King Abdulaziz International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Neil Scrivener reviews the Wellcome Lounge in King Abdulaziz International Airport, accessed by Priority Pass or American Express.

Introduction

This is my review of the Wellcome lounge in King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The lounge is one of two available in Terminal 1 of the Jeddah Airport if you have an American Express or Priority Pass – the other one being the Plaza Premium Lounge.

Visited

January 2025 at 01:00

Entry Conditions

My understanding is that access can be granted by:

• Having Plaza Premium membership
• Having an American Express Platinum Card
• Having a Priority Pass
• Paying on the door, around $75USD

There may be other methods of entry too, such as Dragon Pass, etc.

Opening Times

The lounge is open 24hrs daily.

How to Get There

Once you are through Security in Terminal 1, you’ll take a train to the gates when you are in the Duty Free area, look up and you’ll see the entrance to the lounge. Find and escalator or an elevator and you’ll see the entrance.

On my visit, for some reason part of the lounge was closed and there was a fairly long queue to get in – mainly made up of annoyed people with no actual ability to access it!

Layout

The lounge mostly consists of causal and sofa seating spread around.

Towards the back of the lounge there is a small dining area and also some high tables for working from.

And that is pretty much it, at least in terms of the open areas – the closed area has more casual seating. As I was there over night, I think this was probably why part of the lounge was closed. Generally the lounge was busy, but there was just about enough seating.

Food and Drink

Drinks

Saudi Arabia is of course a Muslim country, and in their airline lounges there is no alcohol.

Across the lounge are various fridges with soft drinks, water and coffee stations.

Food

The food in the lounge was all self-service. Mostly, the food on offer was curries, spaghetti, rice, etc. Usual Priority Pass food and certainly nothing special.

There is also some cold stations with bread, brownies, cheese and some random salad bits.

Wifi

The Wifi in the lounge I found to be reliable and OK. I didn’t use it very extensively, but WhatsApp and my emails seemed fine.

Showers

There are no showers in this lounge!

Conclusion

This is lounge is the bigger of the two lounges available in International Departures – the smaller one being the Plaza Premium Lounge.

It’s an OK lounge to wait for a flight – but certainly not worth getting there early for!