As part of our South African Safari trip, we spent one night in Johannesburg before flying to Skukuza Airport in the Kruger National Park. We had arrived in Johannesburg the day before, flying Qatar Airways business class from New York to Doha, and then Doha to Johannesburg. We’d be flying Airlink to Skukuza, departing from Johannesburg OR Tambo Intl Airport. But before that, we were able to spend some time in the Priority Pass lounges at the airport: The Bidvest Premier Lounge, and on a layover later on in the trip, at the Bidvest Sky Lounge (sometimes referred to as the ORT Skylounge).

Here I’ll review the Bidvest Premier Lounge in Terminal B, situated in the domestic terminal. We visited this lounge right before our flight to Skukuza, at the Kruger National Park, where we’d be doing a 1-week safari.

Briefly, this is a very nice lounge. The decor and aesthetics are pleasant, and look quite modern. The lounge was kept clean. There is plenty of different food offerings, with multiple hot dishes and a large spread of breads and desserts, as well as salads. I also appreciated the nicely appointed restrooms. This is certainly a very nice Priority Pass lounge!

Hours and Location

Current opening hours are quoted as being daily from 4:30AM until 9:00PM.

To get to the lounge you will have to go through the security checkpoint in Terminal B first. Go straight ahead (don’t follow the signs to the elevator!), going up a ramp until you’re in the main corridor that leads to all domestic gates. Note there’s two ramps, so look to both your left and right, and look for a large overhead sign with directions to the gates E1-E13. It should indicate to take escalators down, as seen in below photo.

Once down one level, the entrance to the Bidvest Premier Lounge should be directly in front of you.

When you enter you’ll immediately be faced with reception desk, staffed by 2-3 people. We simply indicated we’d like to enter by Priority Pass, and the receptionist handled this quickly and professionally. However, since we were there for more than 2 hours in advance, he suggested we could either come back in another 30 minutes or so, or he could swipe twice. We did the latter, so we could enter immediately.

Access Requirements

The Bidvest Lounge network has many locations across Southern Africa (besides only South Africa), and all have similar access requirements:

• The Bidvest Premier Lounge is used as a contract lounge for premium passengers of many airlines flying in and out of OR Tambo’s domestic terminal, including Airlink, FlySafair and CemAir
• There are many lounge memberships that will grant access into the lounge, typically 2 hours in advance of your flight’s departure time. This include Priority Pass (which is what we uses, courtesy of my husband’s Citibank Strata Elite credit card), Lounge Club, Lounge Key and Dragon Pass, plus a host of local South African cards issues by Amex, Diner’s Club and various regional and local banks. Full list of partners are on Bidvest’s website.
• You can buy a pass, either in advance or as a walk-in. The rates are around 300ZAR (~$19) for a 2-hour walk-in pass, or 40 ZAR per 15 minutes for early check-in.

Seating and Design

Entering the lounge you cango left or right from the reception. Turning right you’ll see the space stretch out primarily to the right, with a couch and walls partitioning the space into multiple areas. While there are some areas behind the couch, most of the seating in this part of the lounge is over to the right, and that’s also where the buffet and the bar are.

Taking an immediate right, there is a bunch of seating along the wall, facing in the direction of a larger seating area. This kind of seating feels a little bit cramped to me, given how it’s in the main walking path. The area that those chairs face has more seats, and windows that look out over the terminal interior. You’ll notice that there are small round side tables that can be moved around, but also larger fixed ones. The latter have electrical plugs on the front, so that’s convenient.

The seating here is primarily in the form of comfortable, well-padded chairs with side tables, along low walls to create some divisions and a sense of privacy. Keep walking along this corridor and there’s a larger area with seating with more of these chairs. If you then turn right and loop back on this space, there will be a narrower corridor along the windows with rotating lounge chairs.

Going left from this area you’ll enter the main space of the lounge again, arriving at the buffet. This was a very pleasant surprise, since Priority Pass lounges don’t typically have such a nice food setup. In the back of the buffet area is a corridor that leads to restrooms and shower suites.

The buffet area has a large bar with a barista who can make a variety of of hot or cold drinks. They will also gladly help you to various kinds of wines or beers, if you prefer alcoholic options. The design of the bar was also quite nice, with wood and faux marble features.

Turning around, there is some cafe-style seating, with round tables with up to 3 chairs, for an informal setup where you can enjoy a drink or some food. As you can see, just behind these tables is further seating, with a corridor providing access to those areas.

walking in that direction, you’ll see there are more of the chairs as on the other side of the lounge, with the low partitions that separate out zones for additional privacy.

