Trip review: Delta One suites (Seattle to Amsterdam) [SEA to AMS]

In October 2022, I had a business trip to Amsterdam. I booked a direct flight from Seattle to Amsterdam on Delta. For my outbound flight, I had the opportunity to upgrade to Delta One suites for only $699. Considering the upgrade was $4,000 before this massive price drop, I immediately had to jump on this deal.

This was actually my first ever Delta flight, which means I couldn’t have started off my lifetime of flying Delta with a bigger bang.

Lounge

Compared to the pre-2023 Centurion Lounge in Seattle, the Delta Sky Lounge is much, much larger and spans two floors. It feels very wide open and had plentiful seating on this day. A floor-to-ceiling set of glass panes provide a sweeping view of the northern portion of the Concourse A tarmac.

The open bar had friendly bartenders who were glad to make me a mimosa and even gave me a shot of tequila to down first, because “why not, you’re at the Delta Sky Club!” he jubilantly told me.

The buffet food was quite comprehensive and represented what a typical lounge serves. On this day, they served barbecue ribs, mac and cheese, and some greens. In addition, they have their permanent selection of local clam chowder from Ivar’s, salads, and sandwiches.

I would later learn there are wonderful shower facilities at this lounge, but I unfortunately did not know that this time. (Not that I needed a shower at this point in my trip.)

Seat

This was my first time sitting in a business class seat that’s not a reverse herringbone Collins Aerospace Super Diamond seat. My seat was right next to the window (as opposed to near the aisle) and my suite had its own sliding door, giving me maximum privacy. I sat in seat 2J.

Each suite comes with its very own sliding door. The positions of the seats (whether they are closer to the window or the aisle) alternate depending on which row you are seated in.

The seat comes with a large screen right in front that allowed me to watch movies in comfort during the flight. It worked quite well.

The provided pillows and blankets were quite hefty (in a good way) and comfortable, but nothing too relaxing. It was still a bit firm for my tastes.

The amenity kit was quite unique. Apparently it was handmade in Mexico. The eyeshades inside looked like they were partially handmade. It’s not traditional fabric—not sure if I like the rugged wool texture so much, but it has a cool factor to it.

To my side was a large table, where I could put everything I needed. It was very spacious—almost too spacious, as I had trouble figuring out what I even wanted to put on there. They left a predeparture small water bottle and a small wafer snack. Peep to the side: my predeparture champagne served in real glass.

Of course, I had not one but two windows in my seat. Here’s a photo looking out at a taxiway at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport on a rainy October day.

Here’s a photo from shortly after takeoff.

Dinner

For dinner, they started us off with a sweet/salty nuts combo (with walnuts and sugared pecans or something like that too?) along with some assorted cheeses. That was pretty nice and I felt like was way better than American’s nut mix. I also ordered some champagne.

Unfortunately, that’s where the fun stops with the food selection.

For the appetizer, I received some sort of salty soup. Not sure what exactly it was, because it was never made clear on the menu what was being served. It wasn’t a very appetizing appetizer, I’ll say that much.

The salad looked nice but it was a very mediocre salad. The bread roll wasn’t very soft or fresh either.

For my dinner, I picked beef cheeks with potatoes au gratin. It did not have much flavor and the texture of the remaining items in the meal, excluding the meat itself, made me nauseous. But the beef cheeks weren’t even cooked well (I had good beef cheeks on my British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Dubai) and were sorely disappointing.

Then, dessert was served! I had an ice cream sundae, but the ice cream was rock solid. It was so solid that I could barely eat it! I felt like a miner using a pickaxe to slowly cut into the ice cream before I could even extract some ice cream to eat.

Time for bed

Before I could enjoy sleeping on the lie-flat seat, I first had to get my suite door unjammed. While other passengers nearby did not experience this issue, my door was originally unable to close. Multiple flight attendants had to come over and fix it for me. (Typically, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience the flight attendants for this, but the airline’s safety requirements required that I ask a crew member for assistance so I don’t hurt myself by accident.) It turned out to be stuck, but it was fixed and I was able to close it for bedtime!

The amenity kit contained my earplugs, eyemask, and the other usual things you’d find in a business class amenity kit. As mentioned earlier, this one was made in Mexico by an artisan. It was a nice amenity kit, but I realized when going to sleep that the fabric used was a bit rough to the touch, which at this point I realized I did not like, especially because I was trying to relax and the rough fabric did not help with that.

The ambiance of my little suite with the night lights on was nice though. Being able to close my suite’s door made me feel like there was more privacy and that gave me more peace of mind.

Breakfast

I ordered a mimosa with a coffee. As expected, the airplane coffee was terrible. It made my stomach uneasy afterwards. I don’t know why I ordered it, other than I needed something to wake me up. The mimosa was nice enough to accompany my breakfast, which tasted pretty bad, just like the dinner.

Upon landing, I did not get to access an arrivals lounge at Amsterdam Schiphol, which was pretty unfortunate, because I was really sweaty and wanted to shower.

Final thoughts

I got a great deal. For only $699, I could upgrade to a Delta One suite for my transatlantic flight. It helped me stay rested during a long flight.

But that’s about all of the good it did for me. The food was pretty bad, the hard product was alright but not as comfortable as the Collins Super Diamond reverse herringbone seats on American Airlines and British Airways, in my opinion. The Delta One suite felt “blocky” to me.

The soft product, being Delta, was great, but it did not wow me like other Delta flights I’ve since been on. The flight attendants definitely had a better attitude than the ones I dealt with on American Airlines.