A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to travel with ANA Business Class “The Room”. This spectacular Business Class Product was introduced by ANA back in 2019. I never flew with ANA before and really only knew ANA from their fantastic plane liveries, such as the turtle plane liveries they use on their A380’s flying between Tokyo and Honolulu.
But when ANA introduced The Room, I really wanted to try it out one day. Japanese hospitality combined with an amazing Business Class hard product, must deliver a fantastic experience, right? Please read my review below to see whether my trip indeed was a memorable experience!
The Room
ANA is only using “The Room” on their 777-300 planes. So if you want to fly with this specific ANA Business Class product, you will need to select the routes where ANA is flying with the 777-300. For flights between Europe and Tokyo, this means you’ll need to fly to and from London Heathrow. For every other European destination, ANA is using a 787 plane.
The seat map of the 777-300 shows 16 rows of Business Class and 2 rows of First Class. There are only 13 rows of regular economy class and 3 rows of premium economy. So the majority of the plane consists out of premium cabins!
When I entered the Business Class cabin, I was immediately impressed; light, wood tones dominate the cabin and I think ANA did an excellent job with this decoration style. It definitely has a modern, Japanese style.
The Room itself is also not short of impressive. The seat is 38 inches wide (almost 1 meter!) which is almost twice as wide as most other business class seats! Footwell is also spacious and is shaped in such a way that you can lie down diagonally. That’s a great feature because it adds to the overall available space.
Entertainment Screen
The entertainment screen is the other feature which stands out; a 24 inch, 4K screen which blows away most other screens in Business Class. And this screen holds all sorts of interesting features; for example, you can control all the lightning options via the screen.
There is another feature I never saw before; you can activate noice control for your room which should eliminate noice from the cabin… A real promising feature! I tried it out and didn’t really notice any difference though. Having said that, the cabin itself was very quite during my flight and I had no problems sleeping with or without the active noice control!
A few hours before my flight, I receiver a voucher for free Wi-Fi. Yes, ANA is having free Wi-Fi for Business Class passengers. I think a feature which should be the standard for Business Class these days! I wasn’t successful streaming video, but I had no problems surfing news sites and doing emails.
Amenity Kit
I’m always curious what kind of amenity kit an airlines provides in Business Class; I think it’s an important element where an airline can show what it stands for. Does it collaborate with a (local) company to provide a luxury amenity kit? Or is it an afterthought and just provides the basics without giving you a luxury feeling?
I really like the ANA Amenity kit. There is a re-usable bag (not shown on the picture), Aveda cosmetics and the bag itself is made in collaboration with British luxury brand Ettinger. The bag looks and feels very nice. I think the only thing you could remark on this is that I would have preferred a collaboration with a Japanese luxury brand! Issey Miyake or Hamano would be good fits! Maybe an idea for the future?
Meals
Besides “The Room” itself, the other highlight of the flight was definitely the meal service.
I choose the Japanese meal (you can also select International Cuisine), and that was fantastic! The presentation was great and the food itself was really good. In fact, I think the food ANA was serving in Business Class on this trip came close to the quality Air France is serving in La Premiere! It was that good.
Besides being good, there is also no restriction in what you can pick; you’re not limited by selecting only one desert. You can pick all the deserts if you want! Same for the pre-arrival meal; you can pick and combine whatever you want. Now. that’s a feeling of luxury I think!
For the pre-arrival meal, I picked a Panini and Ramen soup. The Panini was good but the Ramen soup was excellent. I couldn’t stop eating, it was that good!
All in all, probably one of my best meals in a plane I ever had!
Lie-Flat function “The Room”
A Business Class seat can feel and look great, but if the lie-flat function isn’t very comfortable and you cannot stretch out or move you legs, than for me, the product isn’t very good. Even though the bed could have been a few inches longer, it was never a problem since you can lie down diagonally. And because the footwell is very spacious, there is plenty of room to move around.
What also helps is the comfortable mattress topper which comes with fresh, clean sheets! I love it, when an airlines provides this in Business Class; it just feels clean and fresh! I had a great sleep in this cabin!
Conclusion
Sometimes high expectations aren’t met. Very seldom, they are exceeded. The latter definitely happened with this trip. ANA Business Class The Room was one of my best Business Class experience and I think it comes very close to a First Class experience.
The food was spectacular and I wouldn’t be disappointed if I would get this served in a fancy, Japanese restaurant. The 24 inch, 4K entertainment screen was amazing, including all the quirks and features.
I can strongly recommend flying with ANA The Room when your next trip takes you to Japan. For sure, it’s now one of my favorite Business Class products!
Please also review my YouTube video I made of this experience!
