After an extremely long journey from South East Asia - whilst waiting for our final service / connecting flight to Manchester we were expecting a pleasant retreat. Incredibly disappointing experience. A lack of seating (stood for 5 minutes before being able to even sit down), unpleasant bar attendant - telling me to wait (in an authoritive tone) while he fiddled for ages trying to fix the only draft pump, observed constant queues for drinks, untidy, limited reading material and amenities. Finger food and penne pasta forgettable. Feel robbed of hard earned £70 (2 persons) - everything is small/has to be asked for which makes you feel they want to save as much as possible. Please, please save and make your money go further by having a much more pleasant experience outside the lounge in one of many bars/restaurants. We left the lounge prematurely and did just that! We opted to use the Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal 2 prior to our outbound flight to Asia which at the same price was a world apart. I appreciate T5 is a busy facility, if you cannot sustain a lounge retreat by limiting numbers, obtaining more space, better service and amenities - the Aspire Lounge is not fit for purpose. Alan Clarke, Corporate Travel Management Consultant MANCHESTER