After landing in Frankfurt after flying from Dallas Forth-Worth on Lufthansa, we had 7-8 hours to kill before our onward flight to Mauritius on Eurowings Discover.
In theory 7-8 hours would’ve been plenty of time to get out of the airport and see a little bit of Frankfurt. However, I hadn’t gotten much sleep on the flight over and it was pouring with rain outside, so we decided to stay at the airport and hang out in lounges until it was time for our next flight.
There were a few lounges we were eligible for based on the fact that we were flying business class, plus we both have Priority Pass memberships which give access to additional lounges. However, the first lounge we ended up in was one that we weren’t eligible for entry for based on those two factors.
Lufthansa Senator Lounge B
Frankfurt airport is massive and we walked over to the B gates as there was a Lufthansa lounge there which had showers we could use to freshen up. After walking what felt like miles, we came across a different Lufthansa lounge. That was for people with Lufthansa elite status and those flying First Class, neither of which we had/were doing. However, it was also open to people with Star Alliance Gold status which I have thanks to a status match from American Airlines Executive Platinum (which I got thanks to having Hyatt Globalist status a few years ago and kept thanks to COVID extensions) to ANA Platinum status (ANA is part of Star Alliance). We were happy to stop there as it was closer than the other lounge we were heading towards, plus we had a long way to walk back to our gate later on as it was.
My first stop was their showers. I got lucky as there wasn’t any wait at the time, so I was able to get refreshed immediately. The shower rooms were nice and spacious and featured both a rainfall shower and handheld showerhead.
We spent a few hours in the Senator Lounge. Shae was in full vacation mode and so sat there enjoying her book, but I had some work to do and so got on with that. The lounge had a good selection of food including several hot options like soup, chicken stew with basmati rice, pork tenderloin and more.
There were salad items, several dessert options, a few varieties of pretzels and more, as well as self-serve drinks – both soft drinks and alcoholic drinks including spirits.
Lufthansa Bistro Lounge – C
After hanging out in the Senator Lounge for a few hours, we made our way back to the C gates where our flight was departing from. To get to the Senator Lounge we’d had to go through security and so we knew we’d have to go back through security again on the way back to the C gates due to the way the airport is set up. As a result, we headed in that direction with plenty of time to spare.
We were fortunate that our next lounge was the Lufthansa Bistro Lounge as that’s by gates C14 and C15 and our flight was departing from C14. The Bistro Lounge was a little smaller than the Senator Lounge and didn’t have as big a selection of food and drink which isn’t surprising seeing as the Senator Lounge is for First Class passengers and those with Lufthansa elite status. Shae and I were more than happy with the Bistro Lounge, but I’m glad we didn’t have to solely rely on that as it didn’t have any showers.
I wasn’t hungry by the time we got to the Bistro Lounge as I’d snacked in the Senator Lounge, plus I knew we’d be eating within an hour or two on our flight. Seeing as we were in Frankfurt though, I had to have a frankfurter.
Anyway, that’s what we got up to during our layover in Frankfurt; on to the review of our flight in Eurowings Discover Business Class from Frankfurt to Mauritius.
Eurowings Discover Business Class – Frankfurt (FRA) To Mauritius (MRU) – Flight Review
Flight: Eurowings Discover 152
Route: Frankfurt (FRA) – Mauritius (MRU)
Scheduled Departure Time: 4:50pm January 11, 2023
Scheduled Arrival Time: 7:00am January 12, 2023
Aircraft Type: Airbus A330-200
Seats: 3D (me) and 3G (Shae)
Flight Class: Business
The business class cabin on our flight was in a 2-2-2 formation. I think there were four rows of seating in business class, but I didn’t get a photo of the entire cabin. SeatGuru’s seat map of the Eurowings Discover A330-200 shows a 2-3-2 formation with only three rows which is definitely incorrect.
Seeing as we’d booked last minute, we didn’t get much of a choice when it came to seating. That meant we ended up in the center of the plane in seats 3D and 3G rather than with a window and aisle seat on one side or the other.
Our seats looked very familiar as they seemed to be the same kind that were on our Lufthansa flight from Dallas-Fort Worth. Waiting at our seats were a pillow, blanket, amenity kit and food & beverage menu. While Lufthansa also provided a mattress pad for the seat when in lie-flat bed mode, Eurowings Discover didn’t provide one.
