Fort Lauderdale Airport

The airport is small in size and a real mess. I have never experienced such long waiting times in immigration at any airport in the US or abroad. If you are not a US citizen you will have to wait for more than two hours just in the immigration line and you just can't do anything while you are standing there except staring at fellow passengers. Use of any electronic items like cell-phones or tablets is prohibited in that area. Remember this happens after you are completely drained of all energy by traveling for 6 plus hours on an international flight. Even after collecting bags it took me more than 20 min in line to get out of customs area. The only good thing I found was shorter security lines in terminal 3 but may be I was just lucky to go in at a slow time. There are no decent quality restaurants in terminal 3. The seating areas are okay. There is construction going on everywhere and the toilets are dirty.

This is the worst airport I have traveled through. Arrived on-time from an international flight and sat on the plane for 2 hours because immigrations/customs was full. Then stood in another 1 hour line trying to get through customs and thankfully I skipped a huge line because I have an American passport. The international line looked awful they had to pass out water to people because they had been waiting for so long. Took me 4 hours to get through it all so obviously I missed my connection (as did the whole airport). It was a Wednesday night not exactly a crazy time to travel. The people working at the airline counter said this happens every night because immigrations/customs is so slow/small and too many planes come in.

Breeze in breeze out..........Right. It took 5 hours to clear international arrivals including sitting on the plane for an hour and a half as the immigration area could not hold anymore people. This has been and ongoing problem since the beginning of the year and is getting progressively worst. There appears to be nothing in place to address this problem and definitely does not leave a good impression for first time visitors to the country.

Switching from F to E concourse was a mess. There are no clear signs as to where to go and a large group ended up outside and having to go through security again. This is not acceptable. The airport management needs to have enough signs to get passengers from one concourse to the other. So disappointing!

Disorganized mess. Security area is a free for all. Customs area if better organized and properly manned may one day reach the status of disorganized mess. No help from airline staff (Spirit) regarding luggage and connections. The US custom service was too busy helping foreign nationals make their connections which left them unable to help people with US passports. Yelling screaming and lines that not even Disneyworld has seen. Brush up on your Spanish (its the language spoken). Asked a custom worker if this situation was unusual. "It's an everyday thing here".

Arrived and departed through Terminal 2 earlier this month. Terminal 2 is small but it has a nice compact design so you don't have to walk miles to get to anything. Food options are limited but we were satisfied with what we had. Check in and security were both efficient polite and professional. It could use more seating but what Terminal couldn't? We were fortunate to be there during non-peak times so there was no problem finding seating in the food area and again near our gate.

Fly out of somewhere else if possible. I live in Jacksonville FL and took a recent trip to Costa Rica. It was much cheaper to fly out of this airport and did not have to switch planes. So I drove 5 hours. On departure the airport is old and overcrowded not enough seats in the terminal. The airline was late arriving which made things worse. However this was nothing. Upon arrival on a Saturday at 12.30 pm from Costa Rica the real fun starts. After debarkation we waited about 20 minutes to go through a self serve customs kiosk which scans your passport and takes your photo then another 20 min having a live custom agent do the same thing ok so still not too bad then down to baggage bags arrived quick then after getting your bag you have to again go through customs and have your passport checked even though you have done this twice already. This line of several hundred people was wrapped all around baggage claim. They do not look through your bags just checking your passport for the third time it makes no sense oh and there is an airport employee running around telling you not to use your cell phones in baggage claim or 500$ fine.

Worst airport experience in my 20 years of flying. Spirit Airlines particularly did a terrible job. The security line was out the door and wrapped around down the sidewalk. The employee's were rude and unhelpful. Sprit Airlines did not announce the boarding process it was a free for all and I paid extra to be boarded first in zone 1. I will never fly Spirit airlines to Ft. Lauderdale again.

This is probably not the worst airport in North America but I haven't visited them all so the jury is out. Terminal 2 is a disorganized mess for passengers. Check-in can't be accomplished more than a couple of hours before flight time and you sit with your baggage in the few seats available in the vicinity of a donut shop. After finally checking in along with huge crowds you shuffle through a convoluted security system and finally reach a cramped waiting room that's about one-third of the size it needs to be populated by a bar/restaurant and another eatery neither of which is in any danger of approaching culinary adequacy. Through it all the people on staff are very friendly though how they can maintain that attitude working in such a dump is beyond me. However they really should be commended.

Security was a nightmare. Queue went outdoors. No electrical for charging electronics. February 21 2014.