Walking back to the reception and taking the left corridor, you’ll end up in another seating area. This area is actually somewhat more pleasant because it’s much quieter. most people go to the buffet area and hang around there. There’s no food or drink on this other side of the lounge, so I suppose people don’t really end up there because of that. That said, there’s more of the same seating here, with the same kinds of chairs and side tables, plus some communal tables.

In the very back of this area are a multitude small rooms to make calls or to work in privacy. Each have a narrow table, a swiveling chair, and a power outlet. Overall an okay setup though it’d be more practical if the tables were a little deeper.

Overall, this is not a particularly big lounge, but the design is functional, aesthetically nice and there are plenty of comfy seats, even if some are placed in awkward locations. Especially if you’re okay being further away from the in buffet, you can find a quieter and calmer space in the room to the left of the reception. The major downside is that there is no natural light in the lounge, with the limited views being the corridor leading to the E-gates.

Food and Drinks

The Bidvest Premier Lounge in OR Tambo’s Domestic terminal has an extensive buffet, quite a bit larger than I was expecting from a Priority Pass lounge. You’ll find there is a bar on the left, an island with hot food in the middle, a counter with cold items, cereals and breads to the right, and a cooler with salads in the back.

Starting with the counter on the right, you’ll come a cross a station for hot drinks first. Unfortunately this machine was broken and didn’t dispense any drinks at all, but the barista was happy to serve any drinks you may want. There was also a tap for hot or cold water, to the left of the machine. Then to the left of that was an extensive selection of foods.

This included cereals, breads and accompanying toppings, diverse pastries and sandwiches, as well as cakes and other desserts. The spread was impressive and included many beautiful and tasty-looking items. A tried a bunch of them and generally thought the quality was high, though some were quite sweet. If you don’t like sweet foods, maybe this selection is not all for you.

In the middle of the lounge was an island with hot options. When we arrived, around 10:30AM for our Airlink flight around 1PM, they were serving a mix of breakfast-y items, with there being a whopping 10 different options. That’s more than at some of the most premium lounges I’ve been at, including the Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounges in Doha (The Garden or the South lounge). Options ranged from a South African lamb stew to scrambled eggs, so there should be something here for anybody. The dishes I tried were tasty, though on the salty side.

Then in the back is a cooler with a rotating selection of foods. Note on the right are some juices you can pour for yourself. When we arrived in the lounge, this was setup for breakfast, with fruit salads and chunks of fruit, as well as yoghurt and some grab-and-go packaged sandwiches.

However, our flight left after lunchtime, so as we waited for our flight, the staff started changing around the food options to reflect lunch service rather than breakfast service. They changed around the pastry and dessert options:

And they also changed the options in the cooler in the back. Rather than yoghurts and chunks of fruit, these became a beautiful selection of all sorts of salads. Some of these were still based on fruit, while others had as main ingredients various kinds of vegetables or eggs. The ones I tried were tasty and refreshing, and I appreciated the extensive selection.

I had already mentioned this, but there’s a rather big bar area as well. Here you’ll find a large selection of drinks served, all complimentary. Theres a selection of liquors, slushies, beers and wine that can be ordered. There’s some opened wine bottles on ice on the side of the bar as well, that you can help yourself to, so you don’t need to wait for a bartender/barista, which I think is convenient.

Overall, there was a great selection of food and drinks, and definitely much better than I imagined there would be. The selection of breads, pastries, salads and hot options are al extensive, and they are of a good quality generally. Some of the hot dishes were a little salty and the pastries were on the sweeter side, but they all did the trick.

Restrooms and Showers

To get to the restrooms and showers, you follow a hallway that’s located at the back of the buffet area. Once at the end of the hallway, you’ll get to a split, with two shower rooms on the right, and several restrooms on the left. The showers were all in use so I couldn’t get in to snap a quick picture.

There were 7 restrooms, which were gender neutral and generally accessible. I did find that there was often a (short) line, so perhaps having more restrooms would be better. That said, the restrooms are very nicely appointed. In each you’ll find a toilet, sink, mirror and some fragrant amenities, such as hand soap. All toilet stalls were in good conditions and were kept clean throughout my stay at the lounge.

Overall, some very nicely designed and clean restrooms at the lounge. I do wish there were an extra stall or two, to ensure there wouldn’t be any lines.

Summary

All in all, the Bidvest Premier Lounge at Johannesburg OR Tambo’s Terminal B is very nice. I had no idea what to expect of a Priority Pass lounge in Africa, given that they tend to be a bit lackluster in the US and in Europe (but better in Asia). But, in my mind this lounge is pretty great.

I appreciate the lovely selection of foods and drinks, and that there is enough seating for all guests. I do think the lounge is a bit small for the number of people it tries to serve, and it’s unfortunate that there are no windows to allow natural light to come in. That said, it was a nice place to spend some time before our flight, and I’d recommend those with a Priority Pass membership to pass by.