KLM Crown Lounge 52 in the non-Shengen part of the terminal, we did not have access to its Shengen counterpart since we were flying economy and I also didn’t have Flying Blue Gold status at the time.

Briefly, this lounge would be quite decent for a Priority Pass Liunge, were it not for the insane crowd. It died down a bit after we arrived as more people were leaving than entering, but it continued to be incredibly busy the entire time. That said, if you’re okay waiting for the buffet to be refilled all the time, the food was decent and we particularly enjoyed the pastries.

1. Entrance requierments
2. Location and hours
3. Seating and design
4. Food and drinks
5. Restrooms and showers
6. Summary

Entrance requierments

The Aspire Lounge network, like the Horizon lounge we visited at Geneva (both of which are operated by Swissport), are contract lounges and are not affiliated with any airline. That means you can generally visit with different kind of memberships, including priority pass (which we used), Dragon Pass, Lounge Key, and one or two others. I didn’t see any indication about whether this lounge is used as a contract lounge for any airline, but it’s certainly possible. Without a membership, you’d be able to pay a fee to enter. Generally, you can enter from 3 hours before your time of departure.

Location and hours

The lounge is open from 6:00AM until 9:00PM, which actually seems a bit early for a lounge to close, but given Schiphol’s curfew it’s possible that by then most Shengen flights have already departed for the day as destination airports tend to have similar curfews, sometimes as early as 10:00PM.

To get to the lounge, follow the signage saying ‘Airline Lounges 25-29’. That’s also where the ‘No. 26’ in the name comes from – it simply refers to the lounge’s number at the airport. After you clear security, you’ll turn right until you get to a large space. From here you’ll need to go up some escalators, which brings you to something of a mezzanine floor, pictured below. Follow the signs and ride up one elevator to find… a long line. After we entered the line slowly dissolved and by the time we left there was no longer a line.

Note that immediately left of the Aspire Lounge is the Star Alliance lounge, and some people tried to get into that one instead before promptly being turned around.

Seating and design

Suffice it to say that it’s hard to make pictures of the lounge when it’s so crammed with people. Pretty much every chair was taken.

The lounge is not big, being essentially one large, square room with various kinds of seating throughout. On the right side from the entrance are floor to ceiling windows, allowing natural light to come in for an airier, more pleasant ambiance.

You enter into this space from one of the corners, with a view of the entire lounge, and the massive crowd inside. I’m not exaggerating: pretty much every available seta or table was occupied. I was surprised the staff was still letting people in, frankly.

As you can see, there’ various kinds of seating. There are lounge chair-like setrup with small tables in-between to sit and relax. There’s also couches with little tables jutting out and armrests to separate between people, and then there’s various booths, tables and dining setups in different corners of the lounge.

We plopped down at the first free table we could find, which was a a small, circular, high-top table with matching chairs, which were not particularly comfortable but at least we could sit somewhere. Later, after we finished eating a bite and the lounge became a little less crowded, we were able to move to one of the lounge-like chairs.

Unfortunately these probably saw their best times a little while ago. The upholstering was not looking so hot, and it seemed like as a measure of maintenance the lounge had simple draped an extra layer of faux leather on top to conceal the worst of it – that kind of make it look worse. That said, the chair was still comfortable…

Other seating options at the lounge included several dining setups, including a long bench with dining tables for 2 people, a long communal table that appeared to almost entiely lack chairs (I asume people took them to join their companions at the smaller tables), and circular dining tables for 2 people each. There were also swivel chairs along the windows, though the view was mostly that of the observation deck – you couldn’t actually see much of the airplanes from here, but the natural light flooding in was pleasant.

Finally, along one wall were some booths that looked very nicely private and secluded, but unfortunately there were oly a couple of them, and then there were also some shelves with some random reading material.

All in all, the lounge offers plenty of options for seating, from dining, to lounging, to working. The state of them is a little bit sorry, but they still provide comfort no matter what it is what you want to do. But, good luck finding a spot!

Food and drinks

The lounge had one full food and drink self-serve area, and then other self-serve drink station on another side of the lounge. When we first arrived, the was a line of people at every station, vying for food and drinks and is it’s not surprised various items were emptied out. We also arrived around the time that the staff was switching from breakfast to lunch, though I’m not sure if the full lunch buffet had been served by the time we left, since some dishes appeared to be continually replenished whereas others were rotated out.

For the drinks, there were all the usual options. Coffees and teas from a machine, various juices from another one, and a fridge with various beers, softy drinks and bottled water. A soda fountain was also available, as well as draft Heineken beer, which was a ncie touch (the fact that it was on draft, not so much the fact that it was Heineken). Directly behind that was a cooler with various wines (red, white and rose) and a really quite small selection of liquors.

As for the food, the food buffet was just beyond the drinks and included your usual spread. There were various breads and pastries. The croissants were delicious, in part because we managed to crab them right as they came hot out of the oven. Delicious!

Moving on there were various kinds of cereal, yoghurt, and various cold cuts. As you can see, the meat cuts were all out, and these were replenished a little later. The cheeses had already been replenished at the time I took this picture, hence the platter is full.

The hot options included various things that rotated out from breakfast to lunch. Initially there were breakfast-style sausages (meaning the meatball-type thingies, not actual sausages) and scrambled eggs, and little pancakes. The latter were surprisingly tasty and I had several of those. Those eventually disappeared and were swapped out for potatoes. The other two dishes were replenished and were not replaced by the time we left, so I’m not sure if those were part of the lunch menu as well.

All in all we did enjoy the food, and we liked the pastries and pancakes. But, you had to be quick – wait too long and the platters would empty out again.

Restrooms and showers

Although the website says that showes are available (but closed due to COVID?) I didn’t actually see any sign of showers.

The restrooms were modern and kept clan, which was no small feat given the crowds the entire time we were there. As you’d expect, the men’s restroom had urinals and stalls, but otherwise there ween’t any special amenities of any kind, or especially nice soaps or whatnot.

Summary

In this review I gave my impression of the Aspire Lounge No. 26, which we visited on account of a priority pass membership that came with our Sapphire Reserve (which we had before we downgraded it to get the 100k bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred). Overall, I’d say the Aspire Lounge may be better than just sitting in the terminal, since you do get decent complimentary food, but with the constant crowd it’s not a particularly relaxing place to be. The crowd has also left its mark on the seating, which has some wear and tear.

I would still return to this lounge for a quick bite and spend some time, but depending on the level of crowding I may end up sitting by the gate earlier than I might with less crowded lounges.