RTW TP Run in Jan 2026: Day 14 – Narita Airport

By Nige on January 31, 2026 at 7:05 pm
Type: Post
Story: Round the World Tier Point Run in Jan 2026 Category: Travel
Tags: NRT | Tokyo Narita

After deboarding the aircraft at Gate 61, I soon found myself heading through International Transfers. There was one passenger ahead of me and we woke the Transfer security people up.

A quick scan of my boarding pass, liquids and laptops out, and I was back into Terminal 2. However, it felt like someone had left the Closed sign on the door. It was deadly quiet.

I had a layover of about 11 hours. I had considered trying to get out of the airport, doing something local and then coming back in, but due to the issues over visas, I just decided I could do without the hassle.

So I would keep myself busy as best I could within the confines of the airport.

At just before 7am, nothing was open, not even the lounges. The OneWorld lounge directory suggested the Japan Airlines First Class Lounge, close to Gate 61, would open at 7:30am.

That other passenger that was ahead of me going through transfer security sat on the floor and waited for it to open.

With time to kill, I wandered off earning some steps and to look for the closest Starbucks, which was a good distance away, close to Gate 93.

By the time I got back it was about 7:15am, and that other passenger was still sat on the floor waiting.

I put my bag down, thinking I was going to have a 15 min wait, when another passenger arrived, waltzed past the both of us, walked up to the automated sliding doors, they opened and he was in!

I looked at the passenger sat on the floor and we shared that knowing look. Why on earth didn’t someone check whether the sliding door had been unlocked?

Anyway, I checked in and was escorted to the First Lounge entrance, and then up a lift into a nice little lounge but it had no view. Why do airlines think its a good idea putting their posh members in rooms with no view?

I sat myself down briefly, got myself a very small latte and was advised that I could request a shower via an app that I could access through a QR code on my table. Showers were available to book from 7:30am.

After booking my shower as soon as I was able to, I trotted off down the lift to Level 3 and checked in with the shower agent.

After a good scrub in the shower, it was so nice to feel clean and fresh again!

Once I was done with my shower, I decided to go check out the Sakura Lounge, which is for business class passengers. It was much bigger and had much better views.

It also had a separate dining level, where I decided to enjoy some breakfast from the buffet. I started off with some anaemic-looking sausage, fries and scrambled egg.

I am not into scrambled egg at all, but that’s because in most cases it is cooked for too long and it goes hard. This was lovely and sloppy; exactly as it should be.

Next up was a beautiful dish of fried rice with pork rib meat and onions. Wow – that was amazing. Really tasty.

One of the really nice perks of being in the Japan Airlines Lounge was that there were heated seats in the rest rooms.

I wouldn’t suggest it’s specifically worth coming here just for that, but it’s certainly nice when you sit down and feel your bottom warm up!

I did some work on home finances to kill some time. It was amazing how long it took, especially when it was year end and I wanted to start the new year with a clean spreadsheet!

I headed out to get my Starbucks and, out of courtesy, I asked at the Japan Airlines Lounge check in desk whether it was ok if I brought my Starbucks coffee in to the lounge, fully expecting them to say “of course”.

She said “no”. I wondered whether she had understood what I had said.

Unfortunately, they had decided not to allow food or drink to be brought into the lounge. So, I had to finish off my coffee on the long walk back from Starbucks, close to Gate 93.

Later in the day, I popped back up into the dining area to see what new food they had put out for lunch. On initial inspection, it looked very similar to breakfast.

I did however find some fried chicken and a beef curry. Both of which were very tasty indeed.

I was now reaching that stage when I needed a snooze.

My flight back to Jakarta was due to depart at 6pm and by 4:30pm I really needed a change of scenery. So I left the lounge, headed slowly towards the gate.

By this point the terminal was very busy. What a contrast it was to earlier in the day when me (and one other passenger) were the only ones here!

When I reached Gate 93, I was shocked as to how quickly a calm and peaceful gate area could turn into chaos as a result of a lack of organisation and control by gate staff.

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Round the World Tier Point Run in Jan 2026