I once lived in the CDG airport for 18ish hours and that was unpleasant enough. RIP to a true legend.
There's been a Sheraton hotel inside one of the terminals since ~1995, hopefully he got a chance to stay there before he died.
There's been a Sheraton hotel inside one of the terminals since ~1995, hopefully he got a chance to stay there before he died.
It also seems to be a 5 star hotel according to Google, so it’s possible my idea of third rate is a bit skewed.
My point is Japan has a ton of these hotels, and they seem reasonably priced compared to airport hotels or US hotels anyway.
My issue is not so much about the physical design of the airport (although I do have beef there) but more the human institution of it. Suffice it to say that I have missed way too many international connections there due to kafkaesque bureaucracy, and they've lost way too much of my checked baggage. It's also an especially bad place (relative to other major European air hubs) to have a member of your travel party in a wheelchair.
However, they do have an on-site high speed rail terminal and I think that's super awesome and deserves major kudos.
Basically a lot of Americans find CDG stressful because it is so close to the beauty of Paris without allowing any exposure to it. It is a perfectly accomodating and pleasant space, but it hits the uncanny valley of manufactured cultural institutions while really just being an airport at the behest of arbitrary French immigration officials.
The airport is also very open even by airport standards. There are very few nooks and/or crannies to hide away in to catch your bearings. The omnipresent announcements relay information relevant to you 1% of the time but you constantly feel on edge trying to keep up with all of them.
Couple that with the fact that travellers are likely to be sleep deprived (or in my case Ambien deprived) and you have a recipe for disaster.
If purgatory is a real place I am pretty sure it will feel like CDG. Its quite a nice place for an airport. In fact, your first hour there is always lovely, but it seems to have an exaggerated version of that 'airport feeling.'