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YOUTUBE: United Airlines: San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (CDG)
YOUTUBE: Turkish Airlines: Paris (CDG) to Istanbul (IST)
YOUTUBE: Pegasus Airlines: Istanbul (SAW) to Kayseri (ASR)
YOUTUBE: Turkish Airlines: Nevsehir (NAV) to Istanbul (IST)
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United’s Polaris Lounge in SFO is one of the best lounges in the world, and you are about to see why in this snippet.
At just over 28,000 square feet in area, this lounge is huge, and the largest Polaris Lounge in the system. However there’s a reason for that. This lounge isn’t just meant to cater to United’s flights, but also the rest of the Star Alliance flights that leave from the G gates. Previously this area used to be a few different lounges, and now it’s all one giant lounge run by United. With that said, let’s explore this space.
Table of Contents
Access Rules
But first let’s look at the access rules. It’s listed out below pretty explicitly below, but let’s add to it to be explicit:
- Star Alliance business class passengers traveling on intercontinental flights to the below destinations
- Star Alliance first class passengers traveling on intercontinental flights to the below destinations, plus 1 guest
- Passengers flying on United Polaris Business class marketed flights in Polaris Business Class
- Passengers arriving from a United Polaris Business class flight connecting same day onto another United flight in any cabin.
Entrance
If you are entering terminal G through security, once you cross security, instead of turning left and walking towards the gates, you’ll want to turn right as if you are walking towards terminal 3, you’ll run into this entrance which should be easy to find. That said, the entrance to United’s SFO Polaris lounge is rather understated and humble for whats actually within.
Some signs guide you to some of the prominent features of the lounge.
This lounge has two levels to it. The lower one doesn’t have much besides some seating, and the showers suites which we’ll look at later. The upper level is where all the main stuff is. Once you scan your boarding pass and enter, and there’s 2 ways to to go to the 2nd level: elevator and escalator.
In case you need it, an elevator is on the first level to take you upstairs.
Besides the elevator, an escalator brings you up through some beautiful ceiling hangings.
Seating
The lounge has 2 floors and there is ample amounts of seating on both levels. Let’s check out the smaller first floor.
There’s the standard polaris cubicle furniture and some other types of seating.
There’s also the individual couch seating along the window.
I decided to park myself at one of the cubicles while I went to explore the rest of the lounge.
Each of these cubicles has 2 power ports and 2 USB ports. This is awesome and allows you to charge up to 4 devices per seat. What would make this absolutely killer is if one of those USB ports were a USB-C port but this is still a wonderful set up.
The views were pretty solid from this level.
That’s all for the first floor, everything else is up on the 2nd level of the lounge where most of the seating is.
This first section has a mix of standard United Polaris furniture that you’ll find in many different lounges.
As mentioned earlier, the 2nd floor had all different kinds of seating to accommodate parties of different sizes and different purposes.
There’s also bar-top seating if you want to enjoy a drink (or many) and don’t want to sit too far from the fun.
There was the standard United Polaris cubicle seat like what there was on the ground floor, and then there was also the rotunda-style seating on the left.
If you felt like sitting at a table more conducive to eating, then there’s a large amount of dining table as well. Though I will warn that most of these seats don’t have power ports, so if that is a necessity, you’ll want to pick one of seats closer to the wall or one of the other kinds of seats.
As you make your way deeper into the lounge there’s more booth style seating and more of those cubicles.
At the far end of the lounge, between the dining room and the buffet, there was a few more dining table seats which honestly just seem like overflow seating to me.
From the escalator that brings you up, if you go the other direction away from the main stuff, there’s additional seating area.
On the left there’s a help desk to assist with any travel-related inquires.
In case you want to take any kind of calls or meetings, there were closed-door office cubicles with lights, and power ports for charging.
The seating options just kept on going and going.
Showers, Bathrooms, Nap Rooms
A cool feature of the Polaris Lounge are the shower suites and nap rooms available for use. These are both in the same area on the lower level of the lounge.
During busy times there can be a wait, so there’s a couple waiting seats, but do be sure to flag the staff at the showers desk as soon as you enter and check in so you can join the waitlist.
Once admitted, one of the staffers will escort you to your shower suite. The walkway between the suites has a nice starry ceiling to match the theme of the Polaris branding.
Each shower suite is equipped with a full sink toilet, shower, and bench.
The shower suite will differ slightly from polaris lounge to polaris lounge, but this one for example, has a standard shower as well as a waterfall shower.
You are provided with a few different towels and some shower slippers along with other amenities available upon request.
You also have shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel with a relatively neutral, but refreshing scent available on request. However, I always travel with my own toiletries, so I didn’t use them.
If you need to use the restrooms without any need for shower, there’s a separate set of those available in the lounge as well on the 2nd level.
These restrooms also had the same starry ceiling hallway.
Once inside, the bathrooms are pretty clean, and identical to the ones you’ll find in the shower suites, except without the shower.
Food & Drink
The Polaris lounge has no shortage of good food and drink options depending on your needs.
On the lower level there was a refreshment area between the seating and the showers.
There were also a variety of different teas
That’s it for the first floor; the rest of the beverages are on the 2nd floor, along with the rest of the food.
Amogst the buffet spread, there was more tea and coffee. Remember, this lounge is huge, so there will be repeated beverages spread out across the lounge for ease of access.
On the opposite end of the lounge on the 2nd floor there was another beverage set up.
There was a bar in the middle of the 2nd floor amongst a lot of the seating options and you really cannot miss it.
The bar has a nice design and a lit-up top, and the bartenders can make cocktails from a menu or another one of your choice if you’d like. The bar has a variety of drinks such as wines, beers, cocktails, and other hard alcohol as well.
There were also some fruits and other garnishes on the southern end of the lounge on the 2nd floor.
Now let’s check out the main buffet.
There’s a section with cold food.
And then there’s a decent spread of different desserts.
There is also some cheese and meats as well.
And then there was a row of hot food items.
The Polaris Dining Room
As you can see, there’s quite a selection of food depending on what you want. However, this isn’t the only way of consuming food.
The Polaris Lounge has a restaurant for a proper sit-down dining experience and a full menu as well. If you want to eat here, I’d head over here straight after entering the lounge and inquire about the wait time because there can be a waitlist during busy times.
The dining space itself is a nice oasis from the rest of the lounge with plush seating, and excellent views outside as well.
There are a variety of seats for parties of varying sizes.
The menu for the Polaris lounge regularly rotates, but here’s a look at what it was for this particular visit.
You can order whatever you want, as many dishes as you’d like no limits.
All dishes are nicely presented.
Everything was fresh and tasty and the good thing is the portion size of each dish is small which gives you flexibility. If you want to just fill up a little bit and have appetite for your on board meal, you can, or you can try a few different dishes and be completely full to just get onboard and rest.
Now the pictures I showed above may not match exactly with the menus. This is because these are pictures from a couple of different visits to the SFO Polaris lounge.
Views
Given that the lounge above the terminal level, the views are pretty good of the traffic.
And then here’s the view from the Polaris Restaurant
Summary
The Polaris Lounge at SFO is as good as a business class lounge can get. There’s an excellent spread of private, and non-private seats. There’s ample power and USB ports throughout the lounge spread out, along with many other amenities. The bathrooms are clean, there’s full shower suites available to freshen up along with nap rooms for those with longer layovers. There are excellent food and beverage options ranging from quick buffet items to a full sit-down restaurant and from quick grab-and-go drinks to full bar service. The views and natural lighting is excellent as well with large windows throughout the lounge. This lounge has practically everything a business class lounge should have to cater to different passenger needs. The only thing is, even for a lounge this size, it can get crowded during peak hours simply due to the volume of flights, so if you want to use more high-demand, low-availability features such as the showers or the sit down dining, do be sure to get your names on the waitlist for those or at least check as soon as you enter the lounge.