Trip Report – Thai Royal Silk Lounge & Thai Royal Orchid Lounge Bangkok Concourse E

This is part nine and ten of a thirteen part trip report from my third and most recent trip back to Thailand and includes my visit to the Thai Royal Orchid Lounge in Bangkok (BKK) Concourse E as well as the Thai Royal Silk Lounge located directly across the hall in the same concourse.

• British Airways Terraces Lounge JFK
• Cathay Pacific Business Class JFK – Hong Kong (HKG) B777-300ER
• The Bridge, Cathay Pacific’s Newest Lounge at Hong Kong (HKG)
• Cathay Pacific Business Class HKG – BKK (Bangkok) A340
• W Bangkok
• JW Marriott Bangkok
• Sand Sea Resort – Railay Beach
• JW Marriott Phuket
• Thai Royal Orchid Lounge Bangkok (BKK) Concourse E
• Thai Royal Silk Lounge Bangkok (BKK) Concourse E
• Asiana Airlines Business Class BKK-ICN (Seoul) A330-300
• Asiana Lounge Business Class ICN (Seoul)
• Asiana Airlines Smartium Business Class ICN-JFK B777-300

There’s two of these lounges located directly across the hall from each other in Concourse E as they are both tiny, narrow, and packed with passengers! Let’s start with the Royal Silk edition.

Based on my on-board premium service experience with Thai, I guess I had pretty lofty expectations for their home airport lounges, I was wrong.  Each lounges is essentially one long corridor on opposite sides of the moving walkway in Concourse E. They both have low ceilings, dingy old chairs, few power outlets, and sporadic food offerings.

At 10PM, both lounges were packed with people with barely a chair to be had. Food offerings included congee, pre-made square white bread sandwiches, and salad. Granted, if you look at the picture of the menu below, you’ll see that there are more generous offerings at other times in the day.

The picture below is taken leaving the Thai Royal Silk Lounge. You can see that directly across the hall is the Thai Royal Orchid Lounge.

OK, across the hall, a little bit less crowded with a bit more space at the Thai Royal Orchid Lounge. Offerings were pretty similar, though this lounge had sleeping cubbies.

Food choices were identical…

Again, low ceilings, very few outlets to be had, and very worn furniture…

In summary, I was pretty shocked what a step down these lounges were from the Royal First Lounges in Bangkok. I was in no way expecting that level of luxury but this was a business lounge in Asia, with Thai Airways, at their home airport. I’ve had better experiences in the lounges of most domestic US carriers.