Our flight to Puerto Vallarta was scheduled to depart at 12:00 pm so we headed to the airport at around 09:00 am. We left early since Mexico City airport has a kosher café and we wanted to get something to eat, as well as check out some of the lounges. Mexico City has 2 terminals, and this post covers only lounges in terminal 1. Terminal 2 will be covered in a later post
We arrived at the airport and eventually found Lea’s café. The café is hidden away and not overly easy to find. I wrote a separate post on the Mexico City master thread which can be found
here.
Please note: we do not endorse the kashrut of this establishment.Lea’s have a large selection of food and beverages, including sandwiches, pastries, snacks and hot food. The prices are very reasonable; approximately $4.50 per sandwich. We got a selection of sandwiches, pastries and snacks to have for breakfast as well as last us throughout the day ahead.
CafeCafeMenuMenuGrilled Cheese PaniniFrench FriesAfter our breakfast, we made our way through security and airside to explore the lounge options. Mexico City airport has a plethora of lounges including an American Express Centurion lounge as well a few solid Priority Pass options. One thing to note, the terminal was PACKED! Very little room to walk, and this was also true in the lounges which made it very difficult to take pictures, so please excuse the lack of pictures in this post.
We first went to the Centurion lounge which was very hot and beyond packed! There were no seats available and people were standing around waiting for some to open. We walked in and left after about 2 minutes to head to the Priority Pass lounge – Lounge 19 (located by gate 19). A later post will be covering our experience of the Centurion lounge in Terminal 2, which was vastly different.
As soon as we entered we were greeted by a host who showed us to a couple of recliner seats in a room behind the main lounge. The service in lounge was incredible! Our host asked us what drinks and food we wanted and brought them over to us (iced coffee and fresh fruit). When our cups and/or plates were empty, she appeared out of nowhere and asked us if we wanted a refill! The one down side was the wifi… it was slow and kept disconnecting.
We originally had about an hour to kill in the lunge before our flight, however, due to a delay in our aircraft arriving from Guadalajara, we were in the lounge for extra 1 ½ hours. Volaris proactively gave us a 200 MXN - $10 USD voucher! (yay!)
Eventually our aircraft arrived and we made our way to the boarding gate. Boarding was perhaps the most hectic I have ever seen. There were 4 boarding groups, with 4 lanes, but no one seemed to know where they should be! Once boarding commenced everyone gravitated to the podium, but the staff were very good at enforcing the boarding groups so sent people back which just doubled the congestion.
Eventually we made our way on board. I was seated in the very last row next to the “window”. False advertising – there was no window there! Before long we were on our way. The flight was 100% full but very uneventful and after an hour and a quarter we were in Puerto Vallarta!
Thanks for reading, and any and all feedback is welcome!It’s a long way back here!