I spent five days at the JW Marriott Panama City in April 2025. This post reviews the JW Marriott’s M Club Lounge. Before getting into the M Club Lounge review, the JW Marriott Panama City is a nice hotel located in a high rise building, with most (if not all) rooms having views of the Pacific Ocean. The hotel also has a beautiful pool area, complete with two infinity pools and a heated regular pool. Like many JW Marriotts, this one boasts a M Club Lounge for visitors with certain Marriott status and those staying in certain room categories. I have Platinum Status with Marriott, so I received access to the Club M Lounge for me and one guest during my stay. This post reviews the M Club Lounge at the JW Marriott in Panama City.
Room views from the JW Marriott Panama City.
The M Club Lounge
As you likely know if you are reading this article, M Club Lounges are lounges at certain Marriott properties that certain guests can access, including those with certain status and others staying in certain room categories. While club lounges vary widely in terms of quality and offerings, Marriott club lounges often feature complimentary food, complimentary drinks (sometimes including alcohol during limited hours), and a quite place to spend time away from your room. I generally enjoy a club lounge and find such lounges to be a nice perk at hotels.
The JW Marriott Panama City M Club Lounge is located one floor below the checkin area, which is accessible via elevator from the guest rooms or stairs from the checkin area. Per usual, guests access the M Club Lounge with their room key. The M Club Lounge at the JW Marriott Panama City is open from 6 AM – 12 AM every day, and staff work the lounge all day.
The M Club Lounge Space
Once inside, the M Club Lounge at the Panama City JW Marriott is one large rectangular room. The left side of the room is comprised of comfortable group seating. In fact, this area looks very nice and would be a nice area to hang with travel partners with whom you are not sharing a room. This side of the lounge is also well appointed with green and grey furniture; it reminded me of a West Elm store (in a good way). This area was pretty popular, and it got particularly busy leading up to the 5:30 PM dinner buffet.
The lounging part of the Club Lounge.
Lots of space.
The right side of the lounge, in contrast, features cafe seating and the space for the two daily buffets, still in the signature green/West Elm color scheme.
The buffet is set up along the back wall.
The cafe area.
The entirety of the Club Lounge features local nods to Panama, including Panamanian art work and that very cool wood sculpture in the back of the above picture. The entirety of the Club Lounge has floor to ceiling windows looking out toward the swanky pool area.
The coolest features about this M Club Lounge, however, is its private outdoor space with direct access to the JW Marriott pool area. Indeed, guests can exit the M Club Lounge and enjoy a private terrace overlooking the pool area, and guests can also access the pools directly from this area. Coming back, guests use their room key to enter the M Club Lounge from the outside. Lounge stuff bring drinks to the outdoor area, and guests can take food outside. A very nice perk!
Pool views from the private lounge space.
Looking out toward the M Club Lounge patio.
Another view of the patio.
Not to be missed, restrooms are located on the far left side of the M Club Lounge.
The Food at the M Club Lounge
I unfortunately forgot to take ANY pictures of the food at the M Club Lounge! However, the was generally good, especially the dinner buffet (and especially for free food).
Lounge food information and hours.
The M Club Lounge offers a complimentary breakfast buffet from around 6 AM – 10:30 AM daily, and this is the only truly complimentary breakfast on the property (if you want to eat in the restaurant, you have to pay extra). The M Club Lounge buffet features daily hot dishes, such as eggs, bacon and sausage, as well as a changing hot dish of rice, potatoes, pancakes, etc. In addition to hot food, the buffet offers cereal, breads, fruit, cold meat and cheese and some other interesting things. It’s definitely enough to make a solid breakfast. Coffee, including espresso beverages, are complimentary with breakfast. Guests can upgrade to made0-to-rder hot dishes for an extra cost. We never did this, so I am uncertain of the prices.
The dinner buffet opens at 5:30 PM for approximately 2.5 hours, and this buffet could easily make one’s dinner. The buffet varied slightly each day, but typically featured some type of small wrap or sandwich (these were always great), a few hot dishes (think vegetables, chicken, fried fish, beef, etc.), breads, fruit, meat and cheese and a couple other small bites of what I would describe as “cold appetizers.” The dinner buffet also featured a couple desserts. Dinner was particularly popular with lounge patrons.
Outside of the buffet hours, the M Club Lounge put out a basket of snacks daily, which generally included some type of chip (banana chips, taro chips, etc.), a bread of some sort (for example, banana bread one day and zucchini another), and a bowl of fresh fruit. We took advantage of this almost daily.
Fresh fruit in the M Club Lounge.
The Drinks at the M Club Lounge.
The drink situation at the M Club Lounge bothered me, as no alcohol was included at any time, which I found ridiculous. I know this is common in US lounges but I find this uncommon outside the US. Instead of any complimentary alcohol, there is a for-pay menu for guests to order from staff. This menu featured pricey wines (that should not be pricey), reasonable Panama beer and any standard cocktail.
We did buy a couple late-afternoon beers at $5 each.
Alcohol menu in the M Club Lounge (you can also order “off menu”).
Wine selection at the M Club Lounge.
Aside for the for-pay alcohol, mini fridges offer complimentary boxed water, juices, soft drinks, including Pepsi Max, all day. The espresso maker is also available all day, as is tap still and sparkling water and hot tea.
The drinks area.
Other Amenities
In my opinion, the M Club Lounge’s best amenity is the outdoor space and its pool access. This was quite nice, especially in the late afternoon with our Panama beers (again, $5 per beer). Aside from that, the M Club Lounge has good wifi, and it had a large screen TV playing sports or the news.
Some Notes for visiting the M Club Lounge at the JW Marriott Panama City
- Despite the extra cost for alcohol, people ordered it a lot.
- We tipped the waitstaff. This was easy as even if you don’t order anything that you have to pay for, you still sign a receipt after each service (even if your bill is $0). Guests can tip on this bill even if the cost is $0.
- The hotel has a strict 2 person per room can access the lounge policy, and it is strictly enforced. You can add on another person to access the lounge for $50 per day (children are included in this, but they are only $25 per day).
- People’s cards frequently got deactivated, resulting in the need to return to the front desk for a new key card to access the lounge.
- The lounge got really busy around 5:00/5:30 PM when the dinner buffet came out (although food was replenished quickly).
- For those that receive free breakfast at Marriott with status, the only breakfast that is free here is in the M Club Lounge (which was rather annoying).
- Entering the pool via the M Club Lounge is the easiest way to access the pool.
- Staff worked all day int he Lounge, continuously cleaning and replineshing the food and drinks.
STEAL OUR LOUNGE
M Club Lounge at the JW Marriott Panama City: This is the hotel website. Rooms with lounge access list a “Concierge Lounge” as a benefit.