Toronto Pearson Airport

Immigration arriving in the country from New York was fine. The queue moved and we had a jolly young man who made us feel at ease. While leaving for New York we went through an American run immigration sector and that felt very much like American immigration (rude staff long slow queues etc). It's only an issue if you fly to America otherwise you get the good Canadian run immigration. There weren't many places to eat but everything is signposted and clean and I enjoy going to Toronto airport.

AMS-YYZ-AMS using T3. Extremely long walking distances on arrival through empty corridors. Border guards meet you halfway but the check is only selective (I saw them checking people's passports and got mine out but was just waved through). Immigration officer was polite but extremely thorough wanted to know everything including why I live in Norway as a Russian citizen. Needing a visa to essentially everywhere makes one used to dealing with immigration but frankly this was the most thorough interrogation I've ever had. The whole immigration/customs thing is strangely organized (you fill in a card that the immigration officer checks and then you give it to the customs people). Didn't have any luggage so can't comment. Nothing special on arrival (pretty much a cramped room with a convenience shop) and no ATM would take my card (also brushed away rather rudely by the person in the currency exchange booth who barked they only dealt with cash - well why do they have a PIN pad sticking out then??) so had to the take the bus which you can pay for with the card. Departure was smooth printed out my boarding pass (on a computer with a really slow printer attached not a proper terminal) and into security which was reasonably fast but slightly chaotic (one officer instructed me to take metal objects off and then another told me to have my "stuff" on me). Once inside clean and tidy but nothing much of interest a few bland shops and sandwich/pizza places (again had problems with my card!). Boarding OK but they could do with a screen that is higher up or a better microphone: boarding is by row but everyone was trying to get closer to hear what they were saying so it was quite a scrum. Overall an OK airport not your OSL or AMS but not worse than many big European airports.

I am German and I came to Toronto from Mexico. I had my ticket back to Mexico and also the one from Mexico back to Germany. When I arrived in Toronto I had to pass Migration and the guy from Migration asked me a lot of questions like why am I coming from Mexico and what am I doing back home in Germany for work - I was never asked so many questions in no other country I travelled to (and I travelled a lot). But he was very nice and finally let me pass. When I came to customs there were only two officers working because it was already 12am. I had to go with that lady officer and she started to ask me the same questions like the migration officer. She wanted to see all my tickets and why I am visiting Canada and then she started interrogating me - I felt like a suspect. After 1 hour of questions she did her job - like she is supposed to do. Checking my bags. Since she didn`t find anything because there was nothing to find she let me leave. She was just on a power trip - that`s all. This lady was a nightmare. I would like to complain officially about her. So if anybody can tell me where I can file the complaint please let me know.

Our departure to Paris Charles De Gaulle airport was on Air Canada at gate 175 one elevator/escalator level below the Maple Leaf Lounge. One of us had some mobility problems and they were good enough to provide us with a golf cart to take us to the gate area and we were OK from there. The assisted check in area was a dream compared to the regular line up queues. I noticed that the wheelchairs were larger than the normal 16 inch width and readily available without charge. CDG was a horror story in comparison - arrivals had to walk uphill for part of a very long distance to baggage/customs with no moving walkways from Air Canada's area of CDG Terminal 2 (section 2A).

Pearson is a very good airport that is well designed clean and bright. Terminal 1 is the highlight with Terminal 3 slightly older but adequate. Security clearance is generally quick and the are motorized walkways to help with the distances. Only negatives are baggage delivery time (which is embarrassingly slow) shop selection (OK but not great) and the fact that the express walkways in the International wing have never worked (you see technicians there all the time).

Over the years I have used this airport more times than I care to remember. For the most part I have no complaints except for one thing baggage delivery upon arrival. Whether it is terminal 1 or terminal 3 that you arrive at or on a domestic or international flight you will find yourself waiting at the baggage carousel for at least 30 minutes if not an hour to get your checked bags. Delivery often takes the form of a few bags followed by a long pause then a few more and so on. This airport really needs to hire more workers to perform this function.

I was going through to Rochester NY and had 3 hours to make the connection. I needed all of it. Plan on very long walks and shuttle bus rides. Clearing Canadian customs and immigration took 2 hours. I couldn't find my bags. They had taken them off the carousel and piled them up two carousels over. No baggage check when I picked it up. Grimy ugly inefficient poor signage.

T1. Huge new terminal for Air Canada and Star Alliance partners. Long walk when coming from US clearing customs rechecking baggage clearing security and getting to connecting gate. I must give credit to airport security though as they could see my daughter and I were running to make our flight so they directed us to the shortest line. When transiting back to US excellent signage to US connections except connection baggage claim could have been better marked. Also only 1 overpriced sit-down restaurant in the US flights section so eat before pre-clearing US customs.

Huge brand new very clean but very long walks. The security check to get to the international gate going to Europe had only two screening machines at that time. The queue and the wait (as we have to take practically everything off) was stressful. The departure lounge had nothing special about it just expensive food expensive bars just plain bland. The best thing I like about YYZ is when I pick up my bags at the carousel through customs and out the terminal.

It looks impressive from the outside but inside it's a disaster (this goes for Terminal 1 and 3). It is a badly planned airport. Depending on where you're going getting from the security check-in to your gate can take a really long time - endless bland corridors that eventually take you to a gate area. It's the same if you're arriving from a flight - the walk to the baggage area can be really long. Inside the staff tend to be surly or rude (with a couple of notable exceptions) and I really can't blame them as the atmosphere of the airport would annoy me if I had to work there every day - it's loud cavernous and has bad air quality. Security check-in takes a long time. The services are okay but again it depends where you are going - some of the gates to international destinations have next to no decent shops or restaurants - it can be an extremely tedious airport to wait in which is not the case with many other major international airports. Baggage waits can be very very long. Finally this is the only major international airport I've ever been in that does not have basic shower services for passengers who are in transit. I believe you can access showers if you are a Maple Leaf Lounge member but for everyone else there aren't pay-for-use showers which is a huge oversight (and typical of the bad planning inherent in this airport). Then again I suspect that if there were showers in this airport they would be a disaster as well so maybe it's a good thing there aren't any (the regular bathrooms can be pretty disgusting). The only good thing about this airport is that sometimes they have interesting art displays which helps to pass the time.