I got a little unlucky with my seat. When reclining, the bottom section of the chair lifted up, but putting any pressure on it meant it fell back down. When putting the seat flat to sleep, that section worked a little better as it could rest on the footwell, but I still had to be careful not to put any pressure on it as it did still fall down a couple of times.
In addition to that, the pull-out storage section seen in the photo below was broken and so didn’t close. Thankfully it wasn’t in a position where that really mattered; I just had to be a little careful when getting up and down, but there was generally plenty of space to do that.
For reference, that pull-out drawer had a bottle of water in it when we boarded.
As with our Lufthansa flight, there were little hooks for a jacket and glasses. I loved the glasses hook as it gave me somewhere safe to store my glasses during the flight without the danger of forgetting to put them back on when we got to Mauritius.
The footwell might be a little narrow for people with larger feet, but I felt like it gave me enough space. Beneath the footwell was a little cubby hole where you can store your shoes.
Between our two seats were a couple of power outlets. Unlike our Lufthansa flight, I don’t think Eurowings Discover had USB outlets beneath our armrest, or if they did I forgot to take a photo of them. I remember that Shae used the main power outlet to charge her phone though which makes me think that there weren’t USB outlets.
There was a joint, but sort-of separate, arm rest. At the end there were sections to hold drinks, with seat controls below those. Those controls included the ability to control the firmness of the seat.
The arm rest lifted up to reveal the tray table and in-flight entertainment (IFE) controller.
Also in that arm rest section was a pair of noise reducing (or noise-cancelling) headphones that worked remarkably well considering they didn’t feel overly sturdy.
I was a little surprised to find that the amenity kit seemed slightly better equipped than the one we’d received with Lufthansa.
It came in a nifty little bag that we kept as we figured it could come in handy as a shopping bag while in Mauritius or for dirty or wet clothing.
While we were getting settled in, the flight attendants came around offering a pre-departure drink. Both of us asked for a glass of sparkling wine. Shae got hers promptly, but mine never arrived. We followed up with the flight attendant about it and she said she’d bring it over but she forgot, so we had to follow up with her again, at which point I finally got my glass.
That seemed to be a bit of a theme with the service as the attendant on my side was a little ditzy. Having said that, she was very friendly, fun and full of personality, so that made up for the fact that the service itself wasn’t particularly polished.
The main reason I hadn’t slept well on our flight from Dallas to Frankfurt is because the cabin was kept too warm and business class didn’t have individual air nozzles. I was therefore very pleased when I saw that our Eurowings Discover flight had them. In fact, each business class seat had two air nozzles.
As with Lufthansa, the in-flight entertainment options were far from comprehensive. There were some new movies, but the selection wasn’t as good as on other airlines.
Waiting at our seat had been the food and beverage menu for our flight – here’s what was on offer.
The restrooms were your standard airplane restroom size.
Our flight left the gate on schedule, but we didn’t take off until almost 30 minutes later. About an hour into the flight the meal service began with drinks and rosemary-flavored almonds.
For my appetizer I picked the fillet of rainbow trout with potato cucumber salad, herbed crème fraîche and pea shoots. I enjoyed my starter, although it was served with a disappointing side salad, as well as a choice of bread rolls.
Shae ordered the pickled roast beef with lime pepper on truffled celery cream and roasted pumpkin slices. She thought it was amazing, particularly the truffled celery cream.
For my main course I ordered the Eurowings Discover Christmas meal which contained seasonally spiced turkey with cranberry jus, paired with classic red cabbage and potato dumplings with tenderly melted herbs. This sounded good at the time, but ended up not being great. The turkey in particular was dry which the rest of the meal couldn’t recover from.
Shae on the other hand loved her main course. She ordered the ‘Vegetarian impression from Italy’ which contained stuffed truffle agnolotti, with truffle cream sauce, roasted pumpkin cubes, pine nuts and spring onions. As you might’ve guessed, she likes all things truffle (although that’s not why our dog’s name is Truffles) and she was sad that she didn’t have a large enough appetite to finish it all.
Dessert was a choice of cheese or sour cream shortbread with cherry compote. We were both full and so neither of us ordered dessert.
If you want to be productive on a Eurowings Discover flight from Frankfurt to Mauritius, you’ll struggle if you need internet coverage to do that. That’s because it’s not currently offered on the flight. I thought at first that they might have internet service as there was seemingly some kind of Wi-Fi network to connect to and it prompted passengers to go to onboard.discover.aero. I couldn’t find a ‘Connect To Wi-Fi’ button and there wasn’t anything I could initially find that explicitly stated there was no internet coverage. Eventually I checked the FAQs for the flight and finally found confirmation that there was no internet.
I’d checked that out of curiosity as I hadn’t planned on working. I was tired at this point and so made up my bed. The pillow ended up being far too warm to be comfortable, so I moved that beneath my seat. However, between the cabin being kept a reasonable temperature and the two air nozzles above my seat, I was able to get nice and comfortable and got several hours of good sleep.
About 90 minutes before landing breakfast was served. This consisted of scrambled eggs with dried tomato and broccoli, Turkish yogurt on crispy muesli with fresh pineapple, blueberries and orange and smoked salmon with creamy horseradish. The scrambled eggs were a little bit dry, but I appreciated that they didn’t have cheese on them like most airline breakfasts. The yogurt, fruit and muesli was very good though.
The flight attendants also came around with a bread basket and I got a croissant which was OK.
That was followed up with a small bottle containing a ginger shot drink.
Later we landed just behind schedule and it was time for us to explore Mauritius for the first time.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard giving some kind of rating for our experience with Eurowings Discover. Shae loved her meals whereas mine were just fair. My seat was a little broken, there was a broken drawer, the in-flight entertainment wasn’t very extensive and service was a little clumsy.
However, the service was also exceedingly friendly and personal, with the flight attendant on my side of the aisle being genuinely warm. The fact that the cabin temperature was kept at a reasonable temperature and business class seats each had two air nozzles made it much easier to get a good night’s sleep.
So despite our flight on Lufthansa being slightly better quality than Eurowings Discover in several ways, I preferred our Eurowings Discover flight because I was able to sleep well. Ultimately, on flights of 10+ hours with a lie-flat bed, the most important thing to me is being able to get some decent sleep and Eurowings Discover allowed that to happen; Lufthansa didn’t.
How We Booked Our Flights
We booked our flights as a one-way award with Air Canada’s Aeroplan program. For 115,000 points, we flew Dallas-Fort Worth to Frankfurt on Lufthansa in business class and then Eurowings Discover in business class from Frankfurt to Mauritius. That would’ve cost us 110,000 points, but we made Mauritius a stopover for 15 days which only cost us the extra 5,000 points and added on an economy flight on Air Mauritius from Mauritius to Johannesburg in economy as the next stage of our trip was going to Kruger National Park in South Africa.
In addition to the 115,000 Aeroplan points per person, we also paid $210.10 Canadian Dollars (~$157 USD) per person in taxes and fees.
See All Posts From This International Trip
- Lions & Quokkas & Scorpions, Oh My: A Month In Australia, South Africa & More
- We Were Denied Boarding To Australia – Here’s Why
- Flight Review: Lufthansa Business Class – Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) To Frankfurt (FRA)
- Flight Review: Eurowings Discover Business Class – Frankfurt (FRA) To Mauritius (MRU)
- Some Thoughts On Mauritius
- Hotel Review: Hilton Mauritius Resort & Spa
- Hotel Review: Le Méridien Ile Maurice (Mauritius)
- Restaurant Review: Sunset Filaos In Pointe Aux Piments, Mauritius
- 20 Fun & Interesting Things To Do In Mauritius (+ Many Bonus Ideas)
- Hotel Review: Holiday Inn Mauritius Mon Tresor
- Flight Review: Air Mauritius Economy Class – Mauritius (MRU) To Johannesburg (JNB)
- The Awesome Drive Between Johannesburg & Kruger National Park
- 50 Animal Photos From Kruger National Park In South Africa Taken With Our Phones
- Kruger National Park: 13 Tips For A Successful Self-Drive Safari
- Elephant Kisses – Meeting Tswale In South Africa
- Kruger National Park: 30 Photos Taken With Shae’s Nikon Camera
- Doing A Kruger Park Bush Braai With Royal Safaris
- Marloth Park: Like Living In The Best Zoo Ever
- Hotel Review: InterContinental Johannesburg O.R. Tambo Airport, South Africa
- Flight Review: Qatar Airways Business Class (Qsuites) – Johannesburg (JNB) To Doha (DOH) To Miami (MIA)
- Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Oryx Doha, Qatar
[…] Flight Review: Eurowings Discover Business Class – Frankfurt (FRA) To Mauritius (MRU) […]