Though it’s only been a few months since our last transit through Abu Dhabi, courtesy of Etihad Airways, much has changed – a new Etihad Business Class Lounge, along with a whole new and vastly improved airport terminal.

With little transit time to spare on both sets of flights, we made our way as quickly as possible through the new, palatial, terminal to find the lounge.

Tucked in between two gate areas in the C gates, the lounge is about 100 feet away from the First Class Lounge and fronted by the typical Etihad geometric pattern of black tile and wood, as shown below.

Boarding passes scanned – either at the reception desks or via an attendant standing to the right – and we were quickly admitted despite the crowds all trying to get in at the same time.

This lounge is so very much more impressive than the previous lounge, which, like all of the old Abu Dhabi airport was far too compact and cramped for the size of the airline today.

On the ground floor, right beyond the entry area, is the Liwan Global Dining, which offers a range of chef-manned food stations, beverages, and restaurant-like seating.

As you can see, this area was very sparsely attended on our first visit (around 9pm local time), but far more popular on the return, which was around 1am – very strangely, but I suppose reflective of the airline’s popular transit times.

Food is available from a range of buffet options across multiple cuisines, or in some cases, as with my very delicious mini chicken shawarma, can be ordered directly from the chef.

Upstairs, the layout consists of long banks of mixed seating – there’s some lovely lounge chairs facing out the terminal windows, while the East and West Study’s both boast rows of armchairs for groups travelling together to sit and converse.

I didn’t take any pictures, but there’s also a games room that looks very entertaining and we’d have been dying to try the air hockey if not for the short transit time and our aggressively competitive nature specifically for that game that may have resulted in shattered glass from a puck sent flying.

There’s one more floor again however, and this one includes another long strip of seating of varying types, along with an additional eatery and drinks area. One thing to note here though is that, because of the curvature of the building, you’d be looking mostly at the beams of the building sloping down from the roof as opposed the large glass windows outside of the lower floors.

If there’s one drawback however, it’s that the layout of this new lounge is unusual at best; spread across three floors, the ‘East Study’ is in fact only accessible by going to the top floor, walking across the entire floorspace, and then descending back down to the floor below – where you now end up in a very quiet, very private area of the Business Class Lounge.

How one would find this area without either deliberately looking for peace and quiet, or, as in our case, being directed there by the shower attendants in the ‘West Study’ is quite beyond me.

It’s a really strange piece of execution in which you need to visit the top floor to visit arguably the most peaceful area of the lower floor, but once you find it, it may become your new favourite area to relax in (as with us).

Speaking of peaceful and being directed by the shower attendants, ultimately this was where we discovered showers were more often available with minimal to no waiting time.

The new bathrooms are really lovely; modern, spacious, great showers, with a toilet and luggage storage space. If there was any feedback I could offer, it would simply be that adding local toiletries to showcase the regions’ produce or brands would be a lovely step-up.

Overall though, we encountered minimal wait time and the showers were a very welcome chance to refresh.

Before long though, in both directions, it was time to head back into the labyrinthine giant new terminal to find our onward flight. The new Etihad Business Class Lounge overall is a really lovely, very modern and very upmarket space, with all the amenities, food & beverage one could wish for, that – for now at least – has no issue swallowing up all the eligible passenger volumes with plenty of space to spare for everyone.