Review: GOL Smiles Lounge Sao Paulo

@Lucky and others, a clarification: the fact that you all write the airline's name as "GOL," all in uppercase, suggests that you think it's some sort of acronym, like "G.O.L." It's not. It's an actual Portuguese word, albeit borrowed from English, and pronounced like "goal" - which happens to be precisely the borrowed word. It comes from "goal" in the sense of a scored point in soccer, which, as you know, is a national obsession in Brazil. So, it was a great marketing idea for a mostly domestic Brazilian airline. Brazilians all write it "Gol." And actually, your experience boils down to the fact that, like most very large countries (including the U.S.), Brazil is very much closed unto itself and doesn't have much of a globalized or international mentality. It's a leading exporter of many things (including Embraer planes), but that comes from a niche of the population that doesn't even begin to scratch the very self-centered national culture. In Brazil, everything is awkward and clumsy when it comes to dealing with foreigners and foreign countries, which is something people don't think much of, aren't really prepared to do, and will do the bare minimum necessary when needed. You should see how hard it is for me to receive payments from abroad, with the strict government regulations for forex. Lots of red tape and taxes, even for getting hard cash INTO the country, which should be welcomed (outbound it's even worse). International airports and lounges are just no exceptions. I can't tell about the lounges in the new T3, which was opened after your visit, but they should be better.

That lounge has seen better days.. I dates back to the early 2000's as it was VARIG's lounge. You can still see VARIG's logo on the entrance door. VARIG was the Brazilian flag carrier for about 75 years and a Star Alliance member. Their quality was comparable to Lufthansa. Really. GOL is a budget airline who bought VARIG when they went bankrupt, so they inherited their lounges and FFP "Smiles". As GOL only flies B737 and they don't have a business class, that's why that's the name of the lounge and that's why so many airlines use it. DELTA now owns 3% of GOL and AF-KLM owns 1,5%, that's why DELTA uses the Smiles lounge. VARIG's HUB and base was Rio de Janeiro International (GIG) T2, so the lounge here (Rio) is a bit more opulent. Remember the VARIG's logo? Here it is a marble mosaic on the reception floor.. It used to look like a five star hotel. First Class used to have a grand horizontal piano played live.. Their business class section became the Smiles lounge (witch they sub-locate to other airlines, as GOL flies from T1) and the first class section became AA's Admirals Club once AA moved from T1 to T2. AA brought to the club all of the fine oriental rugs, sculptures and paintings they had in T1 so it looks like an old five star hotel, but with "GOL-Smiles" catering. I wish GOL would join Skyteam. Smiles is still a great FFP but because GOL is non-aligned you don't get the elite tiers benefits with the airline's partners. Anyways, enough of the past. Now both GRU and GIG have been privatised. GRU has a shinning new T3 and GIG will be in Changi's (Singapore's airport administrator) hands for 25 years. So great things are coming (we expect)..

If you think those toilets are bad, check out the ones at the Egyptair lounge in Cairo!

I *almost* skipped reading the rest of the review when you said to stay tuned to see what was in the bathroom that was less appetizing than the soup.

Yes, all lounges at GRU suck, and I believe that I've had the displeasure of visiting all of them. UA is probably the worst, doesn't even have flight monitors(!). Hopefully we will have better lounges at the new T3 at GRU due in June, which will concentrate the intercontinental flights. BTW, Caipi One is actually pretty good!