Tokyo Narita Airport

Arrived Narita in transit Amsterdam-Auckland had eight hours in terminal. Not very impressed. I thought Narita would be a showcase for everything japanese but was disappointed to find it full of expensive European designer outlets few places to eat no ATMs and a Bureu de change that would not accept credit or debit cards - only cash. Arrived Terminal 1 but was prevented from transfering to terminal 2 because I needed a boarding pass for Air New Zealand and the only check in for ANZ is in Terminal 2. After finally convincing staff that I was in transit the shuttle bus seemed to take forever to travel between terminals.

Narita is the only mega-hub in my experience where you can unbuckle from the seat and make it to the limo / taxi / train / bus with bags in-hand within 30 minutes. It helps if the immigration queue is short and you've got orange priority tags on your bags. But regardless staff are efficient and polite striving to move you smoothly and quickly from gate to exit with as few obstacles and annoyances as possible. There are loads of options to transit into the city for every budget and need.

Used the airport on our way to Auckland from LHR - we had 8hrs before our next flight so we used a dayroom which was pleasantly clean & fairly quiet. We had 5 hrs sleep & would recommend any one to use these facilities. The airport has children play areas which kept our grandson entertained. I would do this journey again using Narita as we arrived in Auckland reasonably refreshed. The staff at the airport were very helpful. I pre book the day room to make sure of availability.

Used the airport terminal one's south wing recently overall happy with the airport. Liked the clean toilets good range of shops before and after immigration/ customs/ security check including a few good ones selling japanese traditional sweets tea handicrafts and ceramics. Also like the interior it might not boast world class architecture but its white and gray colour theme interior are claming and nice just like a traditional Japanese garden. An interesting place to visit after immigration/ customs/ security check is the origami (Japanese paper folding) museum located at the central building which connect the south wing with the north wing. Colourful and delicate folded origami recreating traditional Japanese festival symbols lifestyle can be view here. Also memorable are the helpful airport staff some of them might not be able to speak good english but they are always ready to help. They might have a wide range of facilities n services like Singapore or Hong Kong airport but its simplicity and compact that attract me.

Transited through the terminal used by Northwest Airlines from San Francisco to Manila. Surprised to find out that this is a new terminal. Every transit passenger has to go up one floor through an escalator fall in line with all the other transit passengers in a low ceiling room that quickly becomes too warm go through security check then go back downstairs on another escalator to the boarding gate areas not your favorite thing to do after an 11-hour flight. The terminal has several shops and food establishments. Tokyo to Manila boarding was disorganized most probably because many transit passengers were already very tired airline is using a Boeing 747-400 on their Manila flight that was a full flight. Manila to San Francisco flight with a transit in the same terminal same security check procedure. The terminal's men's restroom was clean. Signs inside the terminal were adequate. There are enough seats in the boarding gate areas. This time boarding was very orderly owing to a less than a full flight on a smaller Airbus A330-200. This terminal is a vast improvement to the previous Narita terminal used by Northwest Airlines.

Terminal 2 immigration on arrival and departure took more than an hour! The Japanese are normally very efficient but this airport disappoints. Because immigration took so long there was no more time to enjoy the airport and the lounge.

Terminal 2 very busy as usual early on Saturday. Building much too hot and seating situation difficult as so many people sleeping on 3 or 4 seats. The airport really needs to police this.

Arrived from Seoul and after an interminable length of time taxiing off the aircraft and clear of customs in under 15 minutes. No queue or delay at all at Immigration bags were offloading from carousel as we arrived customs clearance with no delay. An excellent operation all round.

The recent installment of extreme security precaution measures upon arrival come very close to harassment. Not only the endless queuing at the passport check and collection of biometric data but the random "security questioning" throughout the airport. I don't know whether I look awfully suspicious but after arriving on a not so busy weekday I was questioned three times on my way to the train station by different security staff. Each of them fiddling with their pencil and paper form in obvious embarrassment. This is outrageous and gives you an idea about how inefficient and amateurish this surveillance in reality is. I didn't see any Japanese being questioned. Is this the hospitality that the signs of "Yokoso" poster all over the airport arrival area promise?

The few issues I have with NRT are : Immigration at terminal One takes too long often over an hour if you arrive about 9pm. Immigration - Security Photo each time you arrive adding to the processing delay. Narita express finishes too early I think the last one is 9:30pm or 10pm if you arrive afterwards it’s the bus. Insufficient information on which airline goes from which terminal neither Narita express or the bus provides this help. Lack of rail staff to help people get off the train and through the two ticket barriers. Otherwise bring it on Haneda more international flights are being lined up for Tokyo's only real airport.