Paris CDG Airport

✅ Verified Review | CDG Airport is an absolute joke - and not a funny one. On arrival we were left standing in a queue with two very tired, hungry, thirsty children (18 months and 6 years old) for over two hours at passport control. Once we finally got through passport control, not one member of staff could tell us where to collect our baggage nor did they really seem to care. Once we were reunited with our suitcases, we discovered we had been delayed for so long, our private transfer had marked us as a "no show" and abandoned us at the airport. Lovely. Things were even worse when departing a week later. While checking in our baggage we were told that they could not allow us to keep my baby's stroller until boarding the aircraft and that we had to check it in with our baggage. I was told I had to go through security without a stroller and could then use an airport stroller until boarding our flight. However, we were then left standing in a queue at passport control for over two hours with one officer to check hundreds of passports. I had to wrestle with an overtired, hot, hungry baby who did not want to be held who could have been sleeping peacefully in his stroller had I been allowed to keep it. I asked a member of staff if she could assist me in finding a stroller - she shrugged and said "many people have babies". My son cried and cried and despite being noticed by several airport staff, not one of them came to offer us any assistance. Two hours later, we made it through passport control, I politely asked again if I could have the use of a stroller to be told they couldn't help me. Very disappointed and it just spoiled the end of what was a lovely family holiday. I can say hand on heart I will be avoiding this airport at all costs in the future.

✅ Verified Review | Coming through the EU CH Side of immigration extremely slow. No clear reason. They inspected documents far more than normal. With a Swiss passport they normally look and I pass, today they looked, inspected and otherwise scrutinized everyone's ID and tried to do this with 1 police officer. Two left just after arriving.

❎ Unverified | We arrived at Paris CDG Airport on Monday morning to be met with absolute chaos. We queued in passport control for over an hour, then realised that all passport control staff had left their kiosks. They then closed passport control for two hours. We, along with hundreds of other poor passengers, were left standing there, and given no explanation whatsoever about what was going on. We eventually heard a tannoy message saying someone had left their luggage on the carousel. We had a six year old and an 18 month old baby with us. When we at last got through passport control we tried to find our luggage. Signage in this airport is abysmal. For some reason, the Aberdeen flight luggage had disappeared! The staff were so rude and unhelpful when we tried to find out what was going on. Eventually our bags turned up. Unfortunately, by the time we retrieved our luggage and got to the exit, our taxi had decided we were a 'no show' and abandoned us at the airport! What a start to the holiday. Return journey was just the same. We were rudely told we could not take our babys stroller through the airport, and had to check it in with the luggage. We were told we would be able to get an airport stroller at passport control. No such luck. We asked several members of staff and were rudely told 'we have no buggys'. When my daughter asked how we were supposed to look after a sleepy, grumpy little baby without his buggy, the staff member shrugged and said 'lots of people have babies'. Unbelievable. There followed another two hour wait to get through passport control. There was one member of staff checking hundreds of passports. When we eventually go to the gate, we encountered 'self boarding' for the first time. We scanned our boarding passes, made our way towards the plane, and were then asked for our boarding passes AND passports again!! What a complete shambles. Safe to say, we never, ever travel through this terrible airport again. (Or fly with Air France. Review to follow).

✅ Verified Review | After all the negative reviews I've read, I was really dreading my 9 hour transit through Paris CDG - my first time at this airport. However, everything was great and went very smoothly. I arrived and departed from Terminal 2E. It is modern, clean, and easy to navigate. I stayed in the Yotel AirHotel, and signage there was plentiful and easy to follow. The terminal's free transit lounge was excellent - some nice areas to sit, a library, plenty of sleeping pods, and a good cafe. Security lines, though long, kept moving and staff were pleasant. Interactive digital information kiosks provided real-time updates of the length of time required to get from one point to another. The departure lounge had a good selection of shops and cafes and was a pleasant place to spend time. Overall, a very good experience.

✅ Verified Review | Arrival on 06/25 with AF1313 at Terminal 3; departure on 06/26 on TG931 from Terminal 1. First time at Paris CDG in nearly 20 years; never had a good impression before, it was even worse this time. Lack of cleanliness and proper illumination is possibly even worse than 20 years ago. On arrival, the carousel screens didn't display which flight's baggage they were delivering (for some reason they were stuck to a flight that arrived hours before), so there was a lot of chaos. After finally retrieving the baggage, I found very poor - and sometimes contradicting - signs indicating the Airport hotels. Departure at Terminal 1 was even worse: extremely long queues everywhere, even at the so called "Access No1" which was served by only one staff, who was clearly much more busy in a conversation with her colleague than clearing the passengers. The result is that it took more than 25 minutes to pass the passport check - on exit, and with an EU passport. Also, after entering the Access No1 gate, but well before the passport check booth, you'll find a screen showing a video that for some reasons tells you that you can only access to gates from 10 to 48 from there. I was at gate 55 and there were a lot of people, including me, not sure if we had to move to a different passport check gate or not. Luckily, the girl at the passport check told me that I can reach gate 50-58 from there; but when I asked for the Star Alliance Lounge I was sent to the gate satellite, while the lounge is actually in the opposite direction. Again, extremely rude and unprofessional staff at baggage screening. I was told a lot of stuff in French and when I asked for an English translation, the woman at the desk looked very annoyed. Further, as the seats at the gates were not enough for all the people boarding the plane and the baggage screening is right at the gate entrance, people waiting to board were literally overflowing into the baggage screening area. My last memory at CDG 20 years ago was of extremely rude and unprofessional staff at JAL Business Class check-in and this time I had the same experience at Thai Royal Silk Check-In. Both JAL and Thai are very good and caring airlines, so it's really a pity that check-in procedures at CDG are apparently done by airport staff instead of airline staff. As a conclusion, CGD was a real nightmare that I will carefully avoid for at least another 20 years.

✅ Verified Review | Paris CDG is a hit and miss, but rather miss. And mess. You need to know layout very well to find the right way. You also need to use lots of life hacks to avoid unpleasant delays. The main problem of this airport is insufficient staffing of immigration points. No matter how many flights are served by particular terminal you will always find 1 person serving EU passports and and 1 for all the rest. One time it took more than 2 hours on arrival to reach immigration. Border police makes it horrible to arrive at 2E. It's better to use immigration on the transfer bridges between 2E and 2F terminals, but its only ok if you have connection on the same day and can present valid boarding pass. On departure its easier since you can use 2F check in and immigration and then go to 2E. Transfer via bus us not complicated, but you need to know your way before using it since staff may send to to a wrong terminal. I used each and every terminal there, so can say that my favorite is 2E-L (clean toilets, nice lounges, not overcrowded). 2G (regional flights) is not bad either, but truly difficult to reach by transfer bus. Other terminals are old and claustrophobic with no proper facilities for security and immigration. Signage is difficult everywhere, not a patch on Heathrow where it is perfect. Transport links are unreliable, RER B worked in 50% of cases when I needed to use it. Replacement buses are slow and confusing. So don't hesitate to use Roissy bus from Opera or take taxi. All the transportation is strangely overpriced. Bus costs 12 euro, RER train costs 10 if it works, and 1 day travel card for 5 zones with airport access will cost you 27 euro. This desperately poor architecture and layout planning will never allow this enormously huge facility to be a pleasant place. Just hardly bearable.

✅ Verified Review | Pathetic airport, for some reason whenever I stop over at CDG my luggage always manages to get lost. The baggage handlers must be very bad at their job considering my luggage has been delayed 3 times whenever I stop over at CDG. Try your best not to take Air France (which is also a horrendous airline) to make sure you don't stop over at CDG.

✅ Verified Review | Transferring between terminals can take a long time. The shuttle bus is slow and gets overcrowded at times, meaning you have to wait for a second or third bus. Changing terminal often means having to go through security repeatedly. Terminal 2E (M gates) does not have sufficient seating for the bridge gates and the layout means that large crowds form in the middle of the terminal, making it difficult to get through.

I arrived 3 hours ahead of time for a short flight to Dublin for the purpose of catching a connection to New York City. If you're coming from central Paris, I highly recommend just taking the RER here rather than forking over a massive amount of money for a cab - it's not worth it unless you have a lot of heavy bags. Once I finally arrived at check-in, I was met with a line for Aer Lingus that wrapped around the corner and blocked off one of the escalators. They had two agents working for what turned out to mostly be a single flight full of over 150 human beings. An hour later, I was still in line, one more hour later and I was finally past check-in, but still needed to go through passport security and standard security. My flight's boarding time began when I was in the back of the passport line, and I discovered that roughly half of my flight was in the same situation. Myself and two others finally managed to locate an agent (there are rarely employees walking around here to help you) and showed her our passes. She finally returned around the time that our flight was supposed to depart and ushered us to the front of security. 20 minutes later I finally was able to bolt to catch my flight with a violin on my back (I'd like to note that the moving walkway was broken in the direction I was running). They had held the plane for the numerous late passengers and we were still on the tarmac waiting a half hour later when they finally closed the doors, still not the full flight it was supposed to be. This was all due exclusively to the check-in process being inefficient and I can't imagine that they have never experienced this before, they just don't seem to care.

✅ Verified Review | Disgusting experience at Paris CDG terminal 1. This time I am flying to Zurich and if I had known the terminal would be like this I would have paid extra to change my tickets. The terminal has nothing. Insufficient seating, people sitting on the floor, claustrophobic because it is stuffed with people and unlike a normal terminal, no shops or restaurants after you do security. Just a tiny store to buy perfumes, a coffee place and a relay store. Well, before security there are 2 restaurants and 1 Starbucks. But that's it. This is the saddest terminal I have ever experienced in my entire travel